Real Things..

“Beta I feel very alone since your father has been transferred to Pune. I am going to your nanny’s village for some time. And this time don’t cancel it, come straight to the village. It’s been long beta, you are coming just second time in 9 years since you went to the UK. And yes ask Swati once more, maybe she can manage to get some days off from her office” Tanuj’s mom is trying to persuade his son to visit her. She does that very often but this time she is a little bit hopeful.

“.......thanda nimbu paani 2 rupaiya glass thanda nimbu paani 2 rupaiya glass.....paav bhar jalebi 10 rupiya mai, paav bhar jalebi 10 rupiya mai...., babuji ye kharbooj dekho shahad se mitthe saste lagaye hain.... “

Surrounded by the clamour on Nooh bus stand Tanuj is waiting for another bus to his final destination Kaanjigarh, a small village in Rajasthan. He is looking at the things and the people trying to sell them by bursting their vocal chords. He is looking at the things. He notices that it is not only the lemon that has made water look dirty and that the flies sitting on the jalebees may sit on the faeces too lying in the nearby vast open field. A guilt feel spreads on his face and he feels like spitting when he remembers that he used to crave for all these things when he used to visit his nanny in his childhood summer vacations. He looked at the one rupee water pouches and 8 rupee water bottle but the lousy packing confirmed that they have been filled from the esoteric water tap. Suddenly a huge crowd starts running towards the loud rattle sound. He too could board the bus but cursed himself for not booking some luxury line. He didnt even think that no luxury bus goes to Kaanjigarh. His feeling good factor about India’s progress which arose due to good new airlines and fast trains till Jaipur; was fading fast on this last part of the journey.

Finally he reaches the nanny’s house but something is missing. He missed the deep hearted welcome by her nanny with her weak trembling hand unsettling his hair for more than 5 minutes. She would never forget to kiss him on forehead after that. His nanny passed away 3 years back. He liked his mama and mamy too. They also loved him a lot. His mom broke down the moment she saw him. She loved him even longer than his nanny this time. He pays respect to his mama and mamy by touching their feet and hugged their son Monu.

He spent most of his time with Monu roaming the village streets, bazaar and nearby school grounds and visiting his old friends. In the past seven days he had seen the whole village twice for the village is small with around 1500 people, 2 small schools, one bank, one market, one bus station and a small clinic. He is seeing people doing very basic and mundane activities. They are cooking and eating food, washing clothes, cleaning their houses, buying and selling again food and clothes and little complex things like medicine and farming tools. And he is seeing them again and again with the same relaxed faces without any wrinkles on their foreheads. They are not walking fast; they stop at almost each person passing by like ants do and they are not carrying any sandwiches in their hands while they are heading their work.

Tanuj had already spent 7 days. Suddenly he thinks would it be possible for him too to devote so much of his time, had his friends visited him in the UK. He replied to himself that he is much busier than these guys; they don’t go to office and just help their fathers at their local grocery or medicine or clothes shops. But is it good to be busy in life?

The question pops up in his mind. There are many more similar questions and thoughts rushing up his mind, all comparing the people and their lives; similar but vastly different people living on the 2 opposite sides of the planet. Tanuj stops all of them. He doesn’t want to answer them.

Next night they planned to spend at Heera’s place. Heera is one of Monu’s close friends. Two more friends Rajesh and Gurri joined them. They bought a bottle of RS (Royal Stag) and sat on the rooftop. They have to manage with moonlight only as another source of light will actually be a source of millions of mosquitoes. There are a lot of long pauses in the discussion and the reason is very simple, a wide intellectual gap in Tanuj and other guys. Tanuj feels a bit proud of his intellect and vast knowledge. He observes that the guys are humble and have only the trivial unimportant things to discuss. They discuss the funny things about each other’s family members, cattle, their past teachers, other friends, funny events and sometimes small worries about these things whereas Tanuj wanted to discuss what he used to discuss with his friends in the UK. He used to discuss the serious issues like markets, economy, companies, entrepreneurship, employment, politics, latest technologies, global warming and much more. Tanuj can understand the reason. They know fewer people, fewer movies, fewer gadgets, fewer companies, fewer brands, fewer celebrities, fewer games, fewer systems and fewer words too. There was a contrast, a contrast like black and white. But it was not the contrast which makes him dizzy, it is the subtle persistent feeling that he is in the darker part of the contrast.

Tanuj tells them a lot about Europe, wonderful things there, infrastructure and facilities. All the guys were amazed though they were not able to imagine the things and places in their naive minds but still they were curious. Suddenly Gurri asks with curiosity-

“ but what do they do of all this, why they need this cash machine, what did you call it hhmm... haan ATM? We keep the money we earn in our house and buy things using that money”

“Is it? Then what is the use of the bank in the village? Is it not doing anything?” Tanuj asked challengingly.

“Yes when do we use the bank?” Rajesh also intrigued slowly as if he asked the question to himself too.

“Last time we used it to deposit the money we got after selling the land, it was the money we were not going to use daily” replied Gurri.

Tanuj thinks for a second and says “ Ok not in your case but the one who gets a salary, it comes directly in the bank account”

“ but my father himself is a teacher in the village school and he getting his salary in cash for the last 16 years” Heera venture mildly trying his best not to insult Tanuj by defying him completely

“and he told me once that we spend around 80 out of every 100 rupees we get and keep the rest for events and rainy days” simplified Heera

Tanuj tells them that the things are over simplified in the village. The salaries here are too less and people do not want to gain from the bank’s interest rates, they do not transfer money to other accounts and of course they do not even know that we can get a demat account too for buying stocks etc to add to your salary. All the boys are convinced that banks are very useful even in daily life and its just that they are too dumb to use it.

But Tanuj mulls a little more and asks himself had he opened the bank account in UK because his salary was huge, no there was actually no salary. He opened the account when he was a student and he opened it purely for non banking reasons. He recollects that interest rates in the bank were zilch and he remembers that how much money he lost in India in stocks during his college days and he had to pay it from his already meagre pocket money. The only thing he finds bank account useful is for buying things on internet and making hotel bookings etc but he has already won the argument.

They discuss many similar issues and Tanuj makes them aware of the many other things which they haven’t even heard of. He was feeling delighted of being so advanced and knowing so much, of having being to so many far flung places, of progressing so much and of being so complex and sophisticated.

After a few more days, Tanuj is ready to leave. He has already spent 17 days in the village. He hugs his mother, pays respect to mama and mamy. Monu, Heera, Rajesh and Gurri are also there to see him off. They are feeling proud of him and deciding in their hearts to make their children like Tanuj. Tanuj is in the bus now and looking at the vast farm fields outside the window. He doesn’t want to go, to leave such life, to face again the complex world. Tears in his eyes blurs the view. He wants to come back but he has gone too far. He feels as if he wasted his childhood studying and his youth competing with others. Now he is successful and got a good job in London with high pay check. People admire him and his parents feel proud of him but he is not happy. He does not want to get up and buy a sandwich and to run to catch the metro. He does not want to know what is the inflation rate today, what are the crude oil prices, how markets are performing on Bloomberg, which new models Volkswagen is launching in the middle east, how much the quarter results going to effect the mutual fund markets, which new product is Apple launching, what are new policies coming up in China. He does not want to shop from supermarkets where millions of things are shouting at him to buy them; he does not want to be surrounded by gadgets and wires, he does not want to hear the redundant things like “Please mind the gap between the train and the station”, he does not want so many cards and their numbers and passwords. He wants the simple and real things. He is thinking like Gurri “Why to bother about things we do not use daily, daily to live”. He wants to return to the life, to live, hear and see only the real things. Only today he understands what the man sitting on the heap of pearls with his wife slated in his lap must be feeling, the man who finds the cup which turns the tears into pearls, from Kite Runner.

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