Small town’s big offerings
There’s merit in so much — easy and early work hours, family and friends’ homes and markets within easy reach, a retinue of relatives to call on should anything require emergency measures — and the presumed intimacy that we, in our cosmopolitan ways have got unused to — people dropping in unexpectedly and unannounced over tea, drinks, dinner, which would merit rancour back in the city. Yesterday, I was sanctified with holy water from Mansarovar lake in Tibet that my 70-year-old aunts had fetched after doing the arduous circumambulation that I — a couple of decades younger — would find difficult for lack of faith. Neighbours stop by with offerings of produce from the fields, or a special delectation prepared by a member of the family; donations for charity are expected, and a dharmasala and ayurvedic facility I visited left me speechless for its efficiency and outreach, making one wonder about home-grown initiatives vis-à-vis several self-serving NGOs.
New Delhi, my chosen home, is often the butt of ridicule in Bikaner for the televised reportage that emanates from the city. Given its narrative of traffic jams, floods, water scarcity, air pollution, gender safety issues and deplorable security, it’s hard to justify living there for the convenience of its rolodex of dial-a-service, and the offerings of art and cultural institutions — theatre, music and dance performances, art openings, book readings — that we claim to enjoy, without finding the time to attend. Cosmopolitan we might be, but we are also increasingly more isolated and lonely amidst the airkisses and mandatory socialising. That you can fraternise with more “real” people in the course of a day in a small town than you do during a week in the city might give some pause for thought.
There was a time I thought I would renounce the city lights for a life somewhat more ordinary in the hills. My wife’s only concession to what she thought was a “silly-stupid-foolish idea” was the possibility of a garden she might tend that measured in square metres (or, actually, kanals) instead of square feet, but it was a romantic notion that had little basis in reality and died an unrequited death.
But now I wonder if there is a possibility of living in two places and somehow managing to achieve a work-life balance that, in the capital, remains ephemeral (blame it on the traffic). I’m not sure I’m up to being woken every morning by a pundit bearing sanctified foods, or being reminded of weekly fasts that I ought to (but never) observe. Should I think of relocating for part of the year to the cleaner air of Bikaner, much to the disgruntlement of my wife, at the least my unfed ancestors might be happier.