Book Review - In Cold Blood by Trumen Capote

Read April 2021.

"The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed is the name of the Lord", the chaplain intoned, as the noose was fitted. Just past midnight on 14 April 1965. This was the result of a judgement by the court on Monday April 04, 1960 in the murder trial of Clutter family that took place in the night of 15 November 1959 in which to the response to the judge's call " gentlemen of the jury, have you reached your verdicts?" said " we the jury, find defendants, guilty in the murder of first degree, and the punishment is death.

Capital punishment has to date confused me. You take a life of someone legally, who has taken someone's life illegally? Or when a soldier kills someone it's a bravery and he is awarded but when someone else kills someone he goes to gallows. Besides there are innumerable cases when someone orders killings of hundreds and thousands of innocents and law fails to pronounce them guilty and on the contrary they become heroes of the society.

"IN COLD BLOOD" by Truman Capote, is a fictionalised story of the real life murder of four members family  in Halcomb, Kansas. Real life characters, real places, real events all merged with the novelist's imaginations and woven so perfectly well that you feel he was there at every place, every event, every meeting that took place between hundreds of characters who had witnessed or had a role in the entire drama. Author takes you around not just the small village but all over the country and beyond wherever the characters travel in order to stay away from the hands of law. The details of every principal character, their upbringing, their thought process and the reasoning behind that, is so fascinating that you can do nothing but applaud for the novelist. During the course, the crime investigation process and courtroom dramas and the life of convicts who wait this day to go to gallows, was essential part of the story and has been told in a manner only a master story teller can describe.

Truman Capote (1924-1984) was a post war American writer of international critical acclaim. I came to know of him while looking at someone's Facebook cover picture where he had pasted the title and my curiosity got me to order this book. It was a perfect deviation from the Indian history reading that had occupied me over the past several months. So much so that I am inclined to read all that has been written by him.. let's see what future has in store.

a short encounter.

I first met him on February 29th 1992. I remember the date distinctly as this was a leap year and there are not many I witnessed. It was also the first birthday party of freshly entered in her teens Dr Vasudha Dhagamwar, her 13th that she could celebrate although she turned 52 that day. I had struck a chord with this young lady a couple of years bedore when we shifted to Delhi in 1989 and soon after our arrival here Abha started working with MARG a socio-legal organisation founded by Vasudha. MARG was a family that I was a frequent visitor to.. it was full of young ladies..lawyers and some social development experts who could be termed activists although none of them like that term. The family bonding still existed, often times when you went there just to drop or pick up or just like that when you are passing through the area you would end up spending couple of hours with laughter all around.. since besides Ranjan, a promising development researcher, and couple of other administrative guys there were not many male members, often times I used to feel a bit shy. I had special bonding with Vasudha since I was the only one there who conversed with her in Marathi that I had become fluent in, after I spent nearly 11 years in Bombay-Poona circuit a year before we shifted to Delhi. Our friendship gradually grew to the extent that we started going to see Marathi plays together in Mandi House. I immensely enjoyed her company, she was a legal luminary and one of the few who had a doctorate degree in law from Oxford university, where she often went back as visiting professor or for doing some research activities. She also had a huge influence over the overall legal circuit in UK and India where she commanded great respect. But that didn't stand between our friendship.. age, status were brushed aside in our relationship.. I had become her favourite son-in-law as everyone used to say since all female MARG colleagues she treated like her daughters. Like in any family, everyone didn't like her all the time as head of the organisation she had also been a demanding boss and it's not always an easy relationship. But with me there was no such hindrances. 

Gradually, I also started visiting her home. The relationship continued till she lived in Delhi. She was a fighter, a cancer survivor and managed her household and office responsibilities single handedly but then the health took its toll and gradually it was becoming difficult for her to manage day to day affairs, I think it was 2004 or so that she finally decided to leave her child MARG and moved to Pune where she had her niece as well as the city where she lived a long many years. She handed over the organisation's operations to Abha who had left MARG some 9 years back after spending 6 years there and developing a great network, literature, audio-video training material and pedagogy for legal literacy. 

With her shifting to Pune created some vaccum for me although in later years I hardly been visiting her but that move kind of cut the cord of our meetings and "outside the work"  conversations. She left for heaven abode 18 days short of her 74th birthday on Feb 10, 2014. Leaving just the memories of our association to cherish.

