Friendly Neighbourhood

 Trapped in a citadel.  I refuse to escape. Neither shackles nor guards. Manacled with fear. I’m here to stay.

 In being a member of a training institution, it is an obligation to have a military bearing and dress smartly at all times. A part of it is also having a proper haircut. Going to a barber every fortnight becomes almost a duty except for those blessed with low or no growth of hair. To accomplish the task, I used to visit a barber shop located at Naria Tiraha, which was less than 100 m from my house. The proprietor, Salman was an enthusiastic and energetic character, who loved to talk. Standard feature to qualify as a barber I think. Right next to it was a small Shiv temple, one of the millions here in this land of Bhole Baba. The pujari as usual was an old but not a frail man in this case. “Jai bholenath Panjitji” greeting from Salman, startled me a bit. The reply of the priest was simple. He called out, “ Bhole baba ki jai miyan, EiD kaise rahi.” It was as if Salman was issued a licence to speak continuously for next half an hour. He of course took a break after every few minutes ...

Kher Kalan used to be a small village, about 100 houses scattered around zigzag, narrow, brick laden lanes. The road from the state highway, running north of it, was a dirt track used normally by Tonga or a Bullock cart and of course bicycles. The road skirted the village and went further south by few more miles, to another, even smaller, village called Taali. Residents, mostly migrants from Pakistan in this belt, were farmers with their own land and some others who were part of self sufficient daily activities like a baniya, a carpenter, a primary school etc. The region was reasonably prosperous, mainly due to the old  but functional irrigation system from the British era. A small canal which fed the village fields ran about two miles to the east at its boundary. It doubled as a limit for most of the residents, except for our duo of Prakash and Jasmeet, who used to cross it daily for going to the high school in the town named Hajipur. A rarely used, narrow walking track from the v...