Dabloo dabloo.....

This is for my room partners in Hyderabad ,who if they had their way would deny Shahdol its existence-Shahdol my birthplace is a small town Madhya Pradesh. When I got through nmims ,one thing I was really looking forward to was spending one full month in shahdol .I sometime wonder what makes me like the place so much .I guess its the memories associated with every building ,every gully ,every mohalla ,every shop .May be it is also the pace at which things move (or don’t move).people move in slow motion ,talk in slow motion (that explains my accent).there is always time for one more chai.
But killing time in shahdol can be quite a task especially if you don’t have a gang to hang out with. This is true even for somebody like me who tends to get hit by waves of nostalgia just by looking at an old tree or a old house besides school .luckily bubble had engulfed shahdol before it burst . And finding a cyber cafe is not difficult. Although poor power supply (6 hours of power cut is a norm in MP almost since as long as I can remember)means lot of them had to close shop. My favourite is one at Suraj market. Suraj market is situated at the heart of shahdol which is the heart of MP which in turn is heart of India so Suraj market could very well be precise centre of India.
I had been to this cyber cafe hundreds of times .Infact it was probably here that I first got my computer lessons(not at a very young age though).But this time it was different because I had lot of time to kill so I would spent hours sitting there. It was then I realised that Shahdol is not the same as it was 10 years back. Shahdol is now IT enabled. Reality struck the first day itself when I walked(well I don’t walk when I am in Shahdol I swagger ) into my favourite cyber cafe to take my favourite system (out of the total three systems).I had to wait 30 mins because cafe was flooded with class 10 students who were all queued up to check their results. Cafe owner actually would charge 20 bucks for each result ,partly because most of the students cant operate internet and partly because there are just 3 or 4 cafes operating now. Finally after 30 mins I got the system ,there were others waiting too but i got the preference because I knew the owner.(getting something done because you knew the right person is an amazingly fulfilling feeling. Unfortunately very rarely do I get to feel it).Finally I immersed myself into doing nothing .While I was hopping from one Orkut profile to other, I was suddenly pushed aside by two middle aged women trying to settle themselves in the system next to me. I had seen students even grown up men using net in shahdol but middle age ladies probably housewives ,this was first.not bad I said to myself as I tried to look unperturbed by their constant chatter. Fifteen mins later I saw something which one would not associate with a cyber cafe-
First lady: bhaiya kitna hua?
Cafe owner: madam 15
First lady(frowning) : yeh toh bahut jyada hai
Cafe owner(puzzled):madam yahi rate hai
First lady(dismissively) : itna toh nahi denge
Cafe owner (speechless):par...............
Second lady (with 10 rupee note in her hand) :yeh rakhiye kaafi hai..
Cafe owner: madam sabji mandi nahi hai
First Lady(walking towards exit .second lady has already left): agli baar poore le lena bhaiya
Somethings never change.
I was still smiling when a lean ,middle aged person with red teeka and gamchaa around his neck barged into the cafe.I could bet on him being a government clerk . It is quite amazing how all the clerks look alike .Probably it is the arrogance that they exude for reasons i am still to fathom. He was actually a clerk or Bade Babu as I was told later by the owner. Bade babu was in hurry and made sure that everyone knew it. A system was promptly vacated for him. You don’t want to be on the bad books of a Bade babu.
Bade Babu : sarv sheeksha ka woh kya hai? (‘sarv sheekhsa ‘ is a government project)
Cafe owner(tired and exhausted after the recent exchange) : woh????
Bade Babu : arey wahi..
Cafe owner: kya?
Bade Babu : arey wahi, dabloo dabloo....
I was in splits .I love Shahdol.