Returning to the excitement of her 13th birthday (she was born on Feb 29th, 1940) on Feb 29th, 1992, entire MARG family was there in her 2nd floor house in Hauz Khas just behind the grand building of National Cooperatice Development Corporation erected in 1978, an architectural marvel designed by Kuldip Singh whose work could be easily identified by another similar looking building of NDMC at Palika Kendra that came up in 1983. There were a few of her other friends Maja Daruwala (Sam's daughter), some bureaucrats, some academicians, some lawyers as well as some others like me. Party had just began when an elderly "young" looking gentleman stepped in with a big smile on his face, I was right at the door and attended him soon after he entered and before he could go further I asked if I could have his long jacket, he looked at me surprisingly and with great affection, the smile I remember to this day. After he handed over his jacket and I deposited that in a rack in one of the bedrooms when I returned to the room, I saw him quenching his curiosity about me with Vasudha who was deeply engaged in explaining who (a nobody) I was. 

Many years later both our sons would also touch upon organisation that his well known daughter, a famous lawyer) has created, a law firm of repute AZB Partners, Arnav as an intern in 2008 and Divij as an associate lawyer in 2016-17.

Yesterday I was sobbing without shading tears when I heard the news that the great jurist of India, former attorney general and the charming and pleasing gentleman I met on Feb 29th,1992 Padmbhushan Soli Jehangir Sorabjee is no more. Died at 91 years of age (March 09th he celebrated his 91st birthday) leaving behind so much that no ordinary person can achieve. He wil surely be missed by many and I will always remember that short encounter with him.

RIP Soli.

गुलिस्तां

Ek gulistaan aaj ujada pada hai

Phir basega

Par jiski duniya ujad gayee ho

Woh gul kee talash nahee karega

Woh khilkhilahat, Woh muskaraahat

Agar lautee bhi to Uske peechhe

Ek dard chhupa rahega

Khuda ke apane khel hain

Woh kab, kyun, kahan, kya karta hai

Koi nahi janata

Hey ishwar, Hey allah, hey maalik

Ab to humen baksh de

Hum insaanon se huigaltiyon ko

Maaf Kar de.

Pradeep/April 30, 2021

---

गुलिस्तां

एक गुलिस्तां आज उजड़ा पड़ा है

फिर बसेगा

पर जिसकी दुनिया उजड़ गई हो

वो गुल की तलाश नहीं करेगा

वो खिलखिलाहट, वो मुस्कराहट

अगर लौटी भी

तो उसके पीछे एक दर्द

छुपा रहेगा

खुदा के अपने खेल हैं

वो कब, क्यों, कहां, क्या करता है

कोई नहीं जानता

हे ईश्वर, हे अल्लाह, हे मालिक, अब तो रहम कर

अब तो हमें बख्श दे

हम इंसानों से हुई गलतियों को

माफ़ कर दे।

प्रदीप/अप्रैल ३०, २०२१.

सन्नाटा/Stillness

सन्नाटा

वो दम घोटता धुंआ

शायद उस मां की लाश से उठ रहा होगा

जिसका बेटा उसे जलाने नहीं पंहुच सका होगा

उस भाई का होगा जिसके अंतिम दर्शन को 

भाई तड़पता रहा होगा

उस बहन का होगा जिसका भाई

अब राखी पर अपनी सूनी कलाई देखेगा

उस बेटे का होगा जिसका बाप

कलेजे पर पत्थर रख सांस ले रहा होगा

उस दोस्त का होगा जिसने 

सारी जिंदगी उसे हंसाया होगा

और उस पत्नी का होगा जिसने

साथ जीने मरने का वादा किया होगा

हां कुछ ऐसे वादे भी पूरे हुए हैं

साथ जिए हैं और साथ मरे हैं

गड्ढों की खुदाई से तेज़ आती लाशें

जो कल अजनबी वो आज

एक ही गढ्ढे में

साथ सोते साथी

कुंभ में डुबकी, और मोक्ष पाने की चाहत भी

पूरी हुई होगी

अपने नेता की चुनावी सभा और उसे 

सत्ताधीन कराने की तमन्नाएं

अधूरी रही होगी

वो कर्णभेदी एंबुलेंस की लगातार आती आवाज़ें

वो रोती बिलखती अपीलें

कहीं ऑक्सीजन की कमी से 

दम घुटने की तो कहीं

धुएं की घुटन सांसों को भेद रही है

अनिश्चित सी लगती जीने की तमन्नाएं

एक अजीब सा सन्नाटा है

एक अजीब सा सन्नाटा है।

प्रदीप/अप्रैल २९, २०२१

---

Stillness

That suffocating smoke,

Must be rising from that mother's body

whose son couldn't reach there for her last rites

Must be of the brother whose brother

must have been desperate to see him one last time Must be of the sister whose brother would see his empty wrist next Rakhee

