Living Conditions in a small town during 1940s: Jhalu, my house

Living Conditions in a small town during 1940s: Jhalu, my house

One can not imagine the living conditions in a small town like my own town, Jhalu. Here, I would like to share with you my impressions  as how we lived in a small house during 1940s. The basic amenities were not there and we were so many people living as joint family in that house. After living in urban areas and big cities and now living with all modern , perhaps the best facilities in USA and Canada, it is simply not imaginable about those poor conditions. A few years back, I took my children and grand children to my town to given an idea as how we lived in that house.

I come from a small town, kind of a rural setting . About my village , I have written somewhere else in detail. https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7434278182063497637/2213017834987711381

My house like other houses in the neighborhood was a small house, and my family lived independently in that house without sharing any one. All of us, my brothers, sisters ( seven of us )  , my parents and my grandparents lived in that house.
The house had two medium size rooms, two small rooms ( kothries ) on the ground floor ; two rooms and a common toilet on the first floor . The toilet was open toilet without any door or roof. It has to be cleaned every day morning by Mehtrani /janitor . It was highly  unhygienic , can not be imagined now that worms could be seen all over in the toilet space with naked eyes. foul smell from the toilet all around and the flies would be hovering all over.
No bathroom , either you go to the well side or fetch the water from the well and take bath on a small raised platform (chabootri ). Normally gents and boys used to take bath outside on well side and ladies and girls in side on chabbootri. A very small kitchen just for cooking the food and keeping a few utensils.. Our roofs were not cemented, only made with clay which used to leak during rainy season and lot of clay used to be washed away to be replenished every year before rains. Our room floors were also not cemented . They were also made of clay , used to be maintained by cow dung paste with special clay occasionally. Even our court yard was also the same; you can imagine the condition during raining season.. No proper ventilation as rooms were made wall to wall and houses in the neighborhood were made wall to wall. I wonder as where we used to store our personal things and school books etc..Not enough space for every one..But one could imagine as so many people were using this small housing facility ( may be up to 500 sq, ft in all ) for toilet, shower, and sleeping and all other activities There was no electricity or gas facilities during those days, storing materials for cooking was also limited. For lights in the night , we used to have either oil lamp (Diya) or Kerosene

oil lantern.  No chairs or tables or any other kind of furniture in the house; used to have various size of ordinary home made cots with locally made spreads and covers etc.The best part of the house was the chabbotra outside the house in between the kitchen and the well where all of used to sit in the evenings during summer days. Myself and my grandfather used to sleep there during summer.
But I think that we managed all this with no complaints what so ever.In fact life was simple and going..Our needs were limited and we were contended whatever we had. It was not the condition only of our house or our living, all other families in the town were living with the same conditions. Perhaps many other families in the worst conditions than ours.I wonder as how the guests and visitors were also accommodated in that limited accommodation?
During late 1950s and early 1960s, my father renovated the whole house with brick flooring all over; changing the walls in the first floor with big size windows etc. Electric connection was also taken with moderate electrification of the house with light bulbs and a fan in one room. The look of the house changed to be more beautiful and comfortable.
I love my house where I lived for most of my childhood and visited till my parents lived there. It is now gone, sold now to several hands. In fact, nothing is there, the shops, the other houses of other family members; our land, our gardens etc. all gone, nothing remains there to say that this is my village or this is my house. Well, nothing is permanent.

you may ask some questions like as the toilets were cleaned on daily basis? How the guests were accomodated on special occasions llike weddings etc? How the religious rituals like SatyaNarain Katha, Sharadh , community feedings etc.were organised ? Where people used to sit without any kind of furniture?

