Moving in Jamshedpur with Camera

I was bidding goodbye to Jamshedpur and my driver decided to give me a conducted tour of the city. He developed interest as he watched me click photographs at many places.

At many places I clicked photographs from car hence I call this ‘Jamshedpur Photo Tour’ on the lines of Jamshedpur Photo Walk.

Flashback: As we drove over the bridge to enter Jamshedpur two days earlier, he told me that the bridge was called Do Muana Bridge. Why? Because it was built over the confluence of two rivers Subarnrekha and Kharkai. Rivers attract me, I don’t know why, but I can sit on the banks of a river for hours watching it flow.

Colin Wilson says flowing waters have magical powers. I believe they have; I know it, and I have experienced it.

The driver offered to take me to all important sites in the city. I nodded, and I requested him to stop at the confluence for long enough. That was the deal. I called it ‘Jamshedpur Darshan Tour.’

We started early on the last day. We had to finish our ‘Jamshedpur Darshan Tour’ and proceed to Ranchi to take flight back home.

The driver understood what I wanted. He drove me to a place which a Mumbaikar will call a chawl. Not exactly, but similar structure. ‘Karim Talkies’ he said. There was no sign of a theatre. ‘It used to be here, but it closed down,’ and he pointed to the entrance.

I got down. A cow had put its mouth in a tub to drink water. This must have been a busy area once, but no longer.

I was curious to see the ‘labour camp.’ Not a very nice tag. But it was common to call workers residential colony ‘Labour Camp’ in the mid or early twentieth century. It is not easy to erase them from people’s memory. The public memory is short but selectively, not generally.

I do not take photographs of homes without the permission of the residents. So clicked this which gives a glimpse of the houses. We moved on.

‘Sakchi’ he said. It was a village which later became Jamshedpur. Google tells us that ‘In 1919, Lord Chelmsford renamed Sakchi to Jamshedpur in honour of its founder, Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata.’

And then we moved towards the main shopping area. ‘Here is The Boulevard.’ I recognised it. I had once had my dinner there; it is an old story, which must have been in the late nineties. Students of XLRI would go there often, it was then the only good restaurant in the town.

I was exchanging WhatsApp messages with Naveen during this journey. ‘You must go to ‘Fakira’ where you will get best farsan,’ he said. We took a U turn only to find the small shop was closed, or perhaps it does not open so early.

As we proceeded the driver pointed out to a building and said, ‘there used to be Natraj Theatre here.’

Now where, I asked him. Prakash Jha has set up a Mall, he said. He drove car to go there. Prakash Jha is a film producer and actor. The mall looks impressive from a distance.

‘Are we going to Do Muani Bridge?’ I asked. These shopping centres did not hold my interest. ‘Yes, straight there now’ he said. As we came close to the river he said, ‘This area is ‘Marine Lines’.’ It was a deserted area, maybe because we were there at 11 am. We make comparisons when the names are identical. Jamshedpur has many things which a Mumbaikar will envy, but Marine Lines is not in that class. Disappointment, but who was interested in Marine Lines? My eyes were set on the Sangam or the confluence.

‘Yes, we will reach there in five minutes’.

And we were there. I stood at a vantage point and clicked dozens of photographs. I did not have time on hand, and it was not easy to go down to the river.

Kharkai originates in Odisha and meets Subarnrekha. Google tells us that there is pure gold at the bottom of the Subarnrekha river! (Why did they set up a steel plant? They should have mined gold! Well, metaphorically speaking, Tatas have the Midas Touch!!)

‘What is meant by Do Muani?’ It is two mouths, the driver said. I returned to the car. But walked some distance instead of getting into the car. ‘Tusu Ghat’ a board announced.

‘What’s Tusu?’ I asked. ‘Tusu is what you call Makar Sankranti’ he said, ‘Tusu is the name in Adivasi language.’ He pointed out to the garden on the other side of the road. ‘They arrange cock fights here and bet on it during Tusu festival.’

‘We have to go to the MS Dhoni-wala temple’ I reminded my driver. MSD reportedly frequents it. It was near Ranchi he said. It is a ‘pracheen’ temple, and surely looks like it is a very old temple. There was good rush. Lot of people from Ranchi go to this Devdi temple.

‘We have arrived in Ranchi, and we should reach the airport in ten minutes’ the driver said. ‘Are you going to Mumbai?’

‘Yes’

‘The Indigo flight never comes in time’.

My heart sank. It was only yesterday that Microsoft crashed, and Indigo had to cancel 200 flights; they must be recovering from that shock. I wondered what was in store for me.

I should have said prayers at the Devdi Temple, and now I may be in for some retribution from the goddess Durga, I thought. But then the goddess was kind to me; it was a mild punishment; the flight was delayed only by an hour!

Vivek S Patwardhan

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others/ All work copyrighted.