Must be of the son whose father is seeing this with a heavy stone on his heart

Must be of a friend who made him laugh 

for a life time

Must be of the wife who had vowed to live and die together

Yes, such promises have come true 

They lived and died together

Bodies reaching faster than they could dig graves

Those never met now friends lying together in one grave

Wishing for moksha found that in Kumbh

Unfilled are the wishes of voters attending election rallies, alas! Couldn't see their benefactor rule

The ear piercing noise of ambulances

The heart rendering appeals for oxygen scarcity of which is taking people to another world

Rising smoke from crematoriums 

making you breath harder and harder

Unfinishined desires may remain so

Stillness here is so noisy

Stillness here is so noisy.

Pradeep/April 29, 2021.

हालात

हालात

साहित्य आज शर्मिंदा खड़ा है

सच्चाई बयां नहीं कर सकता

और जो सुनना चाहते हैं 

उसमे सच्चाई नहीं

सब कहते हैं कि सकारात्मक सोचो

सकारात्मक कहो

क्या सच्चाई से मुंह मोड़ना ही

सकारात्मकता है

दुखों के पहाड़ों पर खड़े

लाशों के ढेरों को देखते

आप मुंह फेर सकते हैं?

शायद हां अगर आपबीती ना हो तो

युद्ध में योद्धा को पहले आगे बढ़ना पड़ता है

तब विजय होती है

मरता तो प्यादा ही है

सेनापति नहीं

दुख और सुख एक ही सिक्के के पहलू हैं

आज एक उछल कर आया है, अगली बार

दूसरा आएगा

मुंह फेरने से सच्चाई नहीं बदलती

जैसे सुख को गले लगाते हो वैसे ही

दुख को भी अपनाओ, नहीं भी अपनाओगे तो

उसने कहीं जाना नहीं है 

सिर्फ आप अपने सिक्के का उछालना टाल पाओगे।

नहीं साहित्य शर्मिंदा नहीं है अपने बयान से

जिन्हे होना है वे शायद शाही ठिकानों में छीपे बैठे हैं

सच्चाई उन्हें भी खींच लाएगी

क्योंकि सच्चाई तो सच्चाई हैं।

छिपाए नही छुपती

छिपाए नहीं छुपती।

प्रदीप/अप्रैल ३०, २०२१

बैल जोड़ी और दीया - coalition politics. Betma diaries.

"जिस दीये में तेल नहीं, सरकार बदलना खेल नहीं".. I heard when I was busy preparing for exams for my 6th standard in February 1967. A few minutes later I heard " कांग्रेस के भूखे बैल, खा गए शक्कर पी गए तेल".  A 9+ year old boy in me was thoroughly confused, but the excitement soon built up and so was the curiosity. Some enquiries here and there suggested that the two rival political parties Congress and Jansangh were fighting something called election to choose the government in Bhopal and in Delhi. Having read something or other about Jawaharlal Nehru and Gandhi of Congress and about the religious parties I did not take long to pick up the round and colourful metallic badge that I could sport on my chest with a welded pin at the back. I became a proud supporter of INC displaying the symbol, a pair of oxen. Since that day until election results there were several rallies of many candidates not just these two main parties, going through the labyrinths of village. Invariably, in the front there will be about a dozen or so children including me, followed by some elders and once in a while candidates also joined but on those days rallies will be much larger. People would welcome leaders and candidates by garlanding them whenever they passed through their houses, some would also put a tilak on their foreheads all the while loudest cheers would be by the children walking in front, me included.

