43. 1984 - The year the world started getting overtly developed
The world around me has changed. The last ten days scared me. 10 days of mayhem. Not so much here but everywhere else. The new TV, first one in Girmint was on every day. And it was only news on riots.
What happened. Who planned this. I am writing my assignment but what will it get me when my friends are scared.
We are safe here, Raji and Sabi are safe with us. But I am scared to think of the others. And I have to write the exam. The pen shakes as I write. But I must complete it by today. Tomorrow is submission day.
Introduction
As the executive engineer (mining and electrical), I am responsible for the well being of the colliery. Our work is unique. It is different from normal mining jobs as we work daily with the villagers of Unpar Dhawra, Chajllis dhawra, Parchiarpur and Bhianora to ensure adequate water supply and regular electricity. We did not study about community work in my diploma course. We studied about seams and production targets.
But now, after 10 years of work, I feel that the most important aspect of any industrial work is to be caring. After all, we work on lands that belonged to the Santhals and Baoris. We are not even guests here.
One day, we will all go back. They will stay on. I have learnt that as long as the staff and villagers are happy, coal mining can have positive impacts.
I hope to
increase my knowledge and help people. And I hope that the following assessment
will bring to light the reasons why villagers often burn our transformers or
gherao the officers.
Robert, wearing a resplendent pair of Kurta
Pyjamas was reading from the notes as total darkness spread. I wondered to
myself, ‘This note was written right here, 40 years back. A different world
then yet the concerns were strikingly similar”. Prahlad’s father will love to read
his own notes from a different era.
Robert continued reading, repeating the words
verbatim.
Analysis of the impact of the Coal Industry
I tell you the story of Coal, its unique workforce, the people who make coal
run and continue to do so even today. Cool is a very precious metal. it is also
the main source of power and perhaps for the whole world. Not only as an energy
generator but also used extensively in factories, industries and in boilers
that depend upon coal fired energy.
I feel proud to be a member of the coal
industry, right from my birth. My father joined the then private coal company
at a place called Begonia on the banks of the river Damodar. It was one of the biggest
private coal company during those days and run by British managers. It was they
who brought my father from Punjab and appointed him in the newly opened mine
underground mine. Once he entered the industry, he couldn't leave and stayed
there till his retirement. I was born there in those mines in the 50s and from
day one, I became a member of the coal mining industry.
After finishing my diploma in Mechanical Engineering,
I joined another private company close by. But things have already changed, and
sometimes I feel really sad when I see the condition of the pits. In my
father’s time, mining was a community affair and everyone took care of
everyone. But now, I see desperate faces and impatient officers. The impact is
felt on the production levels. Everyone seems to bully workers to extract more
coal without caring for health risks or even worse increasing subsidence on top,
often where the workers lived.
Nowadays, the boiler foreman or engine
operator are routinely shouted upon and even tortured before the shift. Seniors
say that if we don’t abuse these ignorant workers, they will not give their
best. They don’t care to see that on a day when these operators and workers are
treated well, production jumps. But they insist on abusing the poor and the
weakest of the weak. As production falls in many places causing a good loss the
company, blame is shifted from to there. I see things going bad if the
management practices do not change. I have changed mine. Caring for the
workforce should be our motto.
The best thing I experienced before the
companies were taken over by the Government of India in 1971 was the
comradeship amongst us mine workers. Consider anyone working under anybody and
you could see orders were followed efficiently. The ambience was strict, the
British effectiveness was inside us but the management ensured that people were
taken care of. I don’t suggest that British management was better. What I
imply, is that there was an undercurrent of respect for the worker and no
tolerance for one upmanship.
Even more attractive in those early days of my
career was that we used to get a special cash prize for outstanding work. Some
crews constantly doing well would get prizes at the end of every week, often
from the senior most office, the General Manager. Other crews were
automatically motivated.
I repeat again that though we had far more powers
then, our energy was spent on ensuring better lives and good production. If
workers took overtime for a specific but urgent job, we had the power to serve
themes snacks and drinks. We would often organise small parties in the
underground pit, men covered in dust and soot but enjoying fresh rasgullas from
Lala Sweets. One result was that even an ordinary worker would work hard. I
know of stories where increased output meant increased facilities such as using
the company's chauffeur driven car for a picnic, weekend parties and frequent
screenings of the latest films. These perks and encouragements ended after the
government takeover. I feel that the era after independence till
nationalization was really a good time for sincere people to perform better.
