I fell in love for the first time when I was 10. With a village called Nanjundapuram. It was the last day of school and Appa had come by in his off-white Lambretta to take me back home. We made the usual stops — for casatta ice cream and Eclairs — before he took a deviation from the regular Ukkadam Road. It did not bother me much; I was in a happy space, riding pillion, resting my head on appa’s back and holding on to him as he navigated the traffic. Nothing could disturb my reverie.
And then, the smell of earth hit me. I was half sleepy, but opened my eyes to a green paradise. Coconut trees everywhere, paddy fields, sugarcane with its dreamy white flowers, banana plants that leaned with the weight of fruits, betel vines snaking up agathi trees, the river Noyyal that thundered down a small bridge…Appa stopped at an elani stall run by a paati. She sliced off the top of the tender coconut with ease and handed it over to me. The fragrance of freshly-cut elani, the salty-sweet water that trickled down my throat and my blue pinafore, the smile on the paati’s face as she cut the sliced open the elani to scoop out the sweet flesh inside, the sound of a train chugging along in the distance… for me, that was Nanjundapuram.
Years later, I drove down the same road to work. The river was reduced to an occasional trickle. The paati, now toothless, still greeted me with a smile, and now cut coconut for my son. The friendly guard at the railway gate knew my office timings by then, as he saw me zip in and out of traffic to escape the gate.
The gate meant a delay of 20-odd minutes, but it also meant a chance to watch village mongrels laze about in the early morning sun, farmers take a mid-morning break from their fields, children rush to school, their double plaits swinging as they skipped to the bus stop, and best of all, beam at the driver and guard of the train. As a child, (and even now sometimes) how I envied them!
Four years ago, all that changed. A bridge is coming up, they said. An overhead bridge that would ensure we never had to wait for the railway gate to open. At one level, I was overjoyed; at the other, I wondered what would happen to the village.
Cut to October 2014, my worst fears came true. The intervening years had been full of road diversions, gravel-filled pathways, blinding red dust and sneezing fits. We saw a half-built bridge and dreamt away, waiting for it to curve across the horizon, cresting the fields and farmhouses.
We did get a bridge, and my son whooped in joy seeing it, but my heart sank. I was looking forward to meeting the elani paati again, but she was not there — may be, the four years of no-business had sent her away elsewhere to set up shop. Even the cheerful women I would see sitting by the roadside, cleaning rice and washing clothes, had all moved. The familiar auto drivers were also gone. Worst of all, I was now driving high above the ground, seeing little of the greenery or the birds on the electricity lines.
The bridge has cut travelling time to the city, but what about this little pastoral pocket known for its fertile fields? People who were once neighbours now have to cross a bridge, beating relentless traffic, to say hello to each other. As for me, the saddest part is that I can no longer see the gate guard.
In a frenzied morning, before I knew what the day would throw at me, a happy nod and a gentle wave from the guard made me smile.
