Part 1 - Towards Kithana
I belong to a village in Haryana, called Kithana. My father was born there and lived his first few years in the village. Then he moved out, took up a job outside and we only visited during summer holidays to meet our relatives. When we grew up, everyone moved away from there and so our visits stopped. I recently got a chance to visit my village again after 10-15 years and it was a whole new experience. Taking photographs for the first time:), looking at my community, traditions and society as an outsider and an adult, was a completely new experience for me. This article is about all that I personally saw and felt during the visit, as well as a social commentary on what I picked up during my time there.
This March when we were attending my cousin's wedding in Jind, Haryana, we decided to visit our ancestral village too, just like that. And to be honest, I was surprised by all I felt when I went back there! Given that no one stays there anymore and it’s been years since I visited, it felt very different. I also learnt a lot about the society now as compared to what it was before. Hence this blog. It will not be much of a travel article, as much as just sharing some of my experiences on the blog.
Obviously its not researched, just what I picked up in all discussions with my relatives and others. One thing that was a surprise to me was how much caste is a part of life in the society there. We, living in the cities think it doesn’t exist, but it very much does. And it will take a long time to change something so ingrained as that.
My experiences of being “home” started when we were driving towards Jind itself. It was March and the wheat crop was ready to be harvested. All along the roads, there was a golden hue of the grain. No green, only golden, it looked so enchanting! Apparently many years back, wheat was grown mostly in Punjab while chane were grown in Haryana. That’s definitely changed now based on what I saw during my entire drive.
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| Golden wheat fields |
The road to Jind was ok, at least till Rohtak. After that it was just a lot of potholes, where the choice was between the bigger and the smaller one:). So I drove till Rohtak and let my dad cover the fun part:). Surprisingly, the villages from Delhi to Rohtak didn’t even look like villages, they had cemented houses and pucca roads. Very unlike the villages I have been used to:).
While driving through Rohtak, I noticed a lot of billboards advocating people to live in peace and harmony with all. I am assuming all that was because of the recent riots in Haryana (there were Jat and then anti-Jat demonstrations in Haryana in March this year, which led to rioting and loss of lives and property). I also noticed a lot of police and security everywhere, its the first time have seen something like this in Haryana. And it was sad!
Before visiting Kithana, I spent some time in Jind and learnt a bit about the city. Apparently Jind had its own king too some time back. And an old fort, haveli and rani ka talab. None of it remains, or at least in a visitable state for tourism. The talab is now dry and lies in the centre of the market. Actually, that is true for most of Haryana, not much remains of its history, unlike the numerous palaces existing in Rajasthan.
We stayed in the Jat Dharamshala which was very well constructed (forgot to take a photo of that!). Apparently, it was about to be burnt during the recent anti-Jat agitation. Next to the Jat Dharamshala was the Agarwal Dharamshala which had a mandir too. And quite contrastingly, it played devotional music from early morning on:) (which is not too welcome when you are on holiday and don't want to wake up at 5:30 am!).
One of the days, we had a small gap in the wedding festivities and planned to go and be back from Kithana in a few hours. But the whole trip turned out to be much much longer! Kithana is about 30 minutes drive from Jind and the road passes through multiple other villages. We passed through Naguran till where the buses used to run when my dad was younger. The rest of the way to our village was not paved in those times.
As my father studied in MP, he used to often have to take the train from Jind for which he had to walk through 4 villages (~14 kms) up to Naguran. There he would get a bus to Jind and then the train to MP. And sometimes when the letters would not reach in time, there was no one to receive him when coming back on holidays and he had to walk the distance alone carrying a lot of luggage on his head. And sometimes he had to walk the distance without water! In those days, you could not drink water at a lower caste house, and if those were the only houses you came across the way, you chose to not drink! Times have really changed since then and for good.
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