Growing up in Durgapur

What was Durgapur like in the days when I was growing up here?

Much quieter than it is these days, of course, much greener and with much more of wide open spaces which I sorely miss now. Far fewer vehicles on the roads (when my father bought a ‘Jawa’ motorcycle in 1967 hordes of people came over to marvel at it). No mobiles, no TV, no computers and video games; no shopping malls either. Private telephones were a rarity, and they all had four digit numbers (ours was 2788), had to be dialled, and nobody had heard of caller line identification. Today’s children hear about ‘trunk calls’ as though they were fairy tales. Far less dust and grime in the air, too. White skinned foreigners were a much commoner sight, though – we knew too little to distinguish between British and Russians and Germans, of course, but there were certainly no Chinamen around, except for those who made shoes and pulled out teeth in Benachity market. The first high pressure sodium vapour street lamps were put up on Central Avenue in 1977, I think.  High society flaunted huge American Dodges, Plymouths and Studebakers…oh yes, there were quite a few libraries around. The one at Durgapur Club was well-stocked, there was Anurupa Devi Smriti Pathagar for Bengali readers, and even a tiny outlet of the British Council: unthinkable in this age of philistines.

Children live different lives from adults. As Tagore in his childhood, though physically confined by and large to the four walls of the house in Jorasanko yet roamed all over the wide world in his imagination aided by his tutors and books, I grew up seeing very little outside the DSP township until my fourteenth year, so I knew far more of the great world outside than I did of my own town. I remember only occasional trips to the barrage before that, so even going to AVB township on the invitation of a friend was an adventure to remember, and likewise a bus trip through the nascent Bidhan Nagar, where I now live. It was like visiting another country, almost, and what I remember best is making a bicycle trip through the same place soon afterwards, thrilling to the knowledge that the streets I was passing through, bordered by dense jungle on both sides, would be the sole preserve of armed and vicious dacoits after dark (it was almost like that as late as 1990 on the same road which is now a blaze of multicoloured neon lamps and choc-a-bloc with guest houses, restaurants and hotels, humming with merrymaking crowds till late at night – where fireworms glowed and jackals howled even 25 years ago). And the hot and happening, crowded and bustling City Centre area was an open wilderness well into the 1980s. Yet, as I was telling my daughter only the other day, the really strange thing is how little  the town has changed in more than three decades!

My early years in school were spent during the time when the tumultuous Naxalite movement was at its peak, and yet, strange to say, our lives were virtually unaffected; though one morning we gaped over the school perimeter wall at a severed and bloody human head on the road outside (that was 1971), I worry much more about my daughter’s safety on the roads today, thanks to the reckless motorbike-crazy and often drunk kids zooming around, than our parents ever worried about us. I can hardly remember my parents asking where I had been when I came home late, morning or evening, wandering around the township on my bicycle. I travelled far and wide on that bicycle, as far as Panagarh and Ranigunj, even, yet it amazes me that I had never heard of Garh-jungle with the Shyamarupa temple nor about the little village of Kenduli on the Ajoy, famed for the medieval poet Joydev and the annual festival of bauls held in his honour, until I was well into adulthood…

Festivals like Holi and Diwali were observed in a much  more communal spirit, and therefore enjoyed much more, in our day. Kali-pujo was a red-letter day in my calendar, because my normally aloof father got actively involved with me and some of my friends in making fireworks with our own hands: truly a labour of love, if ever there was one (he wasn’t quite as successful in teaching me the art of playing with marbles and of flying kites). And today’s children have no idea of the fun we had organizing picnics (chorui bhaati) all on our own, with no adult help or supervision!

I was very fond of swimming, always, and Durgapur Club had a pool where I luxuriated for hours every day all through the long hot summers (and first discovered the charm of looking at shapely legs! Unlike in these much more 'modern' times, there was no gender segregation in the pools then. Also, I didn't notice so many schoolgoers wearing charmed amulets in my day. So much for progress). Many of my boys and girls might be surprised to know that at least up to the age of twelve, when I went down with a long spell of nagging illness (and turned for solace and comfort almost wholly to books) I was not above playing a lively game of cricket or football, ping pong or badminton, with any friends who were available.

As I have said elsewhere, my mother, her brother, and most of all my grandfather richly filled in much of my time with their friendly companionship and endless storytelling. To them I owe most of my teaching skills, such as they are.

For the rest, it was books, books, books all the time – an endless number of them, in both English and Bangla, on every conceivable subject under the sun.  Books have made me the kind of person I am: no two opinions on that. And some teachers. Most teachers in my life, as in most others’, were brutes or bores, but I think I was lucky to have an unusually large number of teachers who made strong and good impressions on me through my childhood. To them, a silent but deeply respectful bow in passing.

Summers were hotter in those days, I think, and only the very rich had airconditioning at home, so we really knew what blistering afternoons and sweltering nights meant. Winters have definitely grown milder: one no longer has to shiver deliciously under blankets these days until one is warm enough to fall asleep. The rains were wonderful to watch then, and thankfully so they are even today, living as I do amidst a verdurous ambience, and where waterlogging is not a perpetual menace.

Oh, this I forgot to mention: I have lived in 13 (or is it 14?) different places in the same town, including this, hopefully my last, house. That should be odd, I think. My own daughter has lived all of her first 15 years in the same house...

Memories have grown dim, sketchy and jumbled up with the passage of years, so I sense the imminent danger of this becoming a ramble making sense to no one at all. So let me pause and wait for readers to start commenting. It is their remarks that will make me decide whether it would be prudent to continue reminiscing.