Lalpania Diary 1

Blue houses with red flowers and green vines drawn on the doorway. Chipia Buzurg, where a lone panwari sits by the railway track, rajnigandha streamers hang from his little cubicle. "seks rogi, gupt rogi mile baba kamruddin bangali se".
I turn off the light after finishing "A Happy Death" and suddenly notice the world outside that my lamp had blinded from my view. Lying on my belly, in the glow of the phone I can see my own sleepless eyes looming over the nightscape of phantom trees and mofussil towns. Wake up in the middle of the night to the smell of molasses, prolonged violent shivers pass through the train.
Dhanbad. "Gaya Muslim Pehelwan Hotel". Ford showroom one minute and tiny hills and fields the next. A little boy with glasses too big for his face stands intimidatingly with his legs spread apart and his hands on his hips at the gate of his house. People queue up with jerrycans at the hand pump, getting drenched in the rain. A puja pandal plays bhajans in the tune of 'Brazil'. A pillion on a bike with one bakri tucked under each arm. Mum viciously combing her daughters hair before school.

Houses with their red flags flying. Shops, tractors, buses, tools and implements are worshiped and decorated for Vishwakarma puja. Schoolgirls with ribbons in their chotis cycling in the road that puts all CWG Delhi chaos into perspective. The bridge was made 25 years ago by the Bihar government (before this was Jharkhand). The dam stretches endlessly like a sea, beyond the hill on the other side is Lalpania. Two kids help their dadaji cross the road. Dadaji has a red pagdi and blue checked lungi and a very white beard. Women bathe in the ponds with gamchas tied around them, chewing neem sticks. The familiar curved shapes of men squatting, smoking beedis, chatting, looking at passersby with a critical eye.
Ma and mama meet. Dono hypochondriacs apni apni bimariyon ki charcha karte hain. I'm watching my not so little cousin play Area 51. I never thought I'd be the person to say 'Kitna bada ho gaya hai tu" but when someone you used to call "bauna rakshas" has become 6 feet tall, tab toh banta hai yaar. He's telling me about the Naxal situation here. He has a very endearing, rapid, matter of fact way of talking. It's good to see a 13 year old who isn't precocious. He wants to show me everything, the back yard, the tricks Billu the dog/horse can do (Scooby, 11 years old, the most docile Pomeranian I've ever met, looks on with a detached and tranquil smile on his face, probably thinking "heh, kids".), his dad's gun, the grenade they found, his wind up clock. Ma and mama talk about their childhood, their parents in very spiritual terms. They talk of 'curse' on my nani's family. My great grandfather killed an Afghan in front of his wife during the Anglo-Afghan wars. The wife cursed my nana saying that his descendants will suffer. All deaths, depression and ills in the family are conveniently explained away by the curse. According to two talli siblings, we are spared from it because of Nani. She took it all on her frail self. 4 beers down and they get sentimental.
We went for a little walk after siesta. The rocks all bear the mark of water, the little stream flows hard in the peak of monsoon. The market is bursting in neon light, everyone is dressed to the nines for Vishwakarma puja.I can hear the strains of lascivious Bhojpuri disco. The women sparkle in their saris, the men, high on mahua babble incoherently and the local studs check out girls. At the thermal power station, one of the only signs of Lalpania's existence on google, the lights and smoke are 24x7. Huge fish wriggle in the muddy water, the workers change shifts.