Columnists
Desperately Seeking Patna
by T. SHER SINGH
The other day, driving south from where we now live, we were hit with a traffic jam - not once, but twice!
Each time there were at least three, if not four cars in front of us, stopped in their tracks by a road-repair crew. Ultimately, it delayed us for a full two minutes, not a second less.
Imagine. It's so irritating!
But, other than these little irritants - and a few mosquitos - I must confess, Mount Forest is all that I was hoping it would be.
We moved here a few months ago, to a small village of 5000 souls or so, ensconced on the banks of the Saugeen River, atop a hill - hills are called ‘mountains' in Canada!
It's the Town of Mount Forest - that's right, villages are called 'towns' in Canada!
It's in the middle of nowhere, in the heart of Ontario's farming country.
About an hour north of where we used to live, the City of Guelph - correct, towns are known as ‘cities' in Canada!
I have been living in this beautiful land that sprawls atop the United States, between the two great oceans that wash the continent, for almost four decades now - I came here as a 21-yr old from Patna, Bihar where I was born and brought up, until we all pulled up our roots and moved to Toronto.
I think ever since, at least subconsciously, I've been looking for a bit of Patna and moving towards my mental image of it, like a hungry tendril of ivy, seeking the sun.
True, the Patna I left four decades ago was 300,000 people then, and it is six times as big now. But it was then - and still is - so very small-townish. Everything moved at a rickshaw pace. And, trust me, a Patna cycle rickshaw moves far slower than Calcutta's manual ones.
I find I'm forever looking for that slow pace.
And now, forty years later, I've found it in this village of 5000 souls.
We are in Amish/ Mennonite country. A substantial number of farms in the surrounding area belong to an old order of Christians who live in a truly simple, old-days lifestyle with as little technology and modernity as humanly possible in today's day and age. Many of them shun electricity and modern transportation. And yet, they're amongst the best and most successful farmers in the area, delving in dairy and cattle, chicken and eggs, agriculture - and furniture making.
When they come into town, they use our street - a side-street that allows them to skirt the busy main thoroughfare - and all day long I have the extraordinary delight of hearing the clip-clop of hooves approach and recede as they ride by in their old-style horse-drawn buggies.
Beats rickshaws, I tell you.
It's helped me bring down my blood pressure to normal. I notice things now that I didn't even see during my six decades on earth to date.
We wake up every morning with the song-birds.
I've caught myself talking to the dog ... and the flowers.
I am acquainted with every new leaf in our plants.
I welcome rain - for the first time in my life, I should add - because I know our lawn and shrubs revel in it.
When I go for my daily walk, in a few minutes I'm in the midst of open corn and wheat fields, with not a soul in sight ...
The townspeople have had a ball these last few weeks trying to figure out our arrival on the scene - especially since we've moved into a 126-year old Baptist church and made it our home.
A few have loudly wondered in the local cafes and around the grocery store cash-tills if we're opening a mosque or whether we are the beginning of a cult.
Mercifully, most read newspapers and Sikhs have somehow become widely known even in the remote pockets of Canada. Our struggle to get into the RCMP or to wear a kirpan, the trials and tribulations of standing out in a turban, and all the misinformation around the 1985 Air India tragedy - all have produced positive dividends.
The good people of Mount Forest have informed each other well of who we are - Sikh-Canadians! - and their welcome has been the warm, fuzzy kind that only small-town Canada can offer.
But don't let me mislead you. There's excitement too around here.
A few weekends ago, it was a weekend of rodeo.
Then followed a weekend when the main street was closed down for the day to make room for a couple of hundred antique cars - each one a restored and much loved masterpiece. The day concluded with a fireworks display you could enjoy from anywhere within miles - it rivalled anything Disney has to offer down south.
And then, this past weekend - a hootenanny in the best tradition of North American country music.
Shortly, we'll be getting into the star-gazing season when the pristine-clear skies of Mount Forest - free of 'light pollution' - brings the world here to camp out in the country-side ... to study and enjoy the heavens.
We've been signed up for Curling by new-made friends for the coming winter months. Bowling suddenly looks like a viable option for Friday evenings.
No, I haven't bought overalls yet, or a pitch-fork.
But we is getting there, slow but sure.
August 10, 2010
Conversation about this article
1: Ashmeet Kaur (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), August 10, 2010, 9:57 AM.
The place sounds amazing ... invite me there sometime :-) (I am yet to see such a place in Canada. Been in the city only since I moved here.)
2: Harneet Singh (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), August 10, 2010, 10:39 AM.
I was in Mount Forest last month, on the way up to Priceville, Ontario (east of Durham). It's a really nice town! I had planned a day trip to enjoy some horseback riding at Whinny Acres (I would recommend it!) with my fiancee. Perhaps next time I'll 'trot' over to your part of the "Mountain"!
3: N.S. (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada), August 10, 2010, 1:12 PM.
I find I'm forever looking for that slow pace. Could you sometime write about who are those people who love/enjoy a slow pace of life vs. those who love a fast pace of life? [Editor: Another piece currently posted on sikhchic.com - "Will It Make You Happy?" - may interest you as well.]
4: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), August 10, 2010, 1:29 PM.
We all have a Patna tucked away somewhere in some nook and cranny of our minds. You have taken me back on a nostalgic trip down memory lane when I started my life as a Rubber Planter some 50 + years ago. Would anyone remember a refrigerator run on kerosene? My duty every morning was to prime it up with pink kerosene and to adjust to the bluest flame. The only brand available then used to be Electolux. Then, would anyone know that our primitive water filtration plant that consisted of a dug out porous stone perched on a wooden stand with a bucket underneath to collect water, drop by drop, for drinking or cooking purposes? Or, rain water harvested by using a series of chutes? We did have a diesel operated engine to deliver water from the nearby babbling stream that also occasionally delivered fresh tiddly push, tiny fish as a bonus. Our electricity was limited to some 6 - 8 hours a day from our own generator with just enough power to light half a dozen low powered bulbs or run a couple of KDK table fans. No, we did not have any electric meter, the supply was free. When we got married in 1961, my good wife, Upkar, had no idea what she was getting into. We arrived late in the evening having driven from Singapore in my Mini Austin to a nearly dark bungalow that did not have any neighbor - the nearest one happened to be at least a mile away. Within a day she was ready to go back to Sri Ganga Nagar. The nearest grocery shop was some 10 miles away. It took a lot of persuasion and cajoling that took her some 10 years to get used to being a planter's wife. We had mostly expatriate white senior staff and since 'Guthrie & Co.' was a Scottish company, we had a surfeit of Scottish planters with their own guttural heavy accents. One of my colleagues had a cryptic suggestion for planters' wives: "Keep 'em in the kitchen and keep them pregnant!" When our four children were ready for school, the nearest one was some 25 miles away, and the school was in two sessions: morning and afternoon. My car did 130 miles a day to take children back and forth. It was always stacked with some food for the ravenous troops. But given these minor inconveniences, life was pastoral. We had a sprawling garden and grew our own vegetables and had some 50 fruit trees surrounding our wooden stilted bungalow. Of course, we had a troop of helping hands to mind the garden and the kitchen befitting the life-style of the planter. The bungalow was never locked. The car or the Land Rover was parked in the porch had always the keys left in the ignition. Thefts were unheard of and now, 50 years later, you have to count your fingers after shaking hands. I did promise our dear editor, Sher Singh ji, that I could reminisce the life of a planter and share some of the funny stories of yonder years. I might still do that and rediscover my own Patna.