Jaat Ke Thaat

 

I have many Jaat friends. There are mostly jaat in my village. We have grown a good bond with the Jaat community. Our Sarpanch is a jaat; he is a good friend of my father. (It means my father has a political influence in the village.) He is a Sarpanch, but his dad is a Pro-Sarpanch. He always wears white clothes, having a hukka in his hands.

Once he had a gossip with my dad, my cousin, an electrician, arrived there. He asked me- “Who is here?”

“Our Sarpanch’s Father.”

“I can talk to him about a new solar energy set, should I?”

“Do you think you can convince him?”

“I have a perfect sentence, man; it will do it one shot. You see.”

“Let’s See.”

He entered the room. He waited till they ended their conversation. Then Kanaram Ji asked – “What do you do, young man.”

“I deal with inverters and solar panels.”

“Is that your own business?”

“No! I work for money.”

“It is good to learn the business and better start one, but the best is to start after learning.”

“If you want, you can also buy a set of solar panels for your house.”

“Why do we need that?”

“See, if you are sitting in AC, and suddenly, the electricity went off, then you will be in serious trouble, na? I don’t want you to face this, so you should buy a set.”

“We don’t have an AC, and I don’t think the inverters can take the load of ACs.”

Now. Naresh had not expected that. He thought that AC is a common thing, and they were the Sarpanch as well. His mouth fell. He has used the trick with the rich people to become an employee of the month, but it didn’t work.

“It is the same for the coolers too. We are quite addicted to coolers nowadays.”

“I don’t sit in the cooler, I just use it in the nights well, but I don’t sit in the coolers in the daytime.”

His experience had not only ruined my cousin’s hopes but also taught him that a father is always a father and a son is still a son.

“We can’t handle even when the fan stops. We become frustrated.”

“Whenever there is an electricity cut, I sit under the deep shadow of the Neem tree; if it is going to stop, then I’ll buy your set.”

“No, Sir.” He said in disappointment. His face down. 

“Beta! Your electricity entered the village eighteen years ago, and I brought the electricity here. I entered the village sixty-seven years ago. I have spent my whole life sitting under the trees. And you young people become frustrated in ten minutes?”

I was holding my laughter at that time. The modern young seller was poorly defeated in the battle of facts. Who was very confident? But he didn’t give up. He tried the last weapon.

“But you are the Sarpanch. MLA may also visit your house. You should have AC.”

“Beta! We are the Sarpanchs; we are not Kings. We are the