[Reader-list] "Cawnpore" 3rd posting Conversation with Mother

[Maitrey Bajpai]

I am once again sorry
Oh! Leave it. I know it dose not make a difference, the fact is my postings got delayed big time and i am the one responsible for it. Anyways the work on my film is going on with slow pace (reasons unexplained). As of now I am in 'Cawnpore' trying to figure out a lot of things. 

I shot with my family during this short trip of a week; still a lot has to be done. I still hope I would be able to get in touch with some of the other business and worker's families on my next trip. I could not use this trip the way i wanted to but i was successful getting some insights about my own family.  



Conversations with Mother



It was hot and humid. Must be around 8:15 in the morning. I was having my cup of coffee; my mother (I still call her “Maa”) was busy with 
newspapers and her cup of tea. I don’t know why, but I just asked her what dose she thinks of the film I am planning to make. We started talking. I just kept my cup on trhe floor and rushed to get my handy-cam. Here is the first part of transcript of that conversation we had. Interestingly it brought out her experiences, issues and her opinion about the city, family and Mills.

Apart from being my mother she is

1.     Resident of the city
2.     Daughter of a freedom fighter
3.     Wife of a businessman
4.     A businesswoman 
5.     And mother of my brother as well 

Before the transcript of the interview, a little background about my mother. Born “Usha Shukla in 1954, in a middle class brahmin “Shukla” family, she was the youngest in the family with two elder brothers and a elder sister. She is still very proud of her father being a freedom fighter. All brother and sisters had their mothers influence (as I think all of us have). As children they all were persuaded to study hard as it would help them in making a decent living. The family owned a sweet shop in the traditional “khoya Bazaar” (old area of the city majorly filled with wholesale shops). They lived in a joint family, with their “Chacha’s” family (Paternal Uncle). Even after splitting they all are really close today.    


Maa: Wait let me get ready, what everyone will say, your mother knows nothing.
Me: Its ok!
Maa: One day your kids will see this, what will they say:
"was our grandmother an idiot". I dont want to make a fool out of myself.
Me: Maa why are you reading my questionnaire, that’s for me.
Maa: why not? I can read it. I am 1954 born and I am still there, I understand.

After some hiccups we started

Me: How was it like growing up in the city, your growing years?
Maa: What do you mean growing years?
Me: What was city like when you were growing up, what was the Ethos at that time.
Maa: It was different then, like, trees on the both sides of guarded streets you see. Parrots and birds chirped all day. My mother woke me up by saying birds are up its time you also get up from bed. Now people don’t talk much, now even neighbors don’t talk. Earlier people were happy, you could see people talking to each other in the morning. You could see children playing and sleeping in the mornings. Now you see children in uniform and parents running to leave them. Earlier children were lazy and playful. 

Me: So what do you remember of mills.
Maa: ya! We use to go to schools walking and we saw hundreds of mill workers on their cycle. It always was like this, simultaneous children on foot, workers on cycle. City was lively. Live was lively 
”raunak thi”. Not like today, where all you find is dead faces, fearful faces, and ‘yellow’ faces. Workers Tiffin’s had food in it. They ate together, they talked together
they lived together. 

Now I get news from T.V channels, earlier there was exchange of thoughts. Shops in neighborhood had every thing of need, there weren’t big malls. Not even many schools, children from all classes studied together. (Upper class/Middle Class/ Lower Class). As I remember there was not much discrimination. Nowadays the gap is bigger than ever before, gap between people, even in families.

She continues: 
Maa: I started my education in a municipal school (Gyan Bharti inter college) it was ok 
In 9th I took science and started with English medium, that was a big achievement for me because I studied “A, B, C” in 6 standard for the first time. I got good marks in class 12th so I got admitted to Christ Church college, it was considered to be one of the best at that time. I had good circle of friends. They belonged to every class (economic & social), but I never felt complexed, as children of today.

Me: What was your family status?
Maa: You could call us middle class. We ate good food. We dint spend much on clothing. Even as kids we were not very concerned about our clothing. We just studied. My Mother was very concerned for our studies. As my father was a freedom fighter, so he was not very involved in the family, but my mother was also very committed for nationalist vision. She wore khadi throughout her life. Both my parents were not money minded. My father died when I was in class X.

Me: As your father was freedom fighter do you remember any political happening at that point?
Maa: No! No! By the time I was born we were an independent nation
Me: Even then city would have been politically active.
Maa: at that time ‘politicians were politicians’ we did not had any problems.
Me: City’s politics had a big role of mill workers.
Maa: it all started after independence, “mill baji” started. Power was misused after independence, unions were a big problem, and even then ethos was not polluted.



