A day in Bhopal: The blog of a Bhopali

0
534

After the long (and never ending) semester, the much awaited holidays come- an opportunity to go back to our paradise, our city. On this note, I would like to mention here that whichever city you live in small or big, metro or town, it remains YOUR city for life and for me it’s Bhopal. A pleasant city with loads of greenery and not much crowd, it’s a city worth living.

Disclaimer: The underlined sentence is used by all citizens of India for their hometowns, that is it all of us love our cities & what Bhopal shares in common with them is being a part of the great India.

Now back to my vacations, after the tiring end semester exams, we all need a break. We sleep, we eat, we watch TV and again we sleep, this cycle continues till all the energy consumed is regained. I know the youth is becoming lazy, even researches and reports show that but that is not the topic of discussion over here.

Again back to my end semester break. After a week’s energy booster it’s time to say hello to my city, to be in its best spots in a day, yes A DAY, that’s what you get in your so called holidays before the internship schedule. As we have talked about internship, let me tell you that we gonna be lawyers are highly underused in our first years through our internships, that can be a NGO, a lawyer or a quasi judicial authority finding you too naive for legal work and with not only your entire batch but all the five batches of all the law schools in India interning somewhere or the other, no one affords to miss a certificate of internship, you see the world is competitive. It happened to me once that I dropped an internship opportunity because of lack of any substantive work but to my surprise was suggested to continue it not only from my family but also friends with a hilarious reason of ‘certificate toh milega na’. Sadly, we in India need no learning but its proof.

Finally, it’s the day, the reunion with my city but with only a day’s celebration, I had to make some choices- the hard ones. The choice of 3- the three places I wanted to visit. If you see 3 destinations in 24 hours do not sound like a fair allocation of time. But a day of outing in India starts at 9 in the morning till 7 at night, as before 9 the city is a melancholy chamber and after 7 a dark monster. The above statement is the declaration of every Indian parent of a girl, applied to all alone travel trips, as these hours of the day are suitable for human predators. To an extent they are also right, they want to protect us from the evil outside, with the present situation of female safety in India, that has became a self explained topic with the heinous incidents it followed.

So now the choice was clear, two of my favourite spots and one shopping spot. The tremendous three are- the lake side, the Birla temple and the Mall.

The lake side- peaceful, beautiful and soothing is one of the specialties of this green city but this time this was not all. The huge black masses of plastic and garbage floating on the lake side, the way dead bodies are thrown out of the Ganga. For that matter every Indian city with a water body suffers from the same disease of pollution.

Then comes my second destination, the Birla temple, apart from the smell from incense sticks, the ringing of bells and the belief in god that surrounds any temple, this temple’s specialty lies in its backside view from where the entire city glows like the Diwali lights. But before my entrance the journey took it too long in another voyage. The beggars sitting outside the temple for the mercy of believers of the almighty were in a huge queue from all strata of age – old, young, dying, handicapped, children, pregnant and whatever misery you can imagine with the never washed and half baked clothes. The amount of poverty in India is never ending from temples to stations stretching till the streets and this applies to my beautiful city as well.

After my temple visit it was time for my last resort, the mall but at that hour of the day reaching the place was becoming impossible. The rush, the traffic, the population amazed this Bhopali and so I dropped the idea of shopping.

Coming back home I realized that my country has been left far behind like the trees that were leaning backward as I was crossing them and for every car that ran beside me made me see the faces of the pauper group, for each rich hundreds of poor. What I am upto? What my country is upto? seems to be the question of all the strangers that looked upon me that day, that’s how my reunion ended….

At the end of the blog, if I look back, I see a lethargic generation, filled with selfish competition in an unsecured country with pollution, population & poverty.

This is not only the blog of a Bhopali but of a Hyderabadi, Delhite, Ahemdabadi or any other city you can name. The Pity P’s- Pollution, Population and Poverty are jotted down as the destructors of the country in every report existent. This is situation of my city, your city, everyone’s city & our country and we need no one to tell it because we know it and witness it every day we walk out and every moment we live in, even if we don’t accept it.

So leave the reports, leave the surveys, and leave the percentages & figures. You need no proof to understand your city, just open ears that will tell the truth and open eyes that will interpret it but your mouth will be shut, you would not utter a single word, I promise.

It will be then, when all of us, not the young or old but all the countrymen and women will take steps out of their homes to confront the reality, our country will be great, our city will be changed.

It’s not me and you,

But they.

Who are feeling hell,

In our paradise.

Then how can we, be happy

When someone is suffering

Every night……

It’s not a city for you and me

But a home for life.

Then how can we,

Let anyone wound

Its shine.

It’s my city, it’s our city,

My home for life.

I will fight for it,

No matter what…


About the Author
Untitled
Dimple is a law student from Symbiosis Law School, Pune, who believes that hardwork always pays off as it adds perfection. A candid straightforward person, she writes poetry and loves the art of paper quilling & combines both for her close ones. Her mantra of life is “ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE”. The greatest influence in her life is her mother who taught her the most important lesson of her life, which is there is only one way of doing things- doing it right. She is currently pursuing her internship with Alexis Centre for Public Policy and International Relations.

Leave a Reply