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Resentment against hike in bus fare mounting in Bhopal

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NK SINGH Though a Govt. directive has frustrated the earlier efforts of the MPSRTC to increase the city bus fares by as much as 300 per cent, the public resent even the 25 per cent hike. It is "totally unjust, uncalled for and arbitrary", this is the consensus that has emerged from an opinion conducted by "Commoner" among a cross-section of politicians, public men, trade union leaders, and last but not least, the common bus travelling public. However, a section of the people held, that an average passenger would not grudge a slight pinche in his pocket provided the MPSRTC toned up its services. But far from being satisfactory, the MPSRTC-run city bus service in the capital is an endless tale of woe. Hours of long waiting, over-crowding people clinging to window panes frequent breakdowns, age-old fleet of buses, unimaginative routes and the attitude of passengers one can be patient only when he is sure to get into the next bus are some of the ills plaguing the city b...
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Adivasi Women

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Sathal Woman by Jamini Roy

NK SINGH

In the beginning, said a Persian poet – Allah took a rose, a lily, a dove, a serpent, a little honey, a Dead Sea apple and a handful of clay. When he looked at the amalgam – it was a woman. Being aboriginals, the Adivasi women of Chota Nagpur have not lost these qualities yet.

A typical Adivasi girl is best described in the words of Rabindranath Tagore:

The Santhal girl comes and goes
Along the pebbled path under the silk cotton trees.
A coarse saree wrapped tight around her slim dark form.
Some forgetful maker at the dawn of time
In the midst of making a black bird
From rain darkened cloud and lightning
Suddenly found the clay
That this woman was fashioned from.
Her two wings he hid
Away from the world within her soul
On quick feet she seems to fly as she walks .
On her perfect arms she wears a few white
Lacquered bangles,
Atop her head a basket filled with mud,
She comes and goes again and again.
The end of her saree
Skimmed by red
Paints the sky with the delicate touch of palash
The month of Poush draws to a close,
The north wind seems to whisper a message from the south.
Upon the branches of the Himjhuri
Young green leaves glimmering with life
In winter’s golden sunshine.
A kite flies far away in the pale blue sky.
The amla vine sheds its cloak of fruit,
Around it children gathering in hope.
The winding forest paths skeined in light and shade,
Where dry leaves eddy in sudden swirls
On the whim of the startled wind.
While in the bushes stealthily
A lizard in silence waits under cover of grass.
The Santhal woman comes and goes again and again.
My mud brick home
Is slowly taking shape, workers fill the place
A little at a time they raise the walls
Their backs bared to the sun
Every now and then
The trains can be heard whistling afar;
The hours pass, the day draws to an end,
A bell rings where sky meets land
I sit and watch,
Hesitant my thoughts as I muse – this young girl
Who has for her own sake
Blossomed forth in body and soul
That easy feminine strength best expressed in the giving of herself
Tempered with the sweet serenity of compassion,
I have employed her, paying her for work –
Stealing the very strength that suffers insult at being priced
Using money to break her down
There she comes again, the Santhal girl, her basket filled with clay.

(This rendering of the poem from animikha.wordpress.com)

Excerpts from Adivasi Women, published in Indian Nation 5 July 1970

Indian Nation 5 May 1970

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