Marriage:
After knowing each other for several years your father and I got married in 1979. 
Me: So it was Love Marriage
Maa: ya you could call it so, but both our families agreed. 

Maa: Your grandfather had died 2 years before our marriage, so Papa (my father) had to join the family business. 
Me: So he joined family business because of crisis
Maa: Yes it was not something he wanted to do, one of the reasons for joining the business was because his academic qualification was not that great, and so under the circumstances he was bound to do that. 

Me: What do you know about family business, this cloth shop.
Maa: I knew your father’s family even before marriage. They were rich bunch. Cloth trade was at its boom and Papa’s family made most of it. Your grandfather was very academic but he was not very involved in social causes like my father but he was religious. Otherwise most of Papa’s family was loyal to British, they were awarded with titles like Rai Bahadur etc.  

Me: Ya! I know my grandfather was rich, I have heard those stories about his horses and bungalow.
Maa: yes he was definitely rich. He earned a lot of money and he lived a lavish life. At that point he was very successful and he moved with the Top people of the city. But had sincerely earned that status and money. Your grandfather was only 14 when his father died. They lost a lot of money in business due to your great grandfather’s death. 

Me: This means my great grand father was also very rich!
Maa: Actually they came to the city from “Unnao” (an outskiting village of kanpur) due to some rivalry with the local people. They bought a lot of money along with them. They started trading cloth. At that point very few people were involved in the cloth trade. With time they established a good name in the market. But due to consistent early deaths in the family, each generation had to start from ground zero. With every death in the family things went back to square one. Your grandfather lost everything when his father died, similarly Papa had to start all over again after his father’s death.  

Maa: He changed the trend, started dealing with Private mills. Mills here had already collapsed, so he had to change.
Me: Was this the reason Papa switched to Private mills?
Maa: Look; earlier buyers/ purchasers came to us ---to Cawnpore—because of the mills,(Manufacturing sectors are assumed to be cheaper) they traded with mills & the local market. Now when the mills collapsed they turned to big cities and private mills. 

Slowly trend changed, more and more people started trading with private mills, we also had to do it. When Papa took agencies of Private mills, now he and others like him had to go to buyers to sell his product. When they started going out they, their changed lifestyle
City started loosing its flavor, comparison from bigger cities started bothering. 
“Bahar ye hai
. Bahar who hai”
suddenly city started looking small.

The number of unemployed workers kept rising in the city. This helped the small-scale industries to grow. But with this development city had to pay its price, all sorts of problems started
electricity, pollution, exploitation of labor and resources, corruption and red tapism flourished. 

Today’s politicians don’t work, the political scene changed so rapidly that, and no eyebrows were raised when government switched from committed to selfish. Now a day’s patriotism is a joke, nobody cares anymore. Places like ‘phoolbagh’ (old meeting ground for politicians) where people use to meet for debates and there was a very rich library. Suddenly things changed
 students use to go there May be it’s because of the computer age, but the computer change was also not that swift in Uttar Pradesh. We left what we had but we failed to adapt to the new system. 

Me: When papa started this Private dealership, was it intentional that he wanted to expand his business, did he ever had any plans??
Maa: when mills collapsed people from outside came to us and said 
“Ab ye kapda bechiye” (now sell this cloth), and it was obvious and practical thing to do. But due to that we now had to go to door to door and sell our products. Buyers just stopped coming to the city. A major factor that changed the way business was conducted was change in payment pattern. Earlier when buyers came to us they brought money (cash), now we were going to their door to sell, so we had to offer them discounts, schemes and worse we had to give them credit.

Trade, which was prestigious, was now short of credibility. Earlier when they came they said you are doing a great favor to us by selling goods to us, now they said if I buy from u what will I get. The newly established credit system worsens the working conditions. 

Me: When did papa started dealing with Private mills? 
Maa: around 1980 just after our marriage
Me: Before marriage did he had plans to switch the trend. 
Maa: No! No! When his father was handling the business, he purchased cloth from local mills and sold it. Production had stopped when I was in class 12th but there was stock. At one point there was ‘Rationing of cloth’, cloth came from outside. Then mills started manufacturing cloth in the city and Cawnpore became a big business center. 
At a point I think there were 36 big mills so during that period your grandfather made a lot of money. Your father had never thought of career, so after his fathers death he had no option, and once he joined he changed the trend. 



End of Part I.



I just presented this random conversation as it is. I request you to forgive me for transcripting it in a formal maner. But i have my reasons for it. 1. I dont know how to do that and 2. I thought it might dilute the essence of this conversation. 

In future posting i plan post some other transcripts of interviews of other members of the family.


peace, 
Maitrey Bajpai 
9820844311 
9320844311

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