Life in a Small Town in India

chillibreeze writer — Anuradha Samant

“I have a fond place in my heart for Arcadia and always will. I am a small town guy and I love Arcadia.” Jim McLaughlin

I read this quote by the host of an American TV show on small town life. I realise I do not know the meaning of the word Arcadia, the name of the small town Jim McLaughlin refers to in the quote. I look up the word on Wikipedia. It says Arcadia is a Utopian vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature.

Having read the definition, I still have no idea what Arcadia means. I have lived in a big city all my life and I have never experienced a life of “pastoralism and harmony with nature”. Perhaps to familiarise myself with these strange concepts, or perhaps just because it is time for a change, I decide to shift from the big city to a small town.

Bangalore is the city I have called ‘home’ all my life. The bustling metropolis is the capital of the southern state of Karnataka and the IT capital of India. It is dotted with shiny skyscrapers; and filled with upwardly mobile professionals who have been the global inspiration behind the new word “Bangalored” recently added to the Oxford dictionary.

Kolhapur, the place I will now call ‘home’, has not as yet globally impacted anything. It is a small temple town situated in the south west corner of the state of Maharashtra, on the banks of the River Panchaganga. The town used to be a Princely state during the British Raj, and therefore its landscape is dotted with its many ancient palaces, and quaint relics like a “Kushti Maidan” or wrestling stadium built by the Maharajas. The people of Kolhapur still have that laid back, old-world, princely air.

Bangalore and Kolhapur have nothing in common. Perhaps because of this or despite it, we decide to move. Our old house in Bangalore is emptied. All its contents are packed and transported. And our new house in Kolhapur is filled with our belongings. Before we become fully aware of the fact the shift has been made. In the next few months I take to settle, I try to find the meaning of the word Arcadia, but before that I find many things about a small town that are not exactly my idea of ‘harmony with nature’.

I find that, although small towns in India do not have the kind of traffic jams that the big cities have, the crowded areas of the town are not entirely free of traffic. Here the traffic is of the unruly kind with vehicles, cycles, carts, bulls, cows, dogs, cats, vendors and pedestrians all on top of each other. To drive a car in a small town requires unlearning the rules that big city driving schools teach and learning new seat-of-the-pants rules.

I find that roads in the small town are not tarred more than once in 6-7 years. To drive a car on the road means to dip and rise as if riding a ship in a sea storm; or to ride the auto rickshaw, which is more suited to the four foot wide, tiny, ancient streets, means to be tossed about like a marble and, even after you reach your destination for a few minutes, to have your teeth clatter and eyeballs continue to roll in your head. If you prefer to take the wider roads on the outskirts of town then be ready to wade through oceans of black and white goats that often flood the roads.

Time in the small town is a different concept, from time in the big city. When people give you an appointment for 10 in the morning, it means that this is just one of the possible times that they might appear. As I wait with my big city time precision, I find instead of losing my happiness at their casual attitude, it is a lot less stressful to loosen the hold that time has held over me all these years. The next time someone says they will come at 10 sharp, I find myself saying, “10 o’clock sharp means I might meet them some time to day, if not, tomorrow, or if not, sometime this week, this month or two”.

I find that the things you have become used to in the city are not that easy to come by in the small town. The day I arrive I find myself totally upset to realise there is no brown bread to be bought in the shops. Out of lack of option I eat the white bread hoping my constitution bred on brown bread does not start to weaken when only a few weeks later I find the best brown bread or wheat bread that I have ever eaten tucked away in a small innocuous bakery beside the “Ghati Darwaza”, one of the four entrances to the huge Mahalaxmi temple around which this town is built.

I find more than once that small towns have the capacity to surprise. For example my first experience with Arcadia comes to me as a total surprise on the very first day I spend in Kolhapur. I am tired with unpacking and as the evening falls I settle down for my habitual read before going to bed. As my city trained ears prepare to fight their accustomed battle against the “whirr” and “honks” of the city traffic so that I can concentrate on my book better, I hear something I have never heard before.

This sound is so unfamiliar to me that I put my book aside and listen to it with my full attention. It is the sound of silence. So complete and deep that it caresses me like a soft velvet auditory blanket. I close my eyes to take in the full feeling of complete peace that it brings. My breathing eases. My stressed out city senses covet this experience with unimagined thirst.

After spending some time just listening to the silence, I pick up my book again. In this magical silence, reading a book, I find, is an experience not ever duplicated in the city. The book covers your senses softly with its contents in the manner similar to the beautiful, deep silence. The lack of noise, I find is truly, truly beautiful.

Next morning the auditory pleasure of the night before continues when I wake up to an orchestra of birds. In Bangalore the birds would compete with the traffic sounds. Here in Kolhapur the birds compete with no one but each other. They hold centre stage with their performances. And as I sit with my steaming morning tea cup looking out at the early mist through which the birds sing, I feel as though I have a box seat to their performance: a performance of so many maestros.

A few months have passed since I made the shift. During that time the one trip to the city that I made was with the reassurance that I have the magical silence and the talented birds waiting for me when I get home. I came home and was again reminded of the comforts and the system the city has which a small town doesn’t.

I am not calling myself a small town girl yet, but I am at a stage where a small fond place for Arcadia has developed in my heart that is growing at an alarming rate. I might yet be in the danger of turning “small town”. I do not know when, or if, that will happen, but right now, I can comfortably say “I love Arcadia” for I am glad I know now what the word means.

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Anuradha writes for chillibreeze.

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