Visit to Chhindwara - 20 years later

Back 20 years

 It started with the plane landing at Nagpur. Then it was all remembrance time. The airport itself, familiar but not same: as time would have changed it. That’s modernity: it looked more efficient, however less charming.

The drive from Nagpur to Chhindwara, brought back memories: even more gustatory while consuming samosas and adrak chai at the Sausar bus stand midway.

The more we drove the further we moved away from busier township towards rustic smaller town: the quieter it got, the warmer it felt.  An apology of a ghat barely started and ended within ten minutes of driving.

The roads were broader now, two laned and in some areas, two lanes one way itself.  As we drove further down the road the traffic got even less dense, then quiet and as if we were the only one on it: just a few trucks connecting the towns commercially.

All the lay ahead was quiet roads, somewhat unpleasant but bright sunlight. And road signs assuring you that you were approaching destination soon.

We reached Chhindwara by 11 am and checked into a hotel. The wedding reception venue of a friend , for which my family and I had come in for, was just opposite the hotel.

A few calls: and it was back to connecting with the past. Ajay, an old friend dropped everything to come and see us at the Hotel and drive us around.  We drove to his house (fantastic memories) then to Ranjit Mehna’s and then to the HUL Factory, where I was delighted to meet staff and colleagues. It was good to see the changes in the factory since and to reconnect with old memories. At one level, it seemed just yesterday; yet at another, it seem like a dream, so long back!

Like in all weddings receptions, you encounter so many friends of the past, reestablishing old connections once again.

As I reflected my last 4 weeks ( a 30 old reunion with XLRI Alumni at Goa, My wife’s school reunion celebration of Mt Carmel and De Nobili, Dhanbad, a HUL get together coming up soon) I was left wondering: we seemed to live so much in the future. Yet, the past, has so much to celebrate, so much to treasure.