Time leaves its trace on most things, and it wears and it tears, and it rusts most things, but there is one great phenomenon, small yet grand, one phenomenon time has left unchanged, as the noble metals of gold and platinum remain.
Lying within the Parbhani district of Maharashtra is an archipelago of villages that are tied too strongly together, each village an important part of the magnificent tapestry of the Indian culture and its diversity, which they mirror.
And in that cluster, which calls the town of Jintur its central point, lies one peaceful sprawling clachan – unique, as it is, in that unique cluster – the clachan, which is the object of this tale.
Kausadi, as this little village is called, is a hub of tranquillity in the midst of green and lush farms which spread out wide on the glorious Indian earth, where the nation’s diversity is perfectliest mirrored. Some seven hundred to thousand houses populate the clachan, each house a unique thread of Kausadi’s fabric.
It was a July morning, and an Ertiga ZXi Plus was sailing through the serene arteries, the placid ribbons of highway road, sailing the calm thoroughfares to the village of Kausadi.
I and cousin sat in the car, and my father, uncle, and our grandparents sat, as the drive came to end – reached Kausadi.
As our car entered the vicinity of the clachan, we were greeted by a hustle and bustle of the clachan people, whose attention was at once drawn to our car. Looking at my father, uncle, and grandpa, they at once stopped in welcome.
“Pahune aaley,” they said to each other, meaning in Marathi, that the guests are come.
We were followed by those welcoming crowds as we drove to our halt – the vernacular bungalow house of my grandpa’s cousin, a man who had been sarpanch of the village formerly and who was renowned for his hospitality, in the already guest-welcoming village.
Ayyub Phuppha, as we called our respectable host, received us with great warmth, heartfelt and unmatched, and led us into his aesthetic house, which was outstretched by a veranda, populated by charpais and similarly woven rocking chairs.
As we met the members of his family, his daughters, his grandsons, and his great-grandchildren, the dining room was being set – and that day’s breakfast was the most unique I ever had those hols.
We were served pohe, sabudana-vada, and matachi-bhel for the main course; while the dessert buffet, delicious in each part, consisted of puran-poli with ghee and an honourable variety of cookies, of which the most prominent and beloved was the acclaimed snack of Hyderabad and Aurangabad – the rote – of which no equivalent exists in other cuisine. Along was the sweet khalmi mango for fruit, and at the end, a serving of fennel seeds, the traditional Indian afters.
Meanwhile, the neighbours all brought their foods, and that day, I know not, how many cultures were melted in my appetite.
Ayyub Phuppha, all the while, kept checking our requirements, and at the same time calling all of his friends – literally most of the village – to breakfast.
“If there is something this man loves,” my cousin told me, “it is serving food. Hospitality!”
“The whole village is that type,” he concluded.
Soon there was a blend of cultures and classes in that dining room, a poor and landless labourer sitting beside a rich farmer, a Hindu priest beside a Muslim imam, and most importantly, I, a boy who had scarcely been to village life before, mingling with other boys, to whom their clachan was the world – and true, I decided that day, that Kausadi was the world.
It is a day, and it is a scene that I shall never forget.
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