1967 was an interesting year politically and various leaders who came and addressed public rallies in the only possible place in Betma's Poora Bazaar aka Bada Bazaar. For every party the stage used to get prepared at far end from main road just opposite Bank Of India and in most rallies the crowd would occupy  place right up to the main road and sometimes even beyond that to gaadi adda that was at a slope from where people could see nothing. The PA system using the horn type long speakers from Ahuja Radios (or sometimes some other local suppliers) would ensure that people standing even half a kilometre away could also listen to the leaders.  

The leader whose persona and speeches I liked most, however, was Homi Daji a handsome Parsee gentleman in his early forties who delivered fiery speeches. He was a leader of peasants and had touched chords with people. He was from a party called Communist Party of India (CPI) and the party symbol was a Red Sickle and wheat ear (हंसिया बाली). He was also the sitting Member of Parliament from Indore constituency that we were a part of. The candidates challenging him were Prakash Chandra Sethi of Congress and Satyabhan Singhal of Jansangh. Elections were being held simultaneously for Loksabha (parliament) and Vidhansabha ( state assembly). I don't remember names of assembly candidates but the fight was triangular there too.. from Congress there was Bhagwat Sabu who was from a village called Harsola near Mhow and I wondered why was he running from our (Depalpur) constituency that is not his home. In those days Socialist Party had just split in two SSP and PSP (praja socialist party) and PSP was stronger and was a bigger challenge than Jansangh for assembly elections. PSP had banyan tree as their symbol and someone with surname Patel was their candidate. PSP supporters were called झाड़ छाप (tree kind/type).

In one of the public rallies Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia also came with her daughter Usha Raje who must have been in prime of her youth in early twenties. Both of them were full of exuberance and spreading glow as royals do. That was also the first time I saw a big diamond ring that adorned Rajmata's fingers. Rajmata ( Royal mother) who was the last queen of Gwalior the largest kingdom of Madhya Pradesh. She was a Congress leader but had some personality clash with Indira Gandhi when later became Prime Minister. She was an MP from Guna (1962-67) and had just left Congress party and joined Jansangh. She had also had some tiff with the then Chief Minister DP Mishra, a very honest, upright and strict administrator due to both these reasons she was hell bent upon defeating Congress in both parliamentary and assembly elections. She was the master planner of bringing the first non Congress government in MP and one of the first few in the country. 

After a lot of heat when election results came Prakash Chandra Sethi and Bhagwat Sabu were victorious. I felt bad for the charming Home Daji of CPI who certainly had more attraction not just in looks but in his speeches and apparently connections with masses that people say was apparent of the public work he did as a parliamentarian. Of the 296 assembly seats Congress was winner on 167 and Jansangh at only 78. DP Mishra had the mandate to come back as CM for another term. But that was the beginning of modern phase of Chanakya type politics in India. What we see today is quite common as horse-trading was not present in those days. Rajmata planned and played her cards well and split Congress and when the assembly was in its first session some 26 MLAs led by DP's able deputy Govind Narayan Singh moved from treasury benches and sat with the opposition declaring a war on Congress and claimed of forming a first-ever non-congress government under Govind Narayan Singh. Before the floor test most of 26 MLAs got abducted and taken to Gwalior and further to Delhi and suddenly resurfaced in assembly on the day of the floor test a few days later. It was quite obvious that they all got  "compensated" handsomely. The new CM was not new to politics he had been a minister for a long time and his father was the first CM of Vindhya Pradesh before formation of Madhya Pradesh. So with 26 MLAs crossing the fence Congress was reduced to 141, 8 short of majority. The new formation of all other parties and independents  with some 20 different ideologies formed the new government as संविद (संयुक्त विधायक दल) सरकार ..essentially a thorough khichari. But Govind Narayan Singh learnt early days that it will be difficult for him to carry on. Money paid was also to be recovered and the first casualty to generate money fell on appointments and transfers. If one were to believe available history Rajmata was running the government back seat driving using her aide Sardar Angre to give commands to CM. Short of two years Govind Narayan Singh was fed-up and refused to "obey" Angre on some appointments and as a fall out told Rajmata that he made a mistake leaving Congress that is in his blood and he is returning back in the fold. But all those 26 MLAs could not be cajoled immediately and Raja Naresh Chandra Singh another hardcore congressman and a tribal king was roped in to lead Samvid government. Alas! This simple and pure at heart tribal king who was loved by his subjects when they ruled the princely state Sarangarh, was not a politician who played dirty and so he lasted just 12 days, 4 days shorter than Aral Behari Vajpayee's  16 of his first term as PM later in 1996.

