Way Back To My Land

China scaling Mount Everest on wheels would surely become a reality in forthcoming years.  The infancy of road infrastructure in India is overgrown.  The reason obviously is feeding billion mouths first.  Though it is an obvious reason for our dwarf development but can we afford to make it a shield for every incapability of our system.

The youth passes with the twitch of fingers and old age drags unwarrantedly with frail body and mind.  The shiny tinkle in watery eyes embedded deep in the socket was missing that day.  All the expectations and desires were lying on the pyre to be further burnt to ashes.   All plans to have a small house near road head were lost in the unending darkness of dissolution.    I know he was always keen to see me and whenever I went to my village the special gleam of his watery eyes would express highest degree of blissfulness.  He would confabulate innumerous plans with me and show me all the documents of his savings, which by any sense was good dough for two of them.  He was my grandfather's younger brother and very dear to me.

Gulab Singh Kathait retired as an inspector twenty years ago after serving Telephone Department for around 30 years at various places in Himachal Pradesh.  The longest and the last posting were in Shimla.  I remember we spent one of our summer vacations in Shimla with him.  Two of them Daadaji and Daadi ji, a happy couple without children.  When I heard that they were settling in village after retirement I could not fathom his idea.  Our village is around 1 hour strenuous walk from last road head, which was the reason for me not endorsing his decision.  People who have lived their prime in place like Shimla for around 10 years, how could they spend their old in hostile environment of village.  Daadiji was not at all happy with the decision of daadaji, she even said that they should atleast live in Pauri town.  Nostalgia of Shimla still looms in her expressions.    But daadaji was adamant on  spending their rest of life in village.  Finances were never a problem for them, as they did not have kids, indigent people of village looked up to them for help.  The customary 'neuta' from them use to be highest in marriages in and around village.

Now when I have made my few trips to Garhwal, I feel he was right on his decision to settle there but I would like to make a slight correction here.  Settling in Garhwal is very good idea but for sake of everything, ensure good connectivity to the place of you are planning to settle in.  He was somehow sure that his every need would be taken care of in the village.  He was of idea that healthy and fresh environment would help him lead healthy epilogue of his life.  

One day in the evening we got the news that he passed away.  It came as surprise to us as he was quite hale and healthy.   Me my father and my chacha ji packed our bags and pushed of to Garhwal.  As he did not have children all rituals were to be done either by my father or chacha ji.  We were told that he suffered stomachache and was taken to Pauri Hospital were he was administered few injections but he did not survive.  He got medical attention after 5 hours of suffering, as one has to climb a difficult ascend to reach the road head from where one could, by chance, find some vehicle to reach Pauri which is further 1 hour drive from there.

Then I assessed that during last 4 years 10 people died in our village.  And all these people looked healthy by any sense.  Timely medical attention could have averted these unfortunate demises. 

This is not a story of one village; it is a story of all villages of Uttarakhand where roads have not reached as yet.   Once I saw a kid with tattered clothes walking uphill to the nearest market to sell milk.  My accomplice told me that he would get ten rupees for this milk.  I was surprised, walking barefoot for more than 1 hour, just to get ten rupees.  For getting LPG cylinder from market to village one has to pay Rs.100/- to the porter.   Though health-wise the village life is very good but spending descends of life, when medical support has to be handy, becomes little tougher. 

It is the fact of our society that most of the youth has migrated to plain pastures and old people residing in villages are also residing there not by their wish but due to some or other limitations.  Our analogy to Himachal Pradesh most of the times presents our dwarf image.  The direction of progress picked up by us is obviously correct but the assessment of deliverables and factors of sustainable development has to be done very cautiously. 

Anywise the Uttaranchalis scattered all over world are better settled than the populace of Himachal, but the contribution towards our homeland has been minimal.  Whatever progress Himachalis have done has been done in their homeland and hence with them their land has also developed.  Irony in our case has been that we strode towards our progress only when we were out of our land.  Reasons could be many but the most haunted one is the environment, non-availability of good breeding grounds, lack of infrastructure.    We may call it a transition phase but it will take hell of time to first contain migration and then further retrieval of already migrated people.  As of now the rate of migration has been higher which has somehow emptied the settlements in Garhwal.  We cannot expect authorities to flash a magic wand and create an inviting environment for containing migration.  But this has to start now otherwise the natives will drain out of it with the flow of Ganga and shrewd business community would take over the land of God.  Roads to the villages would atleast invite retired people to make their alternate dwellings in their villages.  They would get an assurance of being connected to their minimum necessities of life.  My father is also a retired Government officer and some corner of his heart he do have a charm for his village, but the condition of old people suffering in absence of basic medical facilities and other necessities, he finds the polluted Delhi better. 

I am not saying that medical and other facilities should be right there at our doors. We cannot expect these essentialities even in Delhi, the capital of country, one has to spend few hours to reach hospital.  But we people have complacency, a mental satisfaction of being at place where hospitals and other necessary requirements are connected to us.    Some of our villages are 5 to 6 hours walk away from road heads.  Do you find any justification of these people living under these circumstances.   If there had been road to my village, obviously my father would spend atleast 2 to 3 months or may be more every year in village.  Had he been there in village we would have also visited him along with our progenies.  This would then introduce our next generations to our land.  Unfortunately it is not the way we think.   A good network of road in Uttarakhand has to be the top priority of administrators.  Roads will pave our path back to our homelands, atleast it will initiate it.  One has to make way for stream, water will flow on its own, and without proper path water will go haywire.