But there were a lot of disadvantages too. If
you did not obey the boss, the company could fire anyone without notice.
Officers and workers lived in constant pressure to perform. The company was a
new version of the zamindars who could displace anyone anytime, even throw
people from company provided accommodation. All facilities could be stopped and
lives thrown into poverty in a moment.
Living arrangements for the work force was not
adequate during those days. While some officers had big houses, most workers lived
in the most difficult condition, as if they were goats. Any protest was met
with worse rules including cancellation of entertainment facilities, reduced
water or electricity supply, let accommodations degrade and public punishments
for anyone who had the guts to raise voice. Now, we see a positive change as
infrastructure is being developed for workers to live better. I hope to contribute
in this aspect in the coming years.
So, in a way, the earlier era of private
companies was the golden days and strangely also nightmare days. We were happy
to work and scared at the same time. It was a shock for us. They say things
change slowly in nature, but the changes we saw from 1971 in our very own coal
industry is enough to make us forget the earlier era. I feel that now, as the
government runs the system, they should ensure adequate support to local
stakeholders – the villagers, infrastructure development and bringing unique
ways to ensure that mining becomes safe for us and the local environment.
I am a part of this entire story, first as a child
growing up in the mines and now, as an engineer working in the very industry where
my father and his entire family spent their lives building new mines along the
way. I will not say that I was born with a golden spoon but with poverty
knocking at our doors each day, the mines provided me, my elder brother and my
sisters with education. I am happy with my English, even though relatives in
Delhi laugh at my accent. I am the mine myself, and thanks to the mines, I have
a purpose in life.
We spend a beautiful childhood under our father’s
eyes. But he was rarely to be seen, busy as he was with his men and with
liquor. In reality, our childhood was showered with unparalleled love and
affection by all, family, neighbors and local villages. We grew up in the wild
and learnt the names of flowers. I took to pond fishing, learning from my Baori
friends on making the best hook and throwing the widest cast. Relatives from
Punjab would never ceased to be amazed at my love for postu and rice, aloo paratha
was an alien concept. And my deeply ingrained Bengali would scare them. Cranky
old buas would cry in chaste Punjabi, Saada munda bangla ban gaya, enhu changi
kudi dila do.
But my silent mother taught us about both the
cultures. She pressed upon the lifelong upholding of good manners and motivated
us to great officers of a great father. She also pampered us a lot.
The most adventurous part of this life was
that being a son of a loved person, all us brothers and sisters were adored by
the villagers. Walking to our school a kilometre away, someone would always drop
us with charming forcefulness. Embarrassingly, many a times, we would be lifted
on someone’s shoulder and carried away. We were really fat then and I don’t
think the person who carried us once would make the same mistake ever.
Our adventures were sometimes scary too. Our
games of hide and seek was not about finding a spot in the garden. My brother
would hide himself in one of the many incline mines, where people were usually
stopped from entering. It feels strange that nobody stopped us for I won’t
allow baby Prahlad to enter them. Though we had privilege, children of other
officers did not enjoy as much as we did. I think that it was slightly more
deep than privilege rights. I think there was love for my mother and father, in
this remote corner of the world that he called home.
I was over very good player of volleyball and
played football as a goalkeeper. I was also very interested in gardening and
used to look after the flower in our big garden watering and cleaning the earth
even though they were already 2 gardeners pointedly allotted to the residents.
When I was in class 9th I got in mission in the nearest city as in soon we
pronounce subsequently studied as well at the eastern railway school and around
that same time my father was also transferred to her different quality under
the same private owner of those days.
An important thing that I forgot to mention
during 60s is that the coal mines were also very famous for decades. That time
the salary payment was made in weekly mode for every Saturday and the day
starts from evening of Saturday and Sunday. There the gates who would start
their work on the evening of Saturday generally targeted the recent suppliers
first and then the others after getting. After getting salaries a lot of people
used to pay one weeks ration bills to the shop owners. The robbers or the so
called to get used to open attack using bombs and surround this site and start
looting the shop owner as well as and he was like us. Surprisingly by just
between 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM they would regularly throw bombs splinters filled of
splinters and small glass sentence engineering injuring the inhabitants I
locals. The this was the same situation many days of a week. The police as
usual came after all that happens and just would right the complaint but really
take any action. So every Saturday and Sunday the cool qualities state secure
within their land so that the reward if it sees. The two reached two such the
kts happened during my personal presence. My boss was posted in a second
quality my
I was posted in this strangely called AJ
second quality, my elder brother was also an engineer at quote adequality a
slight distance away came to my house as he was to go to Jamshedpur later at
3:30 AM in the night. 10 kilometers away from there we were too soon leave to
drop him to the railway station. It was a month of weak and very hard. So you
rather decided to sleep in open space outside of the bungalow. Just beyond the
boundary of our house there were two staff quarters right in front of us, the
first being owned by our doctor Banerjee. At about 2:00 AM suddenly we heard a
huge sound and someone screaming and trying to break open the doors of Mr. Banerjee’s
house. Immediately reboot got up from our bed to see what was the matter but
two are a disabilities, I saw one to two people standing near our bungalow
boundary wall and seeing us the immediately reacted. They threatened me
not to get out of the bed and sleep and cover myself with a bed sheet. Most
surprisingly I was astonished, he threatened me taking my taking my nickname
which is kukku sahab. He have not come to your house so please just lay down or we
will threw a bomb towards your site. I could not recognize your voice as they
had covered their face with black cloth
The coolest extraction face used to be about 3
kilometers each side from the pit bottom. The pit bottom was the place where
the lift in the cages which sect or only way out if I know agency occurred.
There we had to use a number of holding machinery that helped in extracting the
coal however. However maintenance of these machinery was very problematic and
they often broke down. Bringing coal from deep inside the face is it's in
itself a very difficult and risky affair working with machinery and often broke
down was also aggrieve threat to our lives. The people working in the
underground mines we're really scared and used to do the job very courageously
pushed off lastly I would like to say that we expected to get a better life
better accommodation our nationalization of the coal mines went wrong and the
government practically did nothing.
November 14, 1984 - Final Assignment –
Certificate course on Mining Management
When the history of coal mining is written
for India, nameless individuals who made the mines come to life will be rarely
be discussed. Displaced communities will be accorded a cursory mention. Workers
like us will return to the anonymity of the towns and cities. And nameless new
workers will over our place. Yet, the mines are not merely an agent of
extraction and destruction. They are a chronicle of our times, our only thread
to this dusty world we called home.
Pretty impressive Prahlad, Robert cooed. He
shrugged and I smiled. It does not look like his father’s words, I asked him. Well,
there was only one convent educated member in the family in 1984, Prahlad’s
youngest Bua who would shower us books as kids. Prahlad laughed, Yes, it seems
to be her words, but not the feelings that Dad wrote in these notes to himself.
We can track his style when he writes about his childhood. This one, Bua
surely. We were not keen to sleep in the cold floor. And the rains had
returned. Robert read again.
The coal mining industry is popularly
believed to be started by Carr Tagore and Company, by Thakur Rabindranath’s
father but its origins are far older than people imagine. Indians knew mining
much before the British sought to civilize us and introduce new technologies.
The only difference was that we mined for local use while they focused on
industrial development.
Also, the mode of learning developed. While
the mining in the Chota Nagpur hills were part of the local oral history, sons
earnt from their fathers and so on it went. It was a cottage industry and
taught new skills and helped us sustain comfortably. The European model was
more technocratic and it was not till the 1770s that mining schools came up in
Prague and Vienna, blessed with coal like us. The British were still
experimenting with coal while we were using it to build implements.
They learnt fast, just as they learnt to
cut forests even faster. Between this race to extract more coal and more
forest, both seemingly inexhaustible resources suddenly became scarce. The
bounty of the Land of Gold was no more.
And in prospecting for coal, a vast horde
of private adventurers entered deep into the heart of India and when they found
the real heart in the forests and the engines in the form of coal, they could
not believe their own fortunes. Here was an entire country sized forest, laden
not with rich berries and medicinal honey, but with endless seams of coal,
bauxite, copper and iron. They were ripe and ready to be picked, digged or
harvested, the British did not discriminate between the three.
And they pushed their agenda through law.
Under the garb of a bewildering new language that a few knew and laws which
coopted mining under the definition of a forest produce, India changed. We
joined the global economy at a pace, never seen before, never after. We became
the giant laboratory to test the theories of free market and infinite growth.
Returning to our heritage, India had a long
history of harnessing iron from the soil. A world as described previously,
existed solely on producing useful instruments from the iron which itself was
melted using a number of resources, including coal. The change happened when
local smelters could no longer compete with industrial grade iron from
factories far away. They simply faded away. So did Indian entrepreneurs and
zamindars. It may be difficult to visualize but there were several Indian
pioneers who had taken to mining in a big way. They took to rapid extraction of
available coal and sell them cheaply to whoever sought to buy. This world of
operators, traders and extractors came to be upon the mercy of the British.
The British took over, not from them but
from the zamindars who controlled most of these lands. Many were thrilled to be
gifted an additional source of income. Tenants were simply evicted. If ever,
they write that the British took over India by their military strength, they
are grossly mistaken. They took over India because they appealed to the greed
of the many small and big time keepers of lands. These keepers or owners as
they preferred to call themselves were the defacto kings of the land and the British
just made them friends.
Coal Mining soon started in the very region
we live in. First Grant Heatly discovered mines in Raniganj and then Farquhar
& Motte did the same in Jharia (page 86). Girmint may well be amongst the
first ten mines of India as leased by Alexander & company in 1820. The
famous Carr Tagore and company came into the picture after acquiring Raniganj
only around 1843, by then things were up and running at any of the collieries
across Jharia and Raniganj. People like us, brought from outside, alien and
uncomfortable were brought to sustain the increasing demand for coal.
As the brief history of coal mining in our
region suggests, things soon passed into British control though the close
relationship between the coal company and the government had never made any
distinction between the two. There was a race for the coal. And in this race,
nothing stood in the way. Market booms came, several busts came, demand fell
and rose, production fell and new mines explored to keep up with the demand,
but nothing did deter the march of coal.
Coal was everywhere and used for
everything. It made our lives easy. It gave us something that every Indian
cherished in those years, electricity. Coal even gave them radio to listen to
and often a phone to call someone far away. Coal built everything, from roads,
to factories to big townships. The energy from coal seemed to light up the
whole world or atleast parts of it.
The demands rose and rose leading to gluts
in the market. Only the biggest players remained and they appropriated a slice
of Eastern pie. The mines were no longer considered private. Entire landscapes
were converted to mining sites and the nearby world still following ancient
traditions had now become frontiers of the coal industry.
Some Santhals and Baoris still claim that
they don’t know what hit them. One day, picking amla from the forest and next
day, picking coal from the soil, they just retreated into the background. Still
there, they keep a close watch. Watch as their lands get murderously hurt, dug
and filled a million times and turns barren by the day. Some say that after all
the coal is over, perhaps they will return the land to us. The pan wallahs says
it may take another 60 years. They say that they can wait. But, they say that
the land may be beyond rescue now. This land is already dead.
Mining just boomed in the lands between
Raniganj and Dhanbad on one side and Dumka and Giridh on the other. As
independence came, the mines slowly moved out of the control of the private
players. They became nationalized in 1971, the year I joined the coal industry.
The world had changed by then. Dacaities
and loot is as much a part of coal as its capacity to burn at low rates.
British era equipment and landmarks were falling into disuse. The most popular
club west of Calcutta fell into utter disgrace Its floors were pulled out, its
doors stolen, windows cut from the frames and not an inch was left. Where we
would part earlier, cows saunter now. Even the boundary wall was knocked off.
What remains now is an edifice of memories, sad and happy.
To relate a personal story, when a few of
us were returning from a marriage in Birbhum, we came upon a road block
followed by a long trail of cars of both sides. While it appeared to be an
accident, it was in effect, a dacaity in progress. Such was the prevalence of
dacaities in those days that nobody flinched. We knew a few of these boys
probably. They had taken to it because of the sheer poverty in the villages.
With loss of productive rice fields and ruin of forests, entire populations had
turned destitude. We quietly gave away all they asked for.
They were on the verge of an apology as
they asked for necklace from my wife and meekly moved on to the next car. In
only a few minutes, the road block was clear and we were on our way.
As I took a transfer back to Girmint in 1978,
my father who had continued living in his house near Girmint shifted with us
and brought an entire legion of followers who would listen to his stories of
the mine as if it were the annual recital of the Ramayana.
As I mentioned, working in the mines is as
much a people management skill as learning the use of technology. I was born
here and knew everyone personally. I never did find out if I was an officer, a
foreman or a worker. It was a bonhomie, this community living. All the staff,
workers in the underground and colleagues were highly cooperative. I took care
of them and in exchange, they were willing to move mountains for me.
But the good times slowly came to an end.
As I write this, aggression has increased as villagers are left deprived of
amenties. Frequent electrical problems, shortage of water and frequent
disregard to upkeep of public facilities led to a growing aggression toward us
officials.
We were stuck in the middle of several
gharoes and sloganeering but over the years, we managed to resolve many a
confrontation before it could flare. Often, working with villagrs to resolve
issues, our team too timely action to prevent many a confrontation. It was
still, a tough life and as I step into a bigger role, I still cherish those
early days of mining deep inside pits, scared yet willing to explore, worried
that this growing hunger for coal may punish nature and people both.
But coal kept growing. Moving away from the
old dirty minefields like ours, they hunted for newer pastures. And they found
plenty in this ancient border between Santhal Parganas and the Jungle Mahals.
They found that on a cost to basis, open cast mines are much cheaper to mine
than deep, dangerous undergound pits. As I write this, I stand at the cusp of
the next big growth of coal production. Records will soon be broken but the
continued apathy of stakeholders continues to this day.
Word Count – 1764 words
And a smiley drawn on it. Did they have
smileys in 1984, Robert asked.
I let out a low whistle in an otherwise
strangely quiet room. Wow, that was truly amazing. Seemed like a fantasy but still
continues to spread. The impact of coal have increased several hundred times.
We are living in an age of construction, an age of destruction, an age of
absurdity, and age of apathy.
Robert started crooning. His deep hum
filling up the rooms silently. And then he produced a small sound box out of
nowhere. Prahlad laughed, ‘This was the very room where my father had placed
his proud possession, a giant music system with outsized sound boxes and an
ancient tape recorder’. I added, the disc player was here as well, remember.
Yes, he replied, laughing aloud, We would stare at the giant disc cover and
imagine ourselves to rock the world. Even Rock music changed beyond
comprehension in these few years.
Joshi who was sitting in a corner,
connected his Bluetooth to the box and played some songs. He was an odd one,
this Joshi. Close friends with the boisterous Robert, he would laugh out loud,
but only occasionally. Mostly, he will be silently observing people all around.
He shuffled and Sadda Haq blared for minutes into the night sky.
You know, Saada Haq was a good chance to
take what’s ours, but that moment passed. We turned towards him. Was he
entering into one of his moods, rarely visible to others but being old friends,
we feared him for his moods. Rishi and Joshi had been good friends in school
and we used to jokingly call them the ‘Moody broodies’, they seemed to
telepathically converge on a common power source to turn deeply melancholic. In
unison, we replied, And!!!
Main galat hu toh kaun sahi (If I am wrong,
then who is right) - shouted Jordan from the billboards 10 years back. He was
no ordinary agent of anarchy. He was crying out against those who rule our
world, the enforcers who scared us. His intensity was what we needed, desperate
for fresh fire to light up our dark skies. Jordan was us, not as good looking
as him. But our alienation, we were in it together.
Young children, barely out of school
headbanged for the first time in known history to a popular Hindi movie song.
Irshad Kaamil peaked then and just then. His lyrics can burn an assembly
session but no one cares to listen. Now less than ever.
For many, Sadda haq gave the courage Haider
called upon us to display 3 years later when it came upon the movie universe
and jeered at the establishment in plain view. Even more significantly, it gave
the urbane young a chance to express their own anger at the world, building on
Anna Hazare’s movement that galvanized an entire country, albeit briefly. But
the song’s release was too close to Hazare’s decision to end his fast and
several followers were disenchanted. As the momentum slipped and parleys began,
Hazare withdrew and came another strong man, Kejriwal. He shifted our hopes and
made us believe in the movement again and believe him again as he broke away in
the time bound Indian tradition of discarding the Gandhian for unbridled power.
As the movement faltered, rising and
falling with each falling day, yet moving towards its ultimate extinguishment,
our anger had not subsided. It had grown instead. We were egged on by our
beliefs, by our fears and by our helplessness, we wanted to rebel but we were
not the Arab Spring. And the Arab world was bursting with creative
demonstrations. From Tunisia to Egypt and Oman to Morocco, half the world was
on fire and if Anna Hazare hadn’t come along, we would have sat through the
entire spring without hoping to seek a new dawn.
Too diverse, too many voices and too scared
to lose our lives, we were seething with anger. As Hazare’s movement rekindled
our angst, the Delhi Rape Case of 2011 as it should be called broke us out of
our reverie. Millions took the lead, Kejriwal demanded the resignation of
Sheila Dixit, the Chief Minister of Delhi as did a few others but the manner in
which he endeared himself to the common people was Gandhian in scope. Mildly
dysfunctional and totally awkward, he still carried the moral perseverance to
wear his apparently dirty muffler in an international summit. And while he made
it a point to wear slippers where a shoe would have done just fine, he merely
showed off his credentials as an expert storyteller. We all believed in him.
And the revolution passed harmlessly.
But Sadda Haq was more than channeling our
angst into movements. It was to be a cathartic moment for a wide array of the
young, old and the ones in between to reevaluate our lives, albeit for a few
brief seconds. If you saw the chance once, chances are it challenged your
ethical choices and made you question them.
It also brought the environment into a
clear, crisply worded, unambiguous rendition of the destruction humankinds are
wreaking on the planet. While it sounded nice and was lyrical enough, the great
Indian middle class had little to answer to the philosophical observations from
the lines , ‘O Eco-friendly, nature ke rakshak. Main bhi hoon nature’ and ‘Pata
hai bahut saal pehle yahan ek jungle hota tha. Ghana bhayanak jungle. Phir
yahan ek shaher ban gaya, saaf suthre makan, seedhe raaste, sab kuch saleeke se
hone laga. Par jis din jungle kata, us din parindo ka ek jhund yahan se hamesha
ke liye ud gaya’.
We were protesting yes. But we had been
coopted. We could protest but we cannot protest about all that is wrong with
our relationship with nature, after all Jordan mentions that it is a bhayanak
jungle. We live in these cities after all. We need the mines after all. Saddaq
Haq was truly the rarest and the last of the great exhortations to change our
lifestyles and we conveniently let it pass. In the interlude, we have grown
prosperous but nature has taken a beating.
His lyrics were outstanding but something
about Jordan was unsettling. Blank eyes, a loss of imagination, a feeling of
dejection and non-committal anger without a sense of direction, Jordan was the
classic rebel without a cause. One difference was that he enthused not just 16
year old kids, but adults well into their middle ages. Weighed under a
debilitating new corporate culture, with access to ample money but wishing for
the good things of our slow childhoods, it was a reminder of the hollow shells
that we had become. He was just us, just more good looking and with a longer
side burn.
His rebelliousness had ambiguous origins,
shallow as many claimed that he was. Yet, not for a moment did he claim that he
was a saint. He only followed the path of Buddha. He saw pain, felt it, saw
society’s disinterest and decided to internalize the pain. He was just angry
and while grown ups may not like to hear it aloud, being angry at the world is
not odd. Everything may be alright with you but you may still anger and pain.
You may still want to shout out and demand for justice for adivasis in a remote
corner of the world. You were alive and you have a right to be upset.
The song almost kindled hopes for a revival
of the Free Tibet movement. Never before and never after did a few seconds of
footage bring a passive resistance to the centerstage. The song did that and as
if to go for the jugular, provoked a nation’s nerve by asking questions of
injustice. Injustice towards Kashmiris and towards Punjab, towards the trees
and the birds, It asked us questions but many of us did not pay heed.
10 years have passed. Ranked 28 as the top
100 Bollywood album of all times, the song has a dedicated fan following, the
issues it raised remain uncannily alive, yet its moment passed in those
definitive years of the early 2010s. We remember it now for its rather
surprising grasp of the world of rock music yet Jordan, if he were real would
still be searching for the birds that flew away from the city, never to return
again. Jordan told us, involuntarily perhaps, that in our greed, we are on a
march towards a collective suicide.
Robert cut him off…. Joshi, Joshi, Chill
down. We are not on the end of our times, just in Girmint where time does not
seem to exist. Yes, drawled Joshi and looked at his watch, Time to sleep. And
we soon slept, in the very house where so many games were played and dreams made,
milestones reached and trees climbed. There we were, strangely clumped
together, as if we were pups stretched over their mother. We did not look out
of place; we were the place ourselves.