Many years later, I was happy to have Ashok Singh, former CM Govind Narayan Singh's younger son as my classmate in Engineering college, although he had joined a year before me but since he took a one year drop we were leveled, he still is a friend and thankfully stayed away from politics unlike his father, grandfather and brothers.. 

But Indira Gandhi who was concentrating power in Delhi didn't allow either DP Mishra or Govind Narayan Singh to return as CM instead chose Shyama Charan Shukla son of first CM of the newly formed Madhya Pradesh in 1956, Ravishankar Shukla. Shayama Charan's ministry had lots of new faces and Bhagwat Sabu our MLA was also one of them. Betma turned jubilant and sweets were distributed as it was for the first time that its representative had become a minister. It's regretful that both it's representatives in Bhopal and in Delhi Bhagwat Sabu and Prakash Chandra Sethi, especially Sethi ji who held several important ministries of the country like home and railways in Delhi did very little for the progress of their constituency in their entire career. One example is that of Indore's connectivity with other major business hubs, that still hurts. Indore was always a major business centre of the MP and could have rivalled Bombay and Ahmedabad but for its failure to have a proper railway connectivity that didn't come to it even when PC Sethi was a railway minister. Betma was also promised a rail connectivity on Indore-Dahod route in a survey conducted as early as 1952 but even today after 69 years that project is yet to see the light of the day. That connectivity would have given Indore prominence by bringing Delhi-Bombay route closer and Betma also would have been a different and better place.

That apart, when Sabuji became a minister what he worked hard for was to bring Shyama Charan Shukla (Popularly Shyama Bhaiya) to Betma. As an approaching 12 year old now, I was a lot excited with the prospect of seeing a CM for the first time in my life and somehow managed to be right in front when they along with many other politicians and officers stopped by and took chairs at the verandah of civil dispensary. I was absolutely dumbstruck when I saw a 6 footer slim and handsome Shyama Bhaiya. Don't remember what was being discussed but he looked at me and smiled and that made my day. A bit later coffee was served to them in fine crockery and that was the first time I saw a coffee that could be made by mixing a spoon of coffee into  hot milk.. it was Nescafé that I never saw before. In Betma hardly anyone drank coffee but I had heard of and had a taste of Polson coffee made like tea was made and didn't like the taste. Even in those days Nescafé was pretty expensive, I think a 50 gm tin was for Rs 3.00 and compared to a full milk special tea a cup of coffee would cost twice as much and it was not for commoners and hence no one drank.

In the excitement to have a even closer proximity I was standing near the door of the white ambassador that would carry both Shyama Bhaiya and Sabuji on the back seat. As soon as they came and shut the door, I screamed at the top of my voice, my left hand finger was at the door and had got pressed, fortunately the door was not slammed hard and I was happy to see them off with tears in my eyes came out with the pain, fortunately my fingers of left hand got saved, unlike the right one that I will talk some other time..

Pic courtesy a search result on Internet.

Gazing into the past - Shahbad Markanda

                                            Shahbad Markanda Railway Station.

Shahbad Markanda is a tehsil town under Kurukshetra district of Haryana. It falls on GT Road that has a long history. As per historical records GT Road was first built around  300BC by the founder of Maurya dynasty Chandragupta Maurya, that connected Kandahar now in Afghanistan to Chittagong now in Bangladesh but then a part of his kingdom. The idea was to have connectivity between the farthest corners of his kingdom for develop entire region for better trade and movement of people. Since then every subsequent ruler improved on this road that had important cities en route such as Patliputra, Prayag, Takshshila etc. A major thrust was given to this road in medieval time during Sher Shah Suri's reign due to which many modern historians credit him for building GT Road. From then on Mughals and then British further improved the road further so much so that British founded Thomson College of civil engineering in Roorkee that is today called IIT Roorkee, to have trained civil engineers for construction and maintenance of this road. In 1959, when Asian countries got together and floated the idea of an Asian Highway measuring 20000+ kilometer route connecting some 40 countries from Japan to Turkey, India's GT Road became part of Asia Highway (AH) 1. After independence of India the road from Amritsar to Howrah was called National Highway 2 or NH2 and now with change in its nomenclature it is broken into NH 19 from Kolkata to Agra and NH44 further north.

