Baroda visit

This was written in 2002

"We came out of the house one morning- the birds outside were crying frantically. A green snake had climbed up the tree, and was devouring eggs from the nest one by one. This was last week."

My aunt was telling about the frequent sighting of snakes in the area.I was sitting in my aunt's living room at the IPCL petrochemicals residential complex, in Baroda. I had arrived that morning at 4:30 AM by train, and my uncle and cousin had gone to pick me up. It was now mid morning.

I had taken the same train the previous afternoon that I had taken to visit Bombay. This time, my fellow passengers were two corpulent scrap metal traders,who were busy amusing themselves with their cell phones with an adolecent curiousity characterestic of many people here who are still amazed by this gadget.
Every time the train would pass through a new city, they would try calling each other up on their cell phones to see if their roaming plan was working. I did not talk with them, we had to sleep early because my destination would arrive so early in the morning.

"The snakes hide under the leaves and thick bushes. This is why we do not have much vegetation in our backyard. Yes, we grow some vegetables sometimes. And we have
closed off the lower windows with iron meshes, just in case...sometimes the snakes get in stay hehing your gas stove. As for the servants in their quarters-
they are used to this hard life. They can handle it."

The servants are attached to this house-they have been provided separate housing behind the bungalow. They get free accomodation, and in return they work for
you for a bare hundred rupees a month ($2). My aunt says that the servants can afford to eat just once a day. They fast frequently, citing religious reasons. But the truth is that they cannot afford food at times.
"Yes, there is poverty in Gujarat..even though there are affluent businessmen", says my aunt. But it may not be obvious to an uninformed visitor. A few years ago, three American exchange students came to live in the area. Looking around, they found a mostly middle class neighbourhood- IPCL engineers, scientists in theresearch lab (like my uncle), technicians, personnel managers living in a peaceful township secluded from
the crowded and filthy city life of Baroda. Free schools for IPCL employees. Wide open fields, lots of trees. "Where is the poverty?," they had asked my aunt.

"If you have to see poverty, you have to go to the villages nearby," my aunt says. The discussion now switches to the history of Baroda. A benevolent king had ruled in the last century, and helped establish a free education system, and a prominent university
(the MSU)in the city. He did not want a child walking to school in the sun- so he planted trees along all roads-hence the name of the city, from the type of tree that was planted.

The benevolent kings descendents still live in the palace in the city. Perhaps they overestimate their importance- photography is banned in front of the palace gates.
But I wonder who really cares about them now ? Parts of multiple palaces have been given off to the local authorities. Parts of it now seem to be a large playground, with ruins and run down buildings in varied states of neglect. This is all I could see of
Baroda- the university near the station, and the palace gates.

The next day, I went in to the surrounding villages. My cousin is a 17 year old high school student.He is amazingly mature compared to my other cousins. I had
not met him in years- though I had heard about the time when he locked up his father in a room upstairs and stuck upa sign out side the door: "Do not open. A
mad man lives here." My cousin had learnt to ride his fathers scooter on his own in secret. Today, he first gave me a lesson on how to ride a scooter (I had wanted to learn this for so many years), and then took me out to a place called Sindh road. "Sindh Road"
was a big place for him and his friends. Its a bridge over a river that finally drains itself in the Arabian sea.

If you go there early morning, the sunrise looks beautiful. We reached Sindh road quite late- we got lost, explored some nearby ravines on foot, then got directions from locals before reaching the place. It did not seem that awesome as he had portrayed. But
then our senses are relative. Growing up in a small town, perhaps this is a really cool alternative to sitting in a crowded fast food restaurant nearer to the city. This did appear to be a place to bring someone special to see the sunrise, and have grilled corn sold by the poor vendors on the bridge.
Yes,this place could be beautiful.... The place is peaceful and calm.

Baroda was hardly calm a few months ago, in Feb. An insane (or perhaps deliberate) act of burning a carriage full of Hindu activists had occured in a nearby district. The response was terrible- and instantaneous. "They put some people in the ovens in the bakery. Then there was this Muslim and Hindu couple. The man ran a tutorial agency. They attacked
the building where he taught. His wife managed to live. He jumped out of the second floor to save his life, breaking both legs in the process. He could not run away, and was stabbed..." I think of the green snake devouring the eggs from the nest one by one...

My return is uneventful. Dry fields as far as I can see, waiting for an abberant monsoon. Goats and cows tied to houses next to the railway track. As the train enters Delhi, I see a dead pig on the tracks, neatly sliced in half from the middle.