Not very long ago, there was a small town in the state of erstwhile Bihar. The town was the baby of Nehruvian dream of industrialized modern India. It was born immediately after independence , when the largest Asian fertilizer factory was set up there. When the factory was inaugrated in 1952 by the first Indian Prime Minister, Jawahar lal Nehru, he had said that he was not inaugrating a factory but that he was inaugrating a temple of modern India. The town was called “Sindri”. Folklore is that the name Sindri comes from the vermillion colour “Sinduri ” . Indeed the soil was vermillion !
The houses with large lawns were well laid into wide streets. The town itself was carved out into small pockets with different house sizes. Most houses were small 2 bedroom, 1 bath about 1600-1700 sq ft but with lawns of atleast 400 sq yd or more. Then there were bigger bunglaws with 3 or more bedrooms , a servants quarter and a garage. Most houses didnt have car garages and most people didnot own a car. If they were lucky they had a scooter otherwise men were happy with their A-one brand bicycles in black paint. It was rare then to see a woman riding or driving.
The most beautiful place in the town was the Priyardarshini park, often called as Seven lakes. This was a huge park with seven manmade lakes. The lakes were connected by land or sometime by small bridges. All the passages in the park were flanked by rows of beautiful trees blossoming with flowers in the season. There was a small children’s corner which had swings and slides. Every year on 1st January, almost the entire town flocked to the park for picnicking. Almost all the years that I was growing up in Sindri, I went to that park for new year’s picnic on 1st of January. Picnic had its own concept in those days. We would go out for picnic with my father’s office friends & family. Then the second time I would go out for picnic with my shcool friends & teachers. The third time I would go out for picnic with my friends from neighbourhood.
We had an officers clubs which had indoor wooden badminton court, snooker rooms, billiards room, a TT room, a swimming pool, an officer’s bar and a huge library. This club was sort of a highlight of the small town. Every Fridays & Saturday movie shows ran in its large asbestos roofed auditorium. This was the time in 80’s when the first television was yet to set its foot in the town of Sindri. Children would run in much before the 5:30 pm show time and secure the metal folding chairs with handkerchiefs for themselves and their parents. All of us had our special place in that large auditorium. My family always loved to sit in one of the specific middle row in the left side of the aisle. We had a neighbour who always liked to sit somewhere in third or fourth row. I could never fathom then, why would someone want to sit anywhere other than the first row ? As soon as the movie rolled, the club canteen guy would spread the small stall of potato chops and mutton cutlets in his specific corner. We children, would run with our allotted pocket money to grab the snack. It always was a tough decision to allocate the money even though there were only two items. I have since tasted cutlets in the finest of restaurants but could never find anything even close to those delicious melt-in-mouth cutlets in brown paper bags. Could this be the exaggeration of my senses and fond childhood memories or were those cutlets really a masterpiece ? I will never be able to figure that out.
Oh my school ! The beautiful place where many a dreams were born ! The school was established and run by the management of the factory. The name was “Modern English High School”, but for some reason it was known as KG (short for kindergarten) school. Nothing spectacular about the school, but when I think of those days everything seems magical. There was a time for few months when we were in 6th Std. that our classroom didnot have desks & chairs. Probably the school had ordered the desks & chairs and were running short for few months. We had huge rugs spread in the classroom and we all sat on the floor for the classes with our school bags on our sides. This would sound awful to most people. Poor kids ! But the poor kids had the time of their life ! We rolled on the rug and jumped around between the classes. We werenot really very happy when the new desks/chairs arrived for the class.
The factory like most PSUs started making losses and was finally shut down sometime around 2000. The school doesnot run anymore and is now being used as a hostel for security forces. The club is run down and there is no swimming pool. The town wears a deserted look with overgrown grass & shrubs in once manecured lawns.
Where is that dream ? Where is that Sindri of joys and festivals ? Its alive in all its vibrant colours and throbbing in the hearts that were touched by it !
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