As you enter the town of Dhamtari, the first sight that will welcome you is the trees dotted fields full of lush green paddy crops! But don’t be surprise if the first building you saw is an automobile showroom!
The first building I noticed when I first entered the town of Dhamtari is the TATA Motors and Hyundai Motors Showroom facing each other on each side of the road amidst a lush green paddy field.
That image keeps popping up in my head every time I think of Chhattisgarh. I won't say that that image represent Chhattisgarh simply because I still know very little about Dhamtari or Chhattisgarh, and I’m yet to learn many more things and my views and opinions of Dhamtari & Chhattisgarh will be changed in the future as I come to know better.
To me, cars and bike represent ultimate consumerism, especially in places like Dhamtari which is a rather small rural town. On the other hand, the very existence of the automobile showroom in the middle of paddy field also shows the agrarian based economy of the region. As we all know (even though debatable) agriculture is the lowest preferred or lowest ranked profession of all!
That mental image of mine also means to me that the people, despite their consumerism, still not deserted their traditional occupation, so here is the potential friction. Modernism and traditionalism.
It is pretty common, nowadays, to see traditional and modern culture and practice working parallel in our Indian society....but when it comes to traditional mindset interacting with modern mindset; it is a totally different thing.
But as I am going to begin working in Chhattisgarh, I think it is important to me to make a mental picture of what it would be like -and be proved right or wrong in every step because that is usually how I learn best, and what to me is an open mind.
The above is my mental picture of Chhattisgarh as I begin with, and I would be more than happy to be proved wrong each day because it would mean I learnt something!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment