Ordinary joys of life

‘No rice, son; today is Ekadashi.’ My mother’s reason for not making my favourite food that evening was unpalatable for me. As a young boy in the sixties, I relished sweetened chawal-dal (rice and lentils) cooked for supper on special occasions in my village.

Life in my modest village, Sojat Road, in Rajasthan’s Marwar region revolved around a mundane daily routine for us, particularly traders and small shopkeepers who toiled from daybreak until late evening to make a livelihood. The village’s nondescript cooperative bank saw little activity because cash only ruled everywhere. The notion of a weekly off was so alien that a few of us would put on uniforms and head to school even on a Sunday!

It was only natural for the villagers to get ecstatic whenever they heard Chandu, the zestful secretary of the local Panchayat, announce an upcoming special event while traversing the village on a tonga (horse carriage) with a loudspeaker. Most of these events were sponsored by the state government’s Department of Culture and were usually documentaries or films with social messages, which were screened late at night under the open sky with the audience sitting on the bare ground.

There would be several breaks in between because the reel needed to be replaced on the single portable projector. For a change, a theatre team once arrived in the village to stage a play on a social issue, for which a temporary wooden structure was built on an elevated platform and floodlights were installed. It was the first time we saw characters perform a live family play.

Much later, the village’s first ‘picture hall’ opened on an open-air site, with no seats, a single projector, and a lone evening show. Old films released over a year ago would be brought there for screening because of their affordable rental. To market the film, a young man called Gulab lugged a pushcart through the village carrying the film’s posters, imitating All India Radio artist Ameen Sayani’s high-pitched voice on a microphone.

As a ‘final call’ to prospective viewers, Hindi film songs were played on a loudspeaker from above the cinema hall for half an hour before the show began. Later, the hall was draped in black tarpaulins, a double projector was installed, and bare stone slabs were provided to seat ‘First Class’ viewers! After the advent of video cassette players, a few inventive individuals set up mini cinema halls to host on-demand shows of the latest movies on their television sets.

Another event that captured our interest was the occasional evening football match played between two competing groups in the hamlet. The match sparked great enthusiasm among the locals. A sweet lemon drop served to players at half-time was enough to keep the players’ spirits high, much to the envy of the local football fans.