Beating the Heat in Surangani

My morning at work starts with logging on to my mails, smile at all the forwards sent by my friends, and replying them back. Few days back, my inbox had a very interesting mail reminded me of my past.. A e-map sent by my brother of a beautiful place in HImachal Pradesh, where we spent our childhood and teens.

"Jadu" 300 kms up Mountains from pathankot, passing thro Chamba with more than 100 Hairpin bend roads, surrounded by Pine and Devadaru trees, sleek noisy small water falls after every half a kilometer, and of coure beautiful Himachali Dogaria walking down with herds of Cattle, and my dad driving with a cigar, trailing thro this roads reminds me of the those cool days, today living in this hot Chennai.

More than 20 yrs back, the government of Himachal proposed to generate electrcity thro RABI River, flowing thro Pathankot, chamba,Khajjiar, Tissa, Baniketh, Dunerah, and Surangani. Huge penstocks were erected to pump in water from the river to generate electricity. The entire project was planned for min 7 yrs. Technically, mountains had to be geared and shaped to hold these huge pipes and this mammoth task was assiged to my dad.. an engineer who was in charge of entire planning and execution and completion. Reminds me of sharukh Khan of Swadesh.. now. His labour was hired from all parts of India and also had to deal with localities who were naive but hard core labours.

Few other companies who have come to this small village called "jadu' had a temple, ramleela ground, max 500 houses, sweet meat shop, market place selling shoes, warm clothes, a sardar tailor, 5 bed ed hospital, Bus stand, a quite guest house for government officials to come and stay. Amongst all these, a convent built for the engineer's Children to study. The school hired teachers who were educated wives of the engineers, and few hired professionals for higher classes.

This school was manned by Mr. Vasudevan who had come all the way from Kerala, very strict military disciplined Personnel and had all military rules imposed in the school. Well the academic year would be from DEC to DEC,with CBSE board syllabus, is closed for winter to enjoy the snow season. We had a nice library, auditorium, science labs, and music and art rooms.

Our houses were built of wood, asbestos sheets, partitions made of wood panels, cement flooring but a great soil for plantation. Our garden had all variety of English vegetables,including onions. Had a small poultry farm for eggs, and my little brother would lay his hands on growing a chick into a hen, but his over feeding would kill most of them.

Rosy was another addition into our family, this was stray pup which followed us from the school and became a part of the family. After 7 yrs of staying in Jadu, Rosy breathe his last and was buried in Rabi river. His death was mourned for 1 mnt silence in our school prayer. Even today, my family has lot of liking for pets. After Rosy, was ammu kuttan and now Jolin and Mantoos.


Every morning we would wake up looking at MOUNT KAILASH. white as muslin, with silver streaks. But no Lord shiva, as he is in down south, in Chennai , the hottest city in India. He is not lucky though. The beautiful himachali Dogaria in groups singing folk song, walking down the fields, early morning is a real treat. One of the songs I still shout at home is "bala sipaiah dogariah.. rasliya rasliya Jhanna...., this is about the dream of young girl to marry a sipahi. Wish I could produce an album.

During Dusserah, the entire village is seen in Ram leela grounds watching the 10 day stage drama of Ramayan - Ram leela, the artist are hired from pathankot whose boarding and lodging was shared by the residents of the village. Sweets, food is distributed to all the people irrespective of caste or creed.


Weekends, there is screening of Movies of all Regional languages in open air, mostly in our school playgrounds. Traditional projector, screened on a white muslin cloth with basic speakers. Then watching a tamil movie would remind us of our home town, our grandparents, friends and cousins. No Mobile phones, internet, but so called BSNL lines. We need to book a STD call and most of the time the phone lines are worn out due tress falling, snow fall, or too cold weather. Totally cut off from world.

Today, when I think of technology, when my brother could send me a e-map of the place where my childhood was spent is really amazing, but on the contrary, not a safe place to visit now - with technology growing, people have also created arms and distructive tools to make this heavenly place a terrorist haunt.

Thanks appa!! for showing this wonderful land to us.