Letter from Bajawara ( Punjab) 1980

Village life for a baby in Bajawara
 

Accompanied  by my cousin from Delhi to Bajawara, I stopped for few days in Chandigarh, the half way house for me. I was in Chandigarh in 1975 and it seems that over the years the city had lost it's appeal as a modern city. The French designer Le-Corbusier had very little understanding of Indian's way of life. As I ventured out into the city centre, signs of rubbish dumped on barren stretches of wasteland (which were meant for green parks) and cows roaming the city roads were back as part of the Indian scenery!!  

Bajawara village is situated in the outermost edge of the Himalayas and it is a bus ride away from Chandigarh, near the town of Hosiapur. The village had suffered the 1947 petition of India and Pakistan. There were lots of derelict, half ruined houses and most inhabitants were making use of the space with four walls surrounding them. My aunt's house was built after 1947, with a court yard surrounded by four rooms, a kitchen and in the middle of the court yard was a water pump. This supplied the water from a well situated inside the house, lucky me! I shared the big house with four adults and a four months old baby. I had planned to stay in the village for at least two months, however my move to my idyllic life turned out to be another unhappy experience. Seems like a story of my life?

I come from a family of artisan, associated with the caste system very much the fabric of Indian culture. In India it is illegal to discriminate people from different caste, and here in my idyllic village, I started to see the ugly side of the village life. I was not allowed to talk to villagers who belonged to lower castes, definitely not to the untouchables. I had to stop meeting them at water well every morning, where they came to collect water and I went there with my paint brushes, hoping to paint the scenes. I had no idea who was who in a tiny village of 200? I was only aware of one old lady, untouchable caste, who came daily to pick our waste from our loo which was situated at the roof top; yes, the toilet ( W.C.) was right at the top of the first floor roof and without any door !! So whilst I was there in the loo doing my business, I was on 'could 9' , with the view of the mighty Himalaya in front of me!!

I tried to keep myself busy by helping my aunt's daughter-in-law with her teaching lessons which she gave privately to the local children in her house. I even thought of opening children's school in the village and live there happy for ever!!That romantic idea did not materialised; working with my aunt's daughter-in-law was mission impossible for most around her, including me from foggy England !! I took up another interest to keep me sane; my family of artisans not only made musical instruments like sitar but were well known for playing music too. I went every day to Hoshipur, to learn to play sitar and found myself being followed by a bunch of young men, all I guess hoping to get a passport to England ? I was not ready to be tied down yet and my lessons came to an abrupt end.

I arrived in Bajawara during winter  and the nights were cold and the power cuts most nights meant I had to huddle up in my quilt and with a help of a candle I read a little before going off to sleep. Winter times also meant a lot of spinach and corn roti to eat, all made on an open fire. It was time of the year when the festival of lori was celebrated by children who knocked on doors to sing, in return for some sweets; the whole of the neighbourhood lit up wood fire and everybody had some more spinach to eat; idyllic time for me.

I got to know the local farmer and his family and I spent a lot of my spare time with them. I started to bring back, for my not so rich aunt, home made butter, home grown vegetables and milk which  pleased my aunt. She had no objections to my visits to the family of farmer's caste, they were of higher caste and worth getting to know, if only for the free food!! My last bit of village adventure , without my aunt's blessing, was to go deer hunting up in the mountains with a bunch of farmers. I was pleased to come home alive and in one piece, my body was not trained for climbing mountains and I had very little idea what I had let myself in for, it turned out to be more then I could cope with !!

My relationship with my aunt went sour, mainly over food which I brought in daily but saw very little of it. I lasted six of the eight weeks. It was time to leave  the village, to the people who knew how to live in it without breaking the rules of the village life.

There was on local transport for me to take me out of the village, so I hired the local farmer to give me a ride on his scooter, with my big suitcase in place, off I went to my next port of call....my  aunt was not amused!!

Sadly I never met up with my aunt again.