Small town girl

We are well-entrenched in the 21st century. But Purkazi, a small nondescript town on the Grand Trunk Road in Uttar Pradesh, near Roorkee, is...

We are well-entrenched in the 21st century. But Purkazi, a small nondescript town on the Grand Trunk Road in Uttar Pradesh, near Roorkee, is still steeped in the lifestyle of the 8217;50s. But it can boast of a few primary schools, a cinema house with a corrugated tin roof and a post office. There is also a bus-stand where short-distance buses stop for a while. At nightfall, the electric bulbs on the road and in the well-off houses shine no brighter than wick lamps because of perennial low voltage.

The traffic passing through the town is an unending stream of all sorts of vehicles at all hours. Except for stopping at times to buy a pack of cigarettes or a cup of tea, motorists on their way to Dehra Dun and Hardwar seldom break their journey as there is little to look at. Only street dogs and urchins stand gaping as the vehicles speed by, trailing clouds of dust.

Notwithstanding such a scenario, some denizens of this town have found their wings. Mira was a girl from Purkazi whom I knew when she was a child. About 10 years ago, she married Kishen, a handsome boy settled in London. For Mira, there were no intermediate stages. It was the sleepy little town of Purkazi, on one hand, and the throbbing metropolis of London, on the other.

During all these years we did not have much contact with Mira and Kishen. Sometimes we would receive a brief letter or a breezily scrawled picture postcard from a holiday destination. We gathered that Mira had become a beautician specialising in herbal beauty aids. Once she wrote that she had been working as a receptionist with a large organisation and had also become computer literate. Meanwhile, she became the mother of twins. Mira was a woman in a hurry!

A time comes when the feeling of nostalgia overrides all the attractions of living in a foreign land. The mind hungers for communion with its own kind. So one day we learnt with much pleasure that Mira and her husband were coming to India for a short visit after a decade and would be staying with us in Delhi for the first few days. But it was no small disappointment to learn that the twins were not accompanying them.

We met them at the airport. Mira was altogether a different person. From a lean little girl, she had blossomed into a tall, radiant beauty. The girl who once stared wide-eyed at coloured ribbons, hair-clips and trinkets now came loaded with exciting gifts for all of us.

One day, during breakfast, I casually asked her how they managed to avoid worrying about the children, in a land so far away. 8220;Oh! It8217;s all a matter of timing,8221; she explained. 8220;Now it is 8 am in Delhi, which means 2.30 am in London. So we relax because we know the kids are in bed. When it is 8 pm in London, it is 1.30 am here and we are sound asleep so we can8217;t worry!8221;

Mira8217;s transformation was complete.