The first time when I heard Manna Dey sing

My cousin Harish and I used to visit our maternal grandparents to spend our summer holidays in a tiny village called ‘Sirsangi’ located in North of Karnataka and was part of the Belgaum district. My father used to drop me there each year, an overnight journey by bus. This was something I did religiously till I was about 8 years of age and Harish used to join me over there.

Staying with grandparents for a period in excess of two months was exciting to us. Those cartons of Frooti’s, unlimited supply of mangoes, sitting inside the official jeep imitating Sunny our driver, playing in the house garden, visiting places of interest nearby, cricket and not to forget the wrath we faced from our maternal aunt for staying outside for long hours under the sun. We feared her though we loved her so much because of her expression of angst; she used to place her teeth on her lips holding a stick in her hand chasing us when we refused to come home. We eventually did end up at home at noon because of scorching heat and to have lunch.

Sirsangi being a village had repeated problems of electricity back then. Al though there were quite a number of historical sites, we seldom went out. Even if we did, I cannot recall the importance of those places. My grandmother was strict and never allowed us to venture outside the community boundary walls by ourselves. We were allowed to play in the huge open field which separated my grandpa’s office and our home.

When staying out and playing became mundane (which used to happen each day) we pleaded with our maternal aunt to switch on the TV. And we pleaded her more when there was electricity. Apart from weekends, the television programmes during daytime did not appeal us. There were no cartoons or no fights on TV. It was boring until one day we saw my grandfather bringing in a new piece of gadget and placed under the TV rack. It was a Video Cassette Recorder (VCR).

With the VCR, came a video cassette sent from Bangalore which played for an hour. It had songs from English, Kannada, Tamil and cartoons. If I remember correctly, the fifth song of the recording was a B/W video of a Hindi song. At first, it was boring and we didn’t quite know how to operate the remote and moreover my aunt would be away doing her household chores and she knew where the remote was. Nevertheless, we committed ourselves each time to watch the tape end to end.

All I remember from the song is that – there is a small gathering of people both kids and adults and behind them sat an elderly gentleman, rocking the chair. His walking stick is visible placed beside him and also seen is him patting a young girl’s head who is seated below next to the chair. There is a lady playing the piano and within seconds, he starts to utter words in phrases which had a sense of melody. Not that we knew anything about it then.

He goes on singing and the camera shifts to an idol to whom he is referring to in the song. The children who are seated also join him forming a chorus which is used as a buffer between his lines and the theme music.

 Next scene, I see a young lady away from this group in a room getting up, irritated by the song decides to shut the windows and frenetically tries to open the door of her room, but in vain. She seemed unhappy, restless and doesn’t quite know what to do. As kids looking at this video then, we too didn’t know what was happening.

The scene then shifts to the gentleman who continues to sing. At this point, it becomes unbearable to this young lady who is shown closing her ears trying hard to not just hear what’s been sung. She is not a happy person from the looks of it. The song proceeds and parallely this poor lady is shown with her tears locked in a room and unable to break free.

This is how I looked at the video and each time (innumerable times) I have watched this video I always wondered why she was crying. I would have asked my grandfather or my aunt about this or even discussed with Harish but the conversation never went on for a long time. In any case, how would they know; the only thing I remember my grandfather saying was that, he had watched this movie before my mother was born.

As soon as this song was over there was another song playing, a new adventure of 4-5 minutes set in a totally different world with another set of actors, actresses and scenarios. And in between these songs from different genre came two episodes of Tom and Jerry and an episode of Goofy.

In 1993, my grandfather retired from the services and he settled down in rural Bangalore. The VCR was neatly packed and I never saw it opened again since the shift. Even today, twenty years later it is somewhere sealed in one of the storage cabinets but no one knows where. It became redundant with each year since the advent of cable television, VCDs, DVDs and now with YouTube.

Years later sometime towards the end of the millennium, I heard this song again. The name of the movie ‘Seema’; the elderly gentleman in the video was Balraj Sahni and the furious, frustrated young girl so to speak was none other than ex-Miss India of 1950’s Nutan. The movie was released in mid 1950’s and till date I have not watched this movie and I do not know the story. My curiosity to know why she suffered during the song also died with time. And yet even today the song remains close to my heart.

It might not be the first old song I would have heard in my life, but I am quite sure ‘Tu Pyaar ka Saagar’ is not too far behind. In fact, I have watched the video of this song close to 50 times or more even before I was ten years of age. In that sense it has been ingrained just like many other songs in that video cassette.

Image Courtesy - Frontline India

This was the only song in the movie which was sung by Manna Dey. He took his last breath today in Bangalore and the first thing that came to my mind was this song. In fact every time the name Manna Dey was mentioned in any of my conversations, this song and the picturisation of the same flashes scene by scene. 

Over the period of time, I have heard many of his other songs on the radio, tape recorder, on a CD player and YouTube but none came close to ‘Tu Pyaar ka Saagar’. 

Forget about changing the entire India - How about changing our immediate surroundings??

Every day when I walk from our ‘new’ home to catch a train or a bus, my mind doesn’t stop but notice the little things around it. Be it the walking zones, restricted parking lots, pedestrian walk ways on busy roads, free drinking water fountains, sheltered bus stops with time table, multi-purpose shops, post office, banks, ATMs, parks, primary school, high school, kindergarten, play home, play grounds, restaurants, cafes, fitness centre, sports complex, dedicated garbage and recycle bins and their respective locations, trees planted, florist garden, town hall, places of worship  and a Gemeinde, in simple terms it is a municipality or a corporation office. Mind you, this is a ‘dorf’- German translation for a village and not the main city itself.

This serene village is close to the main city of Zurich. This locality reminds me of my layout, as it is termed in Bangalore. My locality in Bangalore has almost everything this village has, just that it is more chaotic and that chaos is down to lack of simple practices being adopted with time. Though there are zones of calmness, you are never away from the disorderliness. Not an intolerable situation, it just requires a degree of attention and sustained maintenance to make the change from the chaotic state. The idea is to reduce the chaos and not eliminate it.

The point that amazed me ever since I got a taste of Switzerland (since 2009) is its policy of dividing the small country into smaller Cantons (states) and each state into petite zones (Gemeinde). Each Canton has a different set of rules and four languages are spread out in these 26 Cantons; English being not one of these four languages (German, French, Italian and Romansch). On a larger scale, India resembles this system.

Depending on the region you come from, the primary language dominates the area. English is slowly making its way into the Swiss culture, though it is not compulsory to know it.

In this little country of approximately 41,000 m², there are close to 2,500 municipalities. India too has a similar mechanism. We have Union Government, states, divisions, districts, taluka (Tehsil or Mandal) which in turn is divided into Municipal Corporations, City Municipal Council, Town Municipal Council, City Panchayat or Gram Panchayat.

Any geographical location (with the best of my knowledge) in India can be traced to one of the aforementioned administrative structure of India.

Having established the basics facts and figures, the key aspect to development comes in the model of ‘drop management’. I guess I am coining this term with respect to citizens or residents becoming responsible for their nearby surroundings as a means to community development. Just like that tiny drop in an ocean. India is nothing but an ocean of people and we are all but a drop.

For starters - How many of us have to compulsorily register in the local ward before living in a particular locality? Do we have such a rule? If yes, I have not seen it being enforced and if not, why don’t we appeal to respective local wards to have such a register, which maintains the record of all the individuals that lives in that particular locality?

It is a simple process. Land-lord or a builder of a newly constructed apartment must have a clause to have a future resident/owner in the local ward office as a part of the process. It starts with this, and in the longer run, helps many residents in getting their voter ids or having to show their proof of residence and what not. A simple letter of authorisation or a local ID card is good enough. The newly built apartment complexes have such security measures to keep a check on their residents. But such issues are privately managed and lack authenticity as a proof of residence. This will also eliminate the hassles of running around houses to collect data for census or to enrol for the Aadhar card.

I have not voted when I had the only opportunity back in 2008. Since then, I have never been in my home town during the elections. And like me there are plenty of them, who were muffled by not having their names in the Voter’s list. Such confusion could have been avoided, if there were to be a simple registering process when any new occupant moves in to a new place. And when there is a need of shifting to another place or a different ward, de-registration is a process through which one can register in another municipality or ward by simply showing the deregistration letter. Similar registrations must be encouraged for private and other business establishments.

I believe this process will atleast streamline the residents * with proper housing. I know there are a lot of private associations that does this work. But, however it is, unless government is involved even at a local level, the changes and its impact will fade away. Just make it a rule, and enforce it and soon it becomes a habit.

   

Let the municipality or a ward collect a small tax from the residents if required and improvements can be seen within the ward. It would also be encouraging, if provisions are made for individuals to volunteer in their free time in getting few things done for the local area.

Secondly - To sort the parking mess, have zones marked with clear lines to highlight parking. Else collect fines, which can only be used to improve the area. Free parking, dedicated parking and public parking with a nominal fee can be allotted in each of the areas. Yes, this means you cannot always get a slot right in front of the place of interest. Well, aren’t we experiencing this already?

Thirdly - Garbage disposal is also an issue to deal with. Somewhere things have to change on this front. Throwing whatever comes to the dustbin will not help the slowly evolving recycling industries in India. There are glass, plastic bottles, cartons, papers, organic waste and other miscellaneous waste. Have a proper time table for collecting each of such wastes or alternatively provide few stations where resident and commercial establishments can come and dispose plastic wastes, glass wastes, cartons, papers and organic wastes respectively. It might be difficult initially, but with such provisions, you can expect cleaner surroundings.

Lastly - Most of the residents have dogs and pets. It is important they take care of the dump while they are on a stroll. A provision for disposal pet covers can be provided to ensure, the pet owner does this job of clean up act on public roads. Why would you expect government to clean for your pet’s mess?

And street dogs – It is the ward’s responsibility to ensure they find a proper shelter. Well, someone has to care right. It is in the neighbourhood looking for a shelter.

The point I have mentioned may not be the first time people would have thought this way. To me, developing India as a whole is impossible and hence I won’t even think about it. I would not want to waste the time and resources which cannot be entirely monitored unless a larger group is involved across India. So why don’t we take a good look at our surroundings, understand it better and deal with it in a best possible way? Idealistic – Yes, that’s how it looks like and that is how ideas come to reality.

This is not an instant process but not an impossible task either. With generations getting exposed to global best practices in keeping the surroundings and neighbourhood cleaner, I am confident it is a matter of initiation and acting locally while thinking globally. This way, drop by drop each ward can take care of itself and when looked as a whole, the district, the state and country appears better. Just give it a little effort and time; results will be there to be seen.

*Note: There are issues about illegal housing. A process of registration helps new residents to identify houses that are legal vs. Illegal establishments. It is not that citizens are not smart or in-disciplined, what we all lack is awareness.