Solitude injects an overdose of nostalgia , and climbing years, an onset of amnesia. In stray moments when lonesomeness or schmaltz gets a grip over me for no particular reason, the house in front morphs into a tombstone with the epitaph ‘ fifty years ago, here lay a 160 ft by 40 ft moat, deep enough to drown a man ‘.That moat had held me in thrall.
From the balcony, I used to watch it awaken and take on a life on its own. Half a century later, the house in front still causes flakes and scrapings of reminisces to chip off my memory evoking wistfulness, and its nemesis, forgetfulness. Try as hard as I can, the faces that gave it a life don’t come back but recall of life that the moat spawned never fails me.
In the 60s when the housing cooperative society started plotting the land for allotment to members, this finger- shaped moat found no takers, the cost of filling it up was too prohibitive. The society designated it a park area and forget about it. It never had the money nor the collective will to develop it . I wonder why the didn’t go for a a swimming pool, it would have been more financially feasible. Anyway, it remained in its pristine state of nature , a 6500 sq ft expanse of dark green fetid water. A mute witness to frenetic house building activity all around it till the evil forces of urbanisation swallowed it up whole. In between, it lived, grew old and finally had a four storied building raised upon it as an unacknowledged tomb to commemorate an unsung glory.
The first flakes of memory recognise it as an all weather water body. Even in the scorching summer heat when lakes and rivers dry up, this pool retained some water. Those were the days when municipality was non-existent in newly colonised areas. ‘Naturally’ surrounding houses drained its waste water into the moat, thus endowing it with a perennial source of recharge.
At dawn , it became a mini Dhobi ghat without a Munna Bhai MBBS around to lend muscle. It didn’t seem too hygienic, so I asked my own dhobin who took our home washed clothes for ironing whether she used this pool. She looked at me menacingly,
‘ Have you ever seen me washing there?’
No I hadn’t . But what she next said raised my hackles.
‘ Besides, Saheb, it’s not the water but soap that washes clothes’
That left doubts to linger. We gave up any thoughts we ever harboured of sending clothes to her for washing . She continued to iron our clothes and we kept our faith with bucket and surf for washing clothes at home.
Those were the days of mushrooming khatals, our only source of daily milk. Every colony had one, so had we. One either went to one or the cows were brought to one’s doorsteps to open up her udders. You paid more for this door delivery service, but in the bargain were surer of the quality.
Naturally, the moat also became a bathing pool and watering hole for cattle with crows taking occasional free rides on their backs. They were joined later in the day by herd of pigs. Sometimes kids from the nearby tola joined them. Cows , buffaloes, crows, pigs, humans - picture perfect example of harmonious coexistence.
Then Bharat had lots of open spaces and Swatch Bharat wasn’t conceived. So anyone could dump anything, anywhere. The nearest vacant plot became the first choice open air garbage dump. Gradually vacant plots got houses built upon it , therefore , people took to disposing their household litter under the surface. Yes , you got it , the moat. Soon after municipality too moved in and laid down underground drain pipes to which all houses connected in due course. The moat lost its 24x7 source of water supply.
Under this double assault the moat wilted, its bed rose and it dehydrated rapidly, till reduced to a thin strip of land with deep dents here and there. it lost all ‘aquatic’ life and gained pre-eminence as a sundry garbage dump for all sorts of litter. The ‘once -a- moat’ , however, proved , more resilient than one gave it credit. A new set of people added a new lease of life to it. Earlier litter used to go under, now it was accessible on the surface. The rag pickers moved in , rummaging for value hidden in the garbage heaps , some went for paper, cardboard,and wood , others for polythene bags and plastics, yet others for metallic tidbits, some sort of an indivisible division of labour. The thin non-biodegradable valueless polythene ,however, was left to float freely , trespassing into compounds of nearby houses aided by gusts of wind. We were among its many victims, forced to hire labour hours to keep the compounds clean.
Meanwhile, the herd of pigs and stray dogs foraged among the litter for leftover eatables. Crows too . Before dusk fell the ‘once-a-moat’ was clear of stale, decaying food and useful litter. Operation salvage accomplished. ‘Once -a-moat’ rested for life to begin anew next day at break of dawn.
An ugly sore sight it was. Nevertheless, it teemed with life, a microcosm of a social life transforming right before my eyes under the impact of an inexorable, unrelenting Urbanising force .
Alas ! the keno phobic housing society parcelled out the ‘once-a-moat’ into three residential plots, on one of which the building now stands. Its blank walls , bland and lifeless, stare at me remorselessly. When claustrophobia strikes, my heart bemoans
‘O, where gone are the open spaces
that He gave us free ?
Let it be
More we devour ,
Less be the places
For Him to plant His foot
When He comes a calling at the final hour.
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