Organized Crime: A Very Strange Incidents:

In a separate blog, I have written about the brahamin community of the town. These are my childhood recollections from when my perception was limited to understand and analyse the people and their circumstances etc. But this is a strange and exclusive story of a single brahamin family of the town. Ram Swarup Soti was our neighbour, lived with a family consisting of his three sons ( Keshav, Hari and Sooraj) and his wife. Keshav was almost of my age. His house and campus of the house was big, though main living area and boundary walls of the house were made of mud, no bricks. In the courtyard he had some trees and a small flower and vegetable garden. I very frequently visited his house and his family. I was especially attracted  to his nice flower garden. The family liked me very much and always treated me very well.
I never saw any body in the family working for income. Of course the boys were young and school going. So I wonder as what was the source of their income and how the family was managing day to day living expenses?
The family was socially isolated; though the family was a brahamin family but I never observed them performing any religious ritual. At what stage, under what circumstances, the family developed a kind of enmity with some families in the town and Soti ji became very revengeful and criminal to go to any extent to take the revenge. Lala Bhajju Mal's family (Bhajuu mal was also known as Chowkrayat: a person to guide the community for social activities) was one of the victims of his crimes. Bhajju Mal was a small business owner as grain merchant though he was doing well in his business. On one occasion, Soti ji opened the roof of his shop and burnt it; the shop was completely destroyed with its contents. It was a complete  and great loss of the property and his business; other time he mixed the poison in the floor at the grinding mill itself. Most family members were very timely saved, yet still lost their youngest son. This was a great tragedy and unbearable shock for the family. Later, the family left the town to avoid further victimization. Another family was of Dr. Dwarka Prasad. His young son was killed brutally by Soti's family just in the next house. Soti already declared that not only will he kill the boy, he will also drink blood from his heart. He did so by cutting the  chest of the boy and taking out the heart from the body. Later, he proudly declared that he did it what he said. Terrible incident, I never heard of such an inhuman act before or later in life. A devilish (rakshash act) act from a brahamin to a brahamin. I could notice the anger on his face, in his voice and his eyes. In fact, he was born criminal and his family suffered with him with his criminal acts.
Every one in the town was scared of him and would never dare to come to him or talk to him. But I was never scared though I knew all of his acts; I wonder why I was not afraid of him and his family ? The worst part was his training to his youngest son: He used to tie him with a tree and rope and used to beat him with stick for a long time. When I asked him as to what and why he has been doing to his son, he said that he is making him strong enough to tolerate any kind of pain, even the hardest beating by the police. He was preparing him to be a hard core criminal and later of course, he became one of the most famous robber and criminal of the area. He committed all kinds of crime including murders. It is very strange as how a father and mother watched their own son, turn into a criminal before their very eyes??
The family committed several crimes and in the acts of murders and counter murders among the rivals,the family vanished in these acts of crime except that one of the boy escaped, left the town and got employed in some job somewhere .
No wonder such people meet this kind of end.

Daily Worship according to Vedic Religion

According to Vedic Religion, five Devtas are worshiped daily; Ganesh ji;  Durga ji,    Shiv ji,      Vishnu ji   and SUN;

Among all the devtas, SUN is the only one who is visible to us every day; Sun  provides us and all the living beings with Light and life without any prejudice or discrimination. It rises every day to give us HIS blessings. Light means knowledge as Darkness means Ignorance. I very strongly believe that we must worship Him daily. The best way to worship Him is by chanting the  Gayatri Mantra:

ॐ भूर्भुवः॒ स्वः ।तत्स॑वितुर्वरे॑(तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं) ।भ॒र्गो॑ दे॒वस्य॑ धीमहि ।धियो॒ यो नः॑ प्रचो॒दया॑त् ॥

Proper chanting of Gayatri Mantra improves our intelligence and wisdom - a path for spirituality.

Its meaning and details are provided in several documents and websites; I would suggest:

www.AWGP.com

Born only to suffer; miseries, miseries and miseries only.

A strange but true story of a person who was born to suffer throughout her life. The story is of one of my grandmothers who lived very near to us in the main big family house.
Shri Jagan Nath was the second to youngest brother among five brothers of my grandfather . He died very young, even before I was born and after his death, his family met a very tragic end. I was told that he was not smart and very active person with no means of earning.  He was not very capable or able person to do any thing meaningful in life. He was perhaps the poorest of all his brothers, in all respects. His family gave him responsibility of attending social obligations on behalf of the family ( such as attending wedding ceremonies, other functions in the community, and funerals etc).
My grandmother was born in another nearby town, Tajpur- a famous Riyast in our region. They were two sisters with entirely different fate/destiny to live their lives.

She was married to my grandfather while the other sister was married into a very rich and prosperous family in Bijnor. Shri Ajit Prasad was the top most lawyer of those days in Bijnor . There is no comparison in the lives of the two sisters. One enjoyed the best of the world while the other suffered through out her life with all kinds of miseries and pain.
They had two sons, Krishan Kumar and Om Prakash (commonly known as OMI); all their uncles, especially one of my grandfathers, Shri  Bihari Laj ji  ( who retired as Executive Engineer, and settled down nicely in Delhi) tried to improve them and to EDUCATE them but of no avail.  They had very poor IQ and EQ. They did not do any thing in their lives except loafing around and living on the little income they had from their property and support from the family members(our family  was very strongly bound, collective and united family, impossible now to imagine that kind of cooperation and feelings for each other in the family); They lived  in extreme poverty and very miserable conditions. They had very little intelligence, common sense or understanding otherwise. All of them in that  family came together having very poor destiny. My grandmother had, perhaps the worst kind of fate, never saw any thing good in her life, very pathetic. I never saw her wearing a nice dress, eating good food etc. She struggled through out her life with poverty, starvation and all kinds of miseries.
After having two sons , she became widowed at a very young age. She had to bear the responsibility of bring up her two sons alone. They tortured her through out her life at every stage as they were born with a specific purpose to trouble her and make her life difficult and miserable. She lived in the other house of the family though used to come to our house on a daily basis for something or the other. She was comfortable only with our family. She was never free from problems and troubles. She was very nice person by her nature, very loving, affectionate and soft spoken person.  Though surrounded with all kinds of problems, I never saw her angry or disappointed. I had special consideration and great sympathy for her. I always had a desire in my heart to help her in any way. I always visited her and asked for her welfare. Her sons used to beat her to extract at even the smallest thing she had and used to ask her to come us and ask for money etc.My own family helped her in all possible way, all the time.
 I never saw her praying or worshipping, going to temple etc. as, perhaps she had lost her faith in God. I never saw her visiting any other person or family except our family. Almost socially isolated.
Years passed, her sons though now grown up and adults , but never came to age even to help themselves. Always bothering their mother for their needs.

Her younger sister in Bijnor who was very rich and prosperous visited  her very often and wanted to help her every possible way. But according to the social system an elder sister will never take any help from her younger sister, hence my grandmother never took any help from her. She tried to help her sons in all possible ways but of no use and it was somewhat never ending.

The last part of her life is really pathetic and worth mentioning here. Baba Har Prasad ji, once came from Muzaffarnagar and scolded Dadi ji that she is the only one who has given her sons undue shelter and support and spoilt them. Let her come with him to live in Muzaffarnagar  leaving them alone behind on their fate. This way they will learn their lesson and will do something to live with out depending on her. Fed up with her situation and every day trouble from her sons, she decided to go with him to Muzaffarnagar for some time After she left they started doing some thing here and there as no options left for them., Krishna Kumar  was working in a watermelon farm as watchman , was caught by LOO ( very hot and dry air during the month of May, causing dehydration and many other ailments to the population) and ultimately by severe Cholera suffered a terminating situation and died in a very short time, all of a sudden. Due to poor transportation and medical facilities in the town, he could not be given adequate and proper treatment. Perhaps, he could have been saved if timely help was available for him to take him to District Hospital in Bijnor.(Perhaps, he was not alone, as in those days, how many would have died in the town with out proper or adequate medical facilities?). Dadi ji was called back immediately after his death from Muzaffarnagar, and for what? Just to mourn her elder son. She was terribly shocked and saddened and was broken down from this event. She was very much unhappy, angry, frustrated and disappointed with everyone in the family. She had no option except to accept the fact of the life. She became very quiet and silent after she lost her elder son.
My grandfather, assessing the situation, thought perhaps the marriage of the younger one may bring some relief to her and a difference in her life. He  arranged the marriage of Om Prakash, the younger one with a  girl from a village in Garhwal . Our family arranged this marriage(rather bought that girl for Rupees 5000/-, which was very common practice in those days for the rich people). Anandi Chachi was one of the most beautiful women in our family. She was quite young and certainly no match for Om Prakash who later never cared for her, never treated her as his wife, had no love, attraction or association at all with her. It was his incapability to give any importance to any relationship , not only to his wife. However, it gave some consolation to Dadi ji in her grieved situation. She got busy in looking after her with some hope for the future. The burden of expenses, directly and indirectly came to my grandfather.
Time passed and Dadi was blessed with a grandson, very handsome boy . She forgot all the previous sufferings and got busy looking after  the child. She was very happy, satisfied and contended with this changed situation. I used to go very often to meet Dadi ji as I had great sympathy with her and she was also very affectionate to me. She was very glad whenever I visited her. Once, she asked me that I must take care of this boy and develop him. I promised her to do so and she had a trust in me. I also decided that I will do my best to bring up the boy . After a few years, when the boy was about five years old, he got very severe attack of smallpox and died with its complications(again a case of poor medical care and facilities at home and in the town). Dadi was completely shattered and completely exhausted with the calamities and miseries of life; tolerated the loss of her husband at her young age; tolerated the death of her adult and fully grown son and now the last hope of the beloved grandson is also gone. After the death of her son, frustrated and ill treated by her husband, Chachi ji went back her home in the hills not to come back again. Dadi ji was left alone to bear all the sorrows and loneliness. She died soon after that. No one cared for her son Omi after her death.  He wandered here and there and survived perhaps a few years with bare minimum resources and died in mysterious circumstances. The government did all the last rites. During his last years of life for his survival, he sold out whatever property was left after the death of his mother ( a small house, some shops etc.) .
This is the end of the family, their property, and everything . I do not understand as why God punished Dadi ji and that family so much that they never saw any thing good in their life except the troubles, miseries and sorrows all the time. VERY TRAGIC END. I do not understand the purpose of their coming to this world and their existence.

THAR DESERT, Rajasthan

While working for ONGC, during 1968-69, I was posted in Jodhpur to work in a seismic party headed by SK Verma. We were working deep in the Thar desert very near to the Pakistan boarder . The experience living and working in that area is worth describing here.Personal experience of living in that special and harsh environmental conditions and dealing with different kinds of people working in the party is really quite unique. In fact, the people including the party chief sent over here to work in this exploration party were under punishment of some kind or the other , transferred as the bosses in Head Quarters were not happy with them. ( My own story is quite funny; my immediate Boss called me to tell me that I am transferred to Jodhpur; I said to him that is fine; He was not satisfied with the response, perhaps expected me to pray/ request him not to transfer me for that place; He called me again and told that do I know the harsh conditions of working in the  desert and also working with kind of people etc. In reply, I have to say to Mr. MNS Rao, the Boss that do not worry Sir, I am always prepared to work even in the hell so far working with you and ONGC; and finally, I was transferred) .Dealing with such people was not easy. NC Sharma, PN Mathur were other two more geophysicists working in the party. We were working in Ghotaru area covering upto Shahgarh. Names of the places were given not as they were the villages or townships of any kind but they were known with other identifiable marks like a water well etc.
From Jodhpur to our camp Ghotaru, one has to go through Jaisalmer , Ramgarh, Gamnewala and Longenwala. Jodhpur to Jaisalmer was a tar road and Jaisalmer is the last or terminal Railway station in this area; also Jaisalmer is the biggest town in Thar desert area with lots of tourist attractions.From Jaisalmer to Ramgarh is also tar road and Ramgarh is also the last small town with stable population in this area. After Ramgarh, there is no road , it is only the desert with sand dunes of varying sizes. We have to change our mud tred tires to sand tred tires in Ram Garh. Our drivers were very experienced ones from the local area and knew every bit of the place. It was possible to reach from one place to another only with the help of these expert drivers. Our vehicles were strong ones with high powered engines , could climb those sand dunes without much problems. The journey from Ram Garh to Ghotaru was really treacherous , difficult with lots of ups and downs on the sand dunes. The desert is just empty without any visible vegetation or living animals. The journey is monotonous and full with wilderness; tiresome and takes more than twelve hours if the weather conditions are favourable ( no dust.storms and other disturbances ); During our work, we combed almost the whole north western part of Thar Desert.
The work was interesting, quite different what we used to do in plains and other areas, mostly because of the sand cover of several feet ; topography of the area, having no land marks, even the temporarily created land marks by our surveyors used to  disappear due to sifting sand.;weather conditions being overbearingly hot and dust storm etc.So, mostly our work was done during night.
Our camp was - Ghotaru camp was established on mostly flat and hard surface though surrounded by sand dunes. One of the partial camp was in Shahgarh, very northwest side of the desert. Typicaly, there was no flat place where we could put two tents together ; it was so uneven place on a sand dune.
Camp was fairly big as big as of any other seismic party camp should be. We had all the facilities for living; used to get a few hours of electric supply from our own generating unit; used to have one big air conditioned trailer for our office work equipped with wireless communication set; wireless communication set was necessary to be working in the  field  to know each other,s location and situation; also to communicate regularly with Head Quarters in Jodhpur- a really very useful and effective means of communication and being connected with each other. We had regular supply of drinking water from Longenwala which was just around 40 kms from our camp.  Our camp was just about 20 miles from the border with Pakistan. In this area, as there was no local population, only source for our labour force was from nearby villages on the other side of Pakistan. Our drivers were quite familiar  and knew all those places.So most of our helpers were from Pakistan , most of them muslims- very hard working, sincere and honest . I must not forget to mention the name of our security guard and my personal care taker- KARIMA.
In my next blog, I would be writing about the living conditions and experiences in Ghotaru camp.

Introduction; Blogging course; Assignment #1

I am Davendra K Gupta, now a retired person live in Canada since 2000.
I was born in a small town , JHALU (Bijnor), Uttar Pradesh, India in 1938. My town is a kind of village with a population of about 8,000 then in 1930s with meager facilities of basic things like education, health , transport and infrastructure.Had a junior High School with Hindi and Urdu Language mediums only ; no health facility of any kind; no good roads in the town and connecting town with other towns and hence no road or rail transport facilities for traveling; no electricity.
It was really hard to live and get education or to do anything meaningful over there. From this town to another town ...., I have been going to various places for my education without any guidance and mentoring as what to do in life. I was not alone in this situation , this was the fate of all the children born in this town; almost no education for the girls except for a few up to primary school only. Any how I completed my education from the most prestigious University in India , Banaras Hindu University in 1961; I got my M.Sc, Degree in a very special subject in those days- GEOPHYSICS;
I started my career as a teacher of a secondary school, then as a Chemist , later as Geophysicist and Documentalist with ONGC ;  , finally I retired as a Professor teaching Library and Information Science  courses at various levels in Nigeria (West Africa) University of Ibadan , Ethiopia ( East Africa ), Addis Ababa University,
Married in 1961 and I always moved with my family ( my wife, son and daughter ) to all the places of my working; I got vast and varied experience of living and working in various places, situations and communities in India and in Africa, Later , after my retirement, living in USA and Canada.
I got opportunity to interact with different people all over.
Traveled to Singapore, Indonesia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Lesotho, France, UK, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, and USA ,  
During all these years of my life, I have gathered very rich experience from various communities, cultures, places and situations. I wish to share this with my friends, relatives and others who may benefit from it.They may learn from my mistakes and from experience and knowledge , can easily apply in their practical life.
I especially want to cover topics on Social Capital and Spirituality and Destiny etc. I have already written some of my blogs on these topics and got good feedback. I hope that people will certainly benefit from the writings in my blogs.
I look forward to write more and more and expect good feedback from my readers and followers.