Ambala the cantonment town built by British during Raj era is 20 Kms north towards Amritsar and Kurukshetra that is 20 km south toward Delhi are the nearest bigger townships around Shahbad. It has got its second name Markanda due to the river Markanda that flows just outside the town, a little north of it. Kurukshetra has a very long history and finds traces in mythology as the place where the war between Kauravas and Pandawas was fought, as described in Mahabharata, the epic. Kurukshetra is a holy town with that history and has many a temples around depicting the same and is also a education/learning centre that has the famous Kurukshetra University. 

Shahabad was a town build by Muhammad Ghauri in 1192 after he defeated Prithviraj Chauhan in the war of Tarain ( now Tarawdi/Taraori). Historian differ in the number of times Ghauri was defeated by Prithviraj Chauhan before Prithviraj was defeated and subsequently killed by Ghauri, some say 8 and some 16 and some others put that number to 20. For a long time Ibahim Lodhi and Babur also seem to have stayed and expanded the town that largely remained Muslim majority town for many centuries. I am still unclear, however, whether a fort in Shahbad was built during Lodhi dynasty or during Mughal era. There are also references of Banda Singh Bahadur, who was Guru Govind Singhji's disciple, defeating Aurangzeb's forces and capturing Shahbad fort in early eighteenth century. Shahbad Markanda got its Railway Station in 1890 and is one of the oldest since Indian Railways expanded and connected towns between Lahore and Delhi. Although bigger towns like Panipat, Karnal, Ambala, Ludhiana and Amritsar also got stations in the late nineteenth century. 

I must have visited Shahbad for the first time after I got my first car, a secondhand 1968 FIAT1100, that was pre-owned by my father in law, in 1992. My father in law belonged to this town, so my wife, our 4 year old son and I were visiting the family. Twenty Nine years back Shahbad Markanda looked a very small town, a bit larger than Betma. GT Road then didn't have any flyovers or road dividers so like in current times there was no scope for you to overshoot the entry to town and take a turn after 2 or 3 kilometers ahead. After turning into the town you pass through a series of labyrinth and finally reach a haveli. The last connecting road was just about 5' wide so our car had to be kept near gurudwara that was/is some 300 steps away ( I measured it recently with my Fitbit, the wearable electronic band). This locality is called Majri Mohalla. The haveli must have been built some 300 year back by my father-in-law's ancestors who had some landholdings and were traditionally farmers. Although my grandfather-in-law was a civil engineer and highly learned person they didn't give up farming. You enter the haveli through a large open verandah surrounded by eight rooms on the ground floor and some 6 on the first. It was a very old construction and not in a very good shape so half the rooms that were not in use were permanently shut. My father-in-law and two of his brothers had left Shahbad long ago due to their higher education and subsequent occupation and only his elder brother's family lived in the haveli. This haveli was within the "walled city", although you don't see walls of the fort that once enveloped the town. Adjacent to the haveli was a small plot where cattle lived and next to that was family temple there lived the deity, Baba Bholenath... Shiv/Shankar. This was a beautiful temple built in a round small construction on an elevated platform. To visit the temple you have to take some 14-16 steps down, walk some 30 feet and climb the steps again. There was empty land around the temple and hardly any other construction so one could see some distance. It was peaceful and it filled you with piety.

This was our first visit after we got married, so you could imagine the reception that I would have got from everyone especially our Tai ji who was a lot older than my own mother. She was so full of love and emotions that it was difficult to say no to anything that was offered to eat. During our wedding I had barely seen her but when we had bowed to seek her blessings her eyes said everything and I looked forward to meeting her again but that opportunity came many years later. After spending a couple of hours there we got a very emotional send off and I think that was the last time I saw that haveli and our Tai ji.

Haryana was part of Punjab before reorganization of states after country got independence, so beside Hindus and Muslims there is a sizeable population of Sikhs that have been here ever since the town was founded. So you see a large number of not just temples but also masjids and gurudwaras. Every half a kilometer you will probably find four temples, two gurudwaras and a masjid. Since our visit in 1992 a huge tract of farmland is acquired by HUDA who built a modern township around the old walled city. The population must have grown 10 times since and lots of people who craved for modern living and could do nothing to improve the living conditions in the old town vacated their houses in old town and moved out to HUDA colonies. Our family was also one of them. So the haveli where we went was pulled down and now an empty unused plot stands there that is a family property of four of our Tauji's children. The other plot that housed cattle was fenced and came to my father-in-law in family partition and the temple and land around it was allocated to another Tauji. 

                                                         Majri Mohalla Gurudwara.

Some 10 years back Tauji and his children, who had the temple, decided to renovate it and filled up the ground around and leveled entire plot same as that of the deity's, so devotees don't have to take to stairs, although it's a private family temple neighborhood people visit the temple regularly to pray and seek Bholenath's blessings. A couple of rooms were also built to house a pujari and his family. 

On the cattle house, there were no cattle now and only stink had remained. Some five years back my wife and her siblings decided to build a small house to keep my father-in-law's memorabilia after his death six and a half years ago. This idea filled us all with emotions that it would keep his memory alive in us as we would have a house where we would find him. He was born there and now he would live there again in our memories that would come alive whenever we went there. The house was completed a couple of years back but is still being arranged. The house sits in the lap of the temple and it's very pious feeling that fills you with peace.

During Mughal era or even before this portion was apparently a tehkhana, a cellar, where prisoners were kept and around it a thick 2-3 feet wide wall was constructed. Everything else around the wall got destroyed, but a portion of wall remains in dilapidated condition that we are trying to preserve but unsure of its life. 

A short distance from this house are our family farms which are in possession and are looked after by our nephews. It was lovely to visit the farms and memories of my visits to farms around Betma came alive. Not that I have not visited farms since then, my own inquisitiveness and some work related to livelihood projects that I do, have kept me grounded to these roots. Upon reaching the farm we found that there was a huge tree whose shade was providing cool breeze that we really enjoyed although it was not summer yet, I suppose even in peak summer one could find solace and enjoy the cool breeze keeping the hot sun away. The base of the tree was between 8 to 9 feet and it was nearly 40 feet high and the width in the middle about 50 feet. An enquiry revealed that this tree was around 400 year old and it's base houses species such as snakes and reptiles. The tree also has several beehives that is a constant source of honey.

Just a week before potato crop was harvested and some were still lying around. A huge bag was promptly sealed for us and after a lot of request it was made into more manageable package. 

A tractor that was lying there also made you feel "grounded". In a small shade nearby there was a black coloured tall pregnant cow ruminating and relaxing. She reminded me of Shyama and nostalgia built up further.

While we were enjoying the breeze and also smelling the cow dung that for a change was not stinking, I saw two black kites in the sky coming at each other at a mach speed.. I moved my lens up and before I could focus properly they were into each other as if to kill.. it was a "wonderful" and rare sight, not because of fights but because it was unique to capture that through the lens.

By the time tea was served, my eyes spotted a beautifully flowering plum tree. Tea had to wait till I finished with a few clicks of this soothing snowy sight.

Just when we decided to head back "home", I noticed two kites, I wondered if these were the same ones fighting with each other just a while back, on a high tension electric pole, one of them was sitting with something in her mouth. Soon the lens moved up in the direction and I noticed one of the kites was having fun playing with her hunt, a rat. Another kite instead of fighting was looking at the first one with appreciation. It was quite a sight. Satisfied with few clicks, we moved on after bidding goodbye to our nephews.

Next morning I woke up to the chirps and it was a wonderful feeling to begin the day. Going out into the verandah I didn't forget to carry my camera. I couldn't return for my tea until I had captured these beauties. A female Oriental magpie robin, a Lesser Whitethroat and a Tailorbird. There were some sunbirds playing and singing hopping from one tree to another but they were madly drunk and didn't give me a chance to "shoot".

We had not visited this place in the last 18 months, it was the pandemic that stopped us for over a year and we were not sure when we headed there on a Friday. We had planned to stay overnight but it felt so quiet, pious, fresh and my feathered friends also showed up to entertain me so that we ended up spending entire weekend there. I promised these friends and Bholenath Baba to return soon and we headed back to the chaos of the mega city.

PS: All pictures clicked by me. Station pics 13. NOV.2016. Rest of the pictures Feb26-27, 2021. Equipment: Canon 600D, Canon 6D mk 2 and One+3T phone camera.