by Sameer Majli
Old order changeth, yielding place to new. The prominent among the human souls are transformed into memories or statues or even names for streets and parks. The rest, are laid to rest; often taking form of elements like the soil and smoke that make up the earth.
While humans have several modes of holding on to memories of people of yester years, the landmarks are landscapes are not blessed with the same ability. They may, at the most, remain encoded in digital memories if not the photographic ones. A few photographs pop up on the social scene as memories of my old self and me as Belagavi aka Belgaum, erstwhile Venugram, I continue to be a silent spectator of the feat of demolition that is heralded as symbolic of human progress.
My midst is in a state of great turmoil as path breaking exercise is on for the path making purpose. As the effect of this unprecedented exercise touches different parts of my interiors, I patiently await the emergence of new landmarks which along with the absence of old landmarks will soon become my whole new definition.
The good old building of the Pioneer Bank with its towering clock will soon be history. The bells will soon cease to chime and the human folk will move over to the convenience and supreme accuracy of their digital time keeping machines. No more will the manual time keepers services be needed and he will move to other means of subsistence. The landmark will cease to be the mark of the land.
The age old Himalaya Tea House will soon be raised to the dust. I have often wondered about how apt the name of the eatery has been since it serves spicy hot food. Soon my dilemma of figuring out the origin of the nomenclature will not be necessary. Although seemingly unmodern if I may call it so, the place almost used to have queues of people waiting for their share of the appetizing, simplistic and realtively frugal bites. No more parcels from the Himalaya….. Hard to imagine. As the eatery waits for the cruel blows of demolition, we are all saddened by the cruel fate and share the pain of the proprietor. Soon he may move to alternative spaces in the jungle of cement and concrete but the charm of the place will be lost in the transition. The road will be wider but it will cease to lead us to the place where we once and almost forever, will want to be.
Transition brings forth a multitude of emotions that have an overwhelmingly sad effect despite the apparent necessity. As the old order changeth, all that one can do is hold on to the memories of these wonderful places that in good old days were part of our wonderful lives in our sweet little corner of the blue planet
About the Author: Sameer Majli is Chief Mentor at Stratmen -Strategic Mentoring Solutions, an initiative engaged in facilitating near perfect education and learning.