Today, life has changed not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic but also other inhuman challenges that go on unabated and unresolved, no matter how fair our intentions are. Consequently, this is a no-holds-barred description of the town it ultimately had become and in which I live and still love.
Living in Alwal, which was once a true paradise for me and my unforgettable childhood friend Rajveer (Raju), these days feels like being in a high-stress war zone. Raju moved out a long time ago, and fortunately, he didn't have to witness the drastic change in our childhood cantonment town where we grew up in the 1980s. Alwal had transformed beyond recognition.
Alwal is hardly the same as the once-spacious suburban town where we grew up; it has changed so much in the last few years. These days, it typically feels like we are subjecting ourselves to the daily wrangling of one Shakespearean tragedy after another. These are the same catastrophes that, in Raju's dorm, we used to read about in comic books years ago.
Traffic signals every few meters, bureaucratic obstacles, and detours abound on the main road that this town has only but one. Police checkpoints are frequent, which makes your drives even more challenging. To add to the infernal chaos, the variety of vehicles on the road, including new cars, SUVs, cabs, bike taxis, itinerant scooters, and motorbikes that move unpredictably, erratically, zigzagging, scampering, and manoeuvrings like helter-skelter making it terrifyingly gruelling for other drivers to navigate - all contribute to the PANDEMONIUM. Auto-rickshaws (like their infamous state government bus drivers), who are the de-facto abusers of the already cranky transport system and a continual source of aggravation for those who put up with their nonsensical hero-giri, add to the humungous transportation woes of the once quiet and peaceful town.
Furthermore, it is a common occurrence that overloaded trucks and tipper lorries are almost always driven recklessly by unkempt lunatics, traveling bullies, and vagrant harassers. The scruffy crackpots show off their inflated egos by dressing silly in oversized and goofy-looking sunglasses and flaunting their false sense of importance and heft to make people uncomfortable or to cause distress and agony (even when not provoked) to others, causing distress and endanger other drivers. Despite what you and I would like to believe, things are not improving in our world.
**
Mean-spirited and ever-ready to erupt into violent road rages at any moment have become the norm on any given day, not just in this once-beautiful, hallowed, far-off town but everywhere. In our constantly chaotic days and nights of this century, the ever-present problem is ubiquitously and universally tedious and has come, unfortunately, to represent all our troubled lives. Our days are thrown into permanent disarray.
Alwal town looks starkly different than it did 20 to 30 years ago.
Our small commuter town was long ago known for lush greenery and some of the scenic expansive spaces one might ordinarily expect in a spacious suburb like the one behind the now demolished cinema theatre called S. Talkies, which does not exist anymore, as well as the Sub Area, which has preferred a more spruced-up look of late. The Army-controlled Sub Area had raised several gates around its extended domain to prevent civilian movement, trespassing, or undue interference with the Army's legitimate right to protected property and operational security. Our old Trishul Park campus is also an out-of-bounds Army-protected area, rightly designated as off-limits to unapproved public access.
S. Talkies was a decent single-screen "family" theatre. In addition to Hollywood blockbusters like First Blood and Rambo, we saw films such as Naseeb, Namak Halaal, Tarzan, Souten, Laawaris, Nagina, Mard, Andhaa Kaanoon, Ilzaam, Teri Meherbaniyan. However, it, too, fell prey to the voyeuristic patronization of all things 'Adult' and the sleaze-biz of lousy exotic foreign flicks, which we never saw, not even one.
In the late 1980s, the S. Talkies had degenerated into a venue that showed B-grade English and Hindi films. It ran for two more decades, screening all kinds of movies. Probably, in the early 2000s, the proprietor, who owned the old-fashioned theatre in partnership with others, preferred post haste to sell the entire land to a private real estate contractor who promptly demolished the old theatre and built in its place a jumbo-sized ugly-looking residential cum commercial complex that defied common sense but perhaps excellent business sense! Washing his hands off the property, the proprietor, a very decent man though, opened up a bakery shop soon after and got his young and only son to keep the new enterprise up and running. With its organized biscuits platter, onion samosas, dairy milk chocolates, spongy brown cakes, cream rolls, and pastries displays, it was the only bakery shop in the whole of Alwal town; back in the early 1990s, there was no other bakery shop barring this. The current owner and proprietor of the bakery is the original proprietor of the S. Theatre's son, who took over from the late owner: his father, who, sadly, passed away a few years ago.
**
Raju had already gone into the distant past in the summer of '88 after writing his ninth-grade final exams. As I write this today, I am grateful to God that he was not present to witness these weird and dreadful changes in our old home of Alwal or Trishul Park; he would not have approved of any of it. On the other hand, however, as staying here would have undoubtedly resulted in my having to stoically endure the continual pain of observing these drastic (unlikable) changes first-hand, I regretfully bore the brunt of all that came later, had to. I genuinely wanted to escape it all forever but was unable to. And as time passed, I continued passionately to long for the good times I had with him. Having a nostalgic bent, I forget nothing. Alwal has changed forever.
(To be continued...)
By Arindam Moulick
By Arindam Moulick