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Picaresque Tales
Picaresque tales of an Indian publicsectorman - 1
The Amrittis of Sohna
Sohna is as such not famous for amrittis. It is more famous for its hot springs. However my friends and relatives associate Sohna with the excellent quality of mustard oil, which indeed gleams like gold. Sohna is surrounded by mustard fields, and seeds from those fields will be
ground for you, while you wait, on the charpoy. In this Haryana town behaviour is rough but friendly; hypocritical mannerisms from Delhi had still not crept there by 1989.
The hot water from the springs are piped above, to the beautiful tourist resort built by Bansi Lal. I was sure that the water would cool during the journey; confidential sources revealed that the water was reheated before use in the spas. By "above', I mean the extreme tip of the Aravallis, where under the shadow of a ruined fort lies the jewel like
gardens and lawns of the tourist complex, named after some Haryana bird I forget what.
We often had to go through Sohna on our way to the Antenna Test site over the cliff, which is perhaps still the best in Asia. We would collect supplies, pay bills, pick up staff at times. Going up the hills would often mean negotiating the camel carts coming downhill, braked by old rubber tyres, laden with stones and sometimes small children.
There was always a strong demand for the milk cake of Sohna, so on the return journey we would make a trip to the site of the springs which lay in the old quarters of the city. That part of the city never failed to excite me - the sloping streets, with water fast running down the gutters; the sureness, the confidence of the people who were used to a
certain way of life for decades.... our fast life, and our immediate problems, technical or otherwise, seem pretty irrelvant beside such a timelessness.
The best shops for milk-cake, so pure and fresh, are of course near the holified springs. In our inevitable Hindu way, the hot springs complex has been surrounded by temples. The springs themselves are hygienic,
and I would certainly recommend a bath there. I always loved to take a look around. Only rarely, though, would there be time for a bath. But if you wanted a bath, you could go to the common area, or hire a private room (men and women strictly separate!)
Hunger was the main reaction after a bath. And no, milk cake was not sufficient. The only things to satisfy such hunger were the amrittis of Sohna, supported by the warm milk given in earthen pots.
Ah, for the hot, hot amrittis of Sohna, so far superior to mere jelabies! For the generous thickness, the superior crusty ricey-ness, crushing into the intense sweetness which merges with the hot milk to a mixture which at once enervates and fills aching spaces!
These are some things which make the life of a low paid and unnoticed Indian publicsectorman worthwhile.
The dust of Ghaziabad
The dust of Delhi is well known, but I had to more endure the dust of Ghaziabad which cannot be significantly lower in volume and density and persistence than the dust of Delhi, which is only 20 kilometers away.
If you ask me why a public sectorman should write about the dust of Ghaziabad, leaving aside so many important and controversial matters, such as our famous inefficiency and incompetence, then I can only say that one should write about what matters most - and certainly dust mattered a hell of a lot.
Not only did dust make life difficult for the ladies of the house - dusting was never done, even if done twice daily - the creeping and crawling stuff did get into our sensitive measurement systems in the workplace. Now that wasn't such a bad thing - you get air-conditioned offices and labs, quite useful where the temperatures remain around 45 degrees celsius in the summer. Such congenial environments no doubt excited the envy of our private sector mates around in the lala factories, who had at best fans under tin roofs.
It wasn't as if the dust was happy to remain unobtrusively settling gently upon everything. The Ghaziabad aandhis, or dust storms, were simply frightful. The entire sky would blacken, the roars would send you back home fast enough, and if you had the ill fortune to be outside you would be completely caked with the dust which mingled with a few
stray rain drops could make you quite muddy. The leaves of the few trees in Ghaziabad would seem to wilt under the brown burden. The floors of your house would be covered by particles swishing under the doors which are never sealed.
And yet, under a sudden shaft of light pentrating through some crack in the window of your darkened room, you could see the particles, so fine, gleaming like gold, engaged in random play...
Such is the dust of Ghaziabad, witness to, and even maybe formed by, so many historical events and characters.
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