Tome And Plume: Birds Of The Bush Still Sing Lauder Around

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): On a rainy day, Green Valley is just as interesting as it is in the sunshine. Somehow though the big trees sag and drip and the wind sighs about the corners there is nothing mournful about the streets – How Green Was My Valley, Richard Llewellyn

A pioneer spirit, visiting Bhopal for the first time, comes to know how it is different from other cities whose residents pride themselves on the cultures and traditions of their native place. The capital of Madhya Pradesh, Bhopal, too, has a glorious past. People in many other cities revel only in the mediaeval and modern cultures. But Bhopalis exult in ancient, mediaeval, and modern cultures. Still, it appears like the countryside of a European city.

Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, and Bengaluru have lost the beauty of the past in the maze of modernity. Green thicket has turned into a concrete coppice, gasping for breath. But modernity has not deprived the residents of Bhopal of free breathing.

However modern Bhopal may have been, its residents can still breathe freely. Yet, the civic body cuts down thousands of trees regularly, slowly shaving the city of its beauty. Until now, a few trees shade some places.

From the bushes, cuckoos call and bulbuls trill in resonant tranquillity, and that, too, in the heart of the city, the wooded Jail Road. Hearing the trills of a bird even in the spring or in the rainy season in any other big cities has become a thing of the past. Rapid industrialisation has silenced the springs in big cities.

Bhopal still wears a green cover and looks pretty. Here, nature appears in full bloom. True, the visitor has at his disposal the roar of the streets, the lights, the music, the theatres, the restaurants, and the skyscrapers. Yet the air offers freshness. The cloud-clad horizon, the grey Upper Lake, and the cool breeze enliven his spirit.

After a heavy rainfall, the city appears newly washed. The clear sunlight falling on the rain-soaked trees graces it. Still, the driving is eccentric, and traffic gridlocks often occur. But it means business, money-making, and a hurried modern life. Then one sees big shops, malls, potholed roads, signboards, VIP and VVIP culture, road rages, and honking. Such things are a common sight, and they remain part of daily life in any city.

Then one meets the disciples of Bacchus at liquor outlets, but they rarely create a ruckus on roads. Eating out on Saturdays, or hearing a Bhopali brag about the city in a tea shop, or visiting the crowded New Market on Sundays, offers the real joy of life. Old books, in the days of net buying, still exist, telling the stories of the past.

The aroma of biryani, chaat, pakodi, and kebabs, and the fragrance of flowers emanating from the shops standing on both sides of a warren of lanes in the old and overcrowded city provide a different tang of life, which barely matches with any modern city of India.

A few metres away from the congested part of the city lies the wide, black VIP Road, snaking around the tranquil Upper Lake. Many residents stand along its banks in the evenings and in the mornings, enjoying the zephyrs coming from the forests and hills that surround the vast water body. They often share jokes and laughter.

But an outsider's first meeting with a paan-chewing Bhopali may not be nice, for he does not take the trouble to get rid of his quid. And if he sits on a cot, he barely thinks it worth his while to stand up.

He is like a walking encyclopaedia of his town, and the outsider should avoid arguing with him about his city, but the continuous tree felling saddens him, making him feel it may silence the spring in Bhopal, too, in the coming days. Then its residents may chant the way Richard Llewellyn did in How Green Was My Valley, “How green was my valley then, and the valley of them that have gone.”