Beyond the Gurgaon skyline

Asghar Hussein, the lone taxi driver from the village, says Bhajla is stuck in time. 8216;8216;Nothing changes here, no one comes here.8217;8217;

The lone government tubewell dug up by the Public Health department dried up a year ago. Electricity is supplied, but only to tubewells, not houses.

A kuchha path meanders through the village dotted with a sprinkling of kuchha-pucca houses before leaving you at the doorstep of the primary school. It has no windows, no doors, and just one teacher for 250 children. Their education is mainly in the hands of Nasruddin, the imam of the older of the two masjids in the village. 8216;8216;I teach them Arbi Quran,8217;8217; says the lungi-clad Imam.

If this village has any wealth, it8217;s that of children. 8216;8216;Every family has eight to a dozen or even more,8217;8217; says Moosa Khan, a labourer. Assini, a 45-year-old who was married when she was 15, snuggles deeper into her dupatta as she tells you about her brood8212;six girls and six boys8212;plus four grandchildren. Jamila, who was elected a panch three years ago, has seven, aged between 21 and four. It8217;s not that they spurn family planning, it8217;s just that no one ever approaches them. Outside in the fields an old woman laments: 8216;8216;My daughter has four children who are always hungry8230;I cry when I see them but what can we do?8217;8217;

Death comes usually in the form of malaria and gastroenteritis every summer in this village that has no dispensary. 8216;8216;We survive on our hard work, the government doesn8217;t exist for us,8217;8217; says Jamila. Her house is one big room with two cots and several children. She tends to them and two buffaloes, while her husband tills the fields.

Chautala8217;s largesse, villagers complain, extends only to the sarpanch who lives in Bawla village across the road. The CM8217;s schemes are also non-starters here.

And kisan credit cards are unheard of. Moosa Khan is being refused a loan from the Syndicate Bank even though he8217;s already repaid the one he8217;d taken earlier. 8216;8216;The government,8217;8217; he fumes, 8216;8216;doesn8217;t care for us, for it knows we always vote for the Congress.8217;8217; With the Congress win, that should no longer be a problem.

The sarkar ap ke dwar boards listing the government8217;s achievements have been covered with mud in village after village. The sarpanchs don8217;t want the people to read and complain about unfinished tasks. At Bhogipur, sarpanch Ghisa Ram, a staunch Congressman, blames lack of work on inadequate funds. 8216;8216;We were given only Rs 1 lakh,8217;8217; he says, justifying the board plastered with mud at Subaseri.

Bawla, a kilometre away from Bhajla, seems better off. The phirni road around the village is better and there is a huge pond. Later, Tahir, a youth on motorcycle, ells you the pond is private, and water as scarce as elsewhere. As far as school goes, it8217;s still primary with two teachers for 350 students.

But Rozdaar, the grizzly old former sarpanch and father-in-law of Hamidi, the present sarpanch, points out the futility of education in the absence of jobs.

Travel across to other villages, and the chorus gets deafening. Elections and new governments mean little to the Meos.