Turning over a new leaf
By: K S S Pillai
It was about four o’clock one evening in November 1968 that I detrained at Navsari in Gujarat.
I was apprehensive about turning over a new leaf in my life. English literature was my favourite subject, and I liked to work as a college teacher. However, I was unsure about the reception I would get from the students and other staff members of the college.
A few days after attending an interview in Ahmedabad, I had received a letter typed in the Gujarati language. A friend had taken me to a Gujarati to read it, which stated that I was appointed as a Lecturer in English at the government-run agriculture college in Navsari on a pay scale of Rs 300 – 600, which was significantly more than what I was earning in Indore.
As suitcases had not made their appearance those days, passengers carried their luggage in steel trunks. Trains had steam engines, and the passengers’ bodies and dresses used to become black with coal soot after their journeys.
Very few trains had reserved compartments, and passengers entered and exited the crowded compartments through unbarred windows. The luggage boxes doubled as seats and were even used as pillows while sleeping on the floor, making it difficult for thieves to lift them at night.
I was carrying two big trunks that contained my belongings. Only a few passengers got down at Navsari, and most walked to their destinations. A couple of horse-drawn vehicles named Tonga were outside the station, soliciting passengers with heavy luggage.
One driver offered to take me to a hotel near the college. He had a good knowledge about everything happening in the city. He informed me that two unlimited meals were served daily at the hotel for Rs 60 a month, giving me a taste of things to come as the amount was double that I was paying at Indore.
I realised later that everything in Navsari was expensive due to the thriving diamond-cutting and polishing business. He also informed me that an engineer from my native state, who was in charge of a new bridge being constructed across the River Purna, bordering the northern side of the city, was staying at the hotel. There was a low-level bridge that got damaged during the floods some months ago.
The hotel’s owner was a simple man who was friendly with all the customers. He informed me that another lecturer of the agriculture college had also stayed there for six months before moving to a house.
The city, with a considerable Parsee population, was sleepy. It was at Sanjan, a nearby place, where their ancestors, refugees from Iran, were granted asylum by the king.
Navsari was the birthplace of prominent Parsees like Jamsetji Tata, Dadabhai Navroji and the musician Zubin Mehta. They had a temple of the Fire God, whom they worshipped, at Navsari. When someone died, the funeral ritual called Dokhmenashini was held, where the bodies were placed in a ‘Tower of Silence’ for vultures to consume.
Their funeral was held at a vast enclosed area opposite the Hindu crematorium on the bank of the Purna. I was also informed that a steel factory owned by the Tata group was being built in the city, and there was a Tata Baug in front of the Agriculture College.
They were also running a library that contained rare manuscripts and many books in different languages in addition to building several educational institutions and hospitals in Navsari. Dandi, a coastal village where the Father of the Nation held the Salt Satyagraha was situated a few kilometres to the west.
The college was run from a rented bungalow in a compound where several gnarled mango trees stood. The lecture halls and laboratories were temporary sheds. A new campus with all the facilities was being built a little away.
I went to meet the principal the following day, which was a Sunday, at his house, located near the college gate. He was a pot-bellied widower on the verge of retirement and visited the nearby club on his bicycle every evening. He asked me to join the college the next day.
I returned to the hotel, excited to start my new career.
(The author is a retired professor of English. A regular contributor to ‘The Kashmir Vision’, his articles and short stories have appeared in several national and international publications)
