Acres of diamonds, miles of dreams
The lure of easy money is irresistible for most of us, if not all. Dreams of landing hidden treasure make people indulge in weird acts that eventually turn out to be counterproductive. People have lost fortunes chasing easy money in casinos, stock markets and in buying lottery tickets.
While on the way back from a trip to Khajuraho, we had to change the bus at Panna, the diamond town of India, some 400 km from Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh. It being a small bus stand, the night bus service was not frequent and we considered it safe to spend the waiting time crowding around a small tea shop nearby.
My youthful mind was still fascinated and in awe of the ancient erotic sculptures of the Khajuraho temples. ‘But does such eroticism stand any chance in the modern stressful life consumed by the need to make both ends meet?’ I asked myself. My mind answered, ‘yes and no’. I started concentrating on the ‘yes’ part of the answer. Yes, if you have no mundane worries and loads of money to spend.
Incidentally, the topic of conversation among those gathered at the tea vend had veered round to the element of luck in diamond mining, a stroke of which could deliver one from the haunting worries of livelihood forever.
Someone was saying, “Diamonds lie buried aplenty in the land around Panna. A few lucky ones took a small patch of land on lease and with the first stroke of a spade they found one big enough to take care of their many generations.”
I was all ears, mentally putting myself in the shoes of that ‘lucky chap’.
“So can anybody obtain a lease?” I asked the person relating the story.
“Yes, anyone can go for it. It is the government that officially provides you with an eight metre square patch of land on lease cheaply for a full year and you start digging. It’s as simple as that,” one of the men answered.
By now, I already had a shining spade in my hand, or so I imagined, while listening to more such fanciful stories.
While stories of lucky ones interested me as these were quite in sync with my current mood at that time, what put a brake on my exuberant thought process was the other side of the story that someone was telling right now: “He was very poor but determined to make it big. He entered the mining pit with his sons and wife. The family made the pit their home, sweating it out the whole day and getting so tired at the end of the day that they slept in a makeshift tent erected just outside the site they were digging. The backbreaking work, poor nutrition and unbearable heat took its toll and one by one they started falling ill. At first, the children got dehydrated, then the wife and ultimately the head of the family. They never found a single diamond. The only saving grace was that they did not have to dig another pit to bury the dead. They were all buried in the same pit which they had dug so industriously in search of an elusive sparkling stone that would have changed their lives!”
The story was sufficient to send shivers down my spine. I remembered the oft heard cliché, ‘There is no free lunch anywhere’ and the famous quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Money often costs too much.”
The bus to Satna, my destination, arrived. Goodbye Panna. Goodbye diamonds.
THE TOPIC OF CONVERSATION VEERED ROUND TO THE ELEMENT OF LUCK IN DIAMOND MINING, A STROKE OF WHICH COULD DELIVER ONE FROM THE HAUNTING WORRIES OF LIVELIHOOD FOREVER