People and places ---http://www.thecitizen.in/NewsDetail.aspx?Id=4917&Munabao,/The/Destination/To/Nowhere

Munabao :Destination to Nowhere

RAJEEV KHANNA Wednesday, August 26, 2015

For the majority of Indians, particularly the middle class fed on jingoistic diatribe of the right wing, the term border immediately brings images of the Wagah border. This is the spot on the India-Pakistan that daily witnesses a beating retreat ceremony that is marked by cheering crowds on both sides who also shout slogans against each other. In short, the Wagah border has become a major tourist destination for any Indian visiting Amritsar wishing to get their thrills from the militaristic routine every evening. 

But far away in the desert of Rajasthan is another point on the border of the two countries to which one can go for a fascinating journey. This place makes one ponder on the very concept of borders, divisions and separations. One is just consumed by thoughts. Very few people are aware of the daily local train that goes from Barmer to Munabao, the zero point station on the border. 

There is a Thar Express also that runs between Bhagat ki Kothi station near Jodhpur and Karachi, with Munabao being the place where the immigration process is carried out amid tight security.

But the journey by the morning local train is an experience in itself. Anyone who is not a resident of Munabao and adjoining villages has to obtain permission from the local authorities to undertake the 118 km journey that is completed in a little over two hours. With there being no facility at Munabao station, one has to come back by the same train after a brief halt of about an hour. One is confronted by the personnel of security agencies the moment one steps out of the station premises. On the other side is a similar station of Khokrapar in Pakistan. 

The train leaves Barmer every morning to move amidst the desert on a serpentine track. The topography has a rustic charm and beauty of it own. Small hamlets make one wonder what it would be like to live at such a place. 

The stillness of the locales makes one think of so many things, particularly about the problems that the locals face on both sides of this border on a desert landscape. If one strikes a conversation with the locals traveling on the train, they provide the traveler with a glimpse of their lives.

Water continues to be the most precious commodity in the villages. “We have a local saying that there is no loss even if one spills buckets of ghee at home but even a drop of water lost is a major loss,” said a woman traveler to this reporter. She narrated that people are largely dependent on water tankers set by the government. Then of course there are issues related to the other social parameters of employment, education and healthcare. 

“We know that we share the miseries with those on the other side. Their plight is no different. We stand divided even in our miseries and sorrows, “said another villager. 

Munabao station has nothing to offer to any visitor. The last civilian human settlement is at Jaisingder located 9 km away or at Gadra Road 38 km away. The station is marked only by the presence of some railway employees and a Border Security Force (BSF) camp outside. Just half a kilometer away is the actual border marked by a small gate. There is no tea shop, no hawker. 

Munabao has only thoughts to offer to a visitor. The stillness and the quiet compel one to ponder over man made divisions. There are so many ifs and buts that come to mind. One is unnerved thinking how a uniform landscape, culture, people and their problems are defined in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’. 

(Photographs taken by Rajeev Khanna)

Childhood Recalls

In memory of a tree

There was this tree, a rather huge one by our childhood standards. It ‘stood’ in the small grassy playground at one end of the colony. I say ‘stood’ because it was just upright without any movement even when there was a gale blowing. Its branches formed a pyramidal shape reminding me of the Christmas tress we see in our kindergarten books. I always had a burning desire to climb up to its top.

Now this approximately 50 feet high tree meant a lot to us i.e. my friends and me. Not that we had the zeal of environmentalists or something like that but purely for our selfish childish reason. It was a haunt where we could retreat from the world of our elders whenever we felt like. When we got a scolding or a spanking or were under a potential threat of getting one, we would simply run out and climb this tree. It did not matter to us whether it was a rainy day or night.

Sometimes we friends just climbed it for fun particularly in spring when dozens o sparrows and pigeons had built their nests on its branches. It was fun watching those nests with eggs and little birds that had come out of them. At times we got angry pecks from the mother birds on our foreheads and elbows. But that was a part of the game. The tree was a dormitory of a maternity hospital for these birds where evenings seemed to be the visiting hours. The noise of chirping was tremendous during the evening.

We used every part of this tree in a particular way. When we played hide and seek or wanted to have ‘confidential’ discussions or play with the birds, we would climb its branches. When it came down to playing a game of cricket we used its think base as our wickets. All that we had done to mark the wickets was to peel off the bark to a particular height. The tree never complained.

Then, whenever one of its branches cracked or hung down after heavy rain or snow, we used it for the famous ‘Tarzan swing’. In fact, we thought our skills to be better than that of Tarzan. My friends who were a bit elder to me looked at the tree a bit more rationally. For them the huge hulk of the tree blocked the breeze from entering the ground facilitating an uninterrupted game of badminton.

Then all of a sudden our tree went dry. The birds residing there migrated. Its branches started cracking when we climbed it. It had turned into a skeleton ever since the people from the electricity department tampered with it by running various wires around it and putting a transformer right next to it. Our elders used to say that it was ‘dying’ but we kids felt it was being ‘murdered’. Finally one day it was hacked or what we felt ‘buthereced’.

Fourteen years after the ‘slaughtering’, the same playground appears to be a corpse whose soul vanished with the fall of the tree. The present generation of kids plays cricket there but they have to pile up bricks for wickets. Their game of badminton is interrupted regularly by strong gusts of wind. In frustration they exclaim, “There would have been no problem if there was a huge tree over here.”

I just smile on listening to them Besides, they don’t even know the art of climbing trees because they don’t even imagine that there was a tree right where they stand desiring for one.

It is only we friends [now grown ups] who pay homage to the departed soul by remembering it whenever we get together on festivals and remember our childhood.