46. Not really a hell where we grew up

There were more entries. Several pages. But they stopped by 1985. That was the time when he was transferred out of Girmint and in a turmoil. We leafed through it. You are taking a treasure home, smiled Robert.

Suddenly Robert exclaimed from somewhere. We rushed and saw him looking over the most beautiful dystopia that we had ever seen. Giant saucers of water, filled to the brim and still shining in the fading light of the barren moon, all the sinkholes were full. I could count hundreds of such saucers, stacked upon each other. If it was not an environmental disaster, it may have tuned touristy. People decked in their Sunday best, falling off from designer buses, sitting in lazy armchairs by the sinkholes, gorging on the jhal muri served by one of the many locals, who in another avatar, were now tour guides. Hahaha, I laughed strangely to myself. From hunter gatherers to famers to labour to illegal miners and now, as tour guides.

Robert shouted us out of our reverie. He had magically got some tea and there we were, sitting in the driveway, one last time, having tea as generations did before us. Robert remarked, I feel bad going back.

So did Prahlad. He had been uncharacteristically pensive in the past two days. And it had really been his trip than ours. But his childhood was scarred here. And adulthood does very bad when confronted with loss. Not sure what to say, even how to react, Prahlad lay quiet since our drive to Girmint last afternoon.

Prahlad felt bad. It was not merely the loss of his childhood paradise that rattled him. He had shuddered in anticipation of the morning. We were already packing but Prahlad seemed to be in no mood to hurry up. He went out for a walk and soon enough, I saw standing by the stream that was the stage for many a childhood game.

Over the next couple of hours, while we sat by the bungalow, Prahlad came into view and vanished, over some rise on the ground, near the ammunition depot and walking gingerly through the sink holes. He came back to a hearty breakfast at Chowdhary’s Uncles house. Saying bye was difficult for him, he seemed to exude the air of finality, he knew he would never return here. But equally scary was the realization that there may be nothing to return to.

Having said our byes, I thought of making a broad sweep and see a few old landmarks as we returned to Asansol. It was another bad decision, atop the multitude of awry decisions we had taken in the past twenty four hours.

There was destitute all around. As we strained and crossed the Peterson Bungalows, the scale of the disaster made Robert agitated once again. We drove to the old club with a few walls standing, we drove to the older mines where his grandfather had worked and saw entire pit heads empty. Desperation had led to a rush for anything valuable and the giant iron columns that made a pit head were all stolen. Entire buildings had vanished, every bit of brick reused. A number of old pits were now pools with a strangely calm surface. Nothing had changed and everything had changed.

With death everywhere, nature had taken total command. Every nook and crevice was wildly profuse and last night’s rains had added an extra layer of colour to the natural greenery of the old Bengal. We saw a few depressions, perhaps old pits or a type of sinkhole that we had not yet seen earlier.

As we crossed the mammoth bungalows of the bade sahabs with their swimming pools and manicured lawns, they appeared ghostly. People were longer staying there though the houses could occupy several families at a time. But they were on the other side of the massive collapse that struck the region and even destitute locals could not afford a risk to their lives.

We drove on and entered Ukraine temporarily. This was Upper Dhawra, with nearly all its buildings below the eye level. Buildings, trees and vehicles stuck out of the earth as if they were being pulled into a man made quicksand. Everything was ravaged, houses stacked one upon the other, and millions of broken pieces strewn around. I drove slowly and from amidst the dystopia, we saw the company school not only standing but housing atleast 10-15 children in its verandahs.

Shocked, we stopped briefly. And the teacher immediately called out to Prahlad. He knew him or perhaps a face that resembled him. We smiled. Prahlad truly has a recall value in these mines. Three generations of living can do that to you sometimes. You may have left but your memories pervade for a long long time.

Having chitchatted, we made out way towards the ground where a giant langur had slapped Prahlad in the middle of the ground. As he ran wildly, trying to hide from a rampage, his sister had ran into the big field without fear and outshouted the langur into hiding. We stood on a rather disheveled ground, if it could still be called one. It was undulating now, suited more to daredevilry but definitely no longer to play games in.

We slowed and drove past the ground when we came upon the lake. This lake which changed Prahlad forever, made him a boy-man as he saw a friend floating dead. At an age, when our multiplication skills had not yet cross beyond reciting units of 10.

The dead lake looked even more desolate. The company had to drain it long back and fill it with debris to plug a hole that led to the mines. The shallow water on top was green, thick with plants and no longer as threatening as we had imagined.

Prahlad asked me to move on. There was nothing more to watch. I drove on, passing by other colonies, by the office where his father had staved off a mob, by the durga mandir now overgrowing with neglect, by the sweet shops where we would gorge on rasullas, by the old barber who would make us sit on a plank of wood, placed precariously on a wobbling chair and execute the most innovative ‘Katora cuts’, we used to laugh about in school. We passed the gates, exhorting workers to give their best and his father’s last project before transferring out of Girmint forever.

The Kushadanga incline was a strange hybrid. Neither a deep underground pit, nor an open cast mine, it was an incline with a ropeway that slowly dropped off people and coal into a 45 degree slope that descended a few hundred metres below the ground. This ‘incline pit’ as they were called were part of an experiment to increase production without laying the earth bare and ravaged. But they fizzled out soon as the costs were too high. We stopped and jumped over the fence.

The most elemental of all elements, water was everywhere. In Bengal, when things pass on, water takes over. Forests may or may not return in the degraded soil but water takes command. The land of pukurs is a title well accorded to rural Bengal. A few random machinery were lying strewn around but desolation pervaded.

We returned and drove slowly to Asansol. Old landmarks were degraded throughout the way, Syria was truly the closest metaphor we could think of. Unsure of our return, Prahlad asked for a stop in an ancient sacred grove, muttered something to the forest gods and quietly joined us. We were all quiet, even Robert.

Finally, at Asansol and a hearty lunch at Robert’s place, Joshi, Prahlad and me climbed aboard a brand new train that exuded modernity. We were out of place temporarily, even in the briefest time we spent in Asansol. Malls, four lanes, red lights, multiples, international hotel brands, flyovers – this strip of land ten kilometres by three kilometres had become a city. Even the station looked thoroughly sanitized. Even the train looked brand new. Robert remarked as he said his bye, ‘This is the real-world Prahlad, that was just a memory’. Yes, the old world is just a memory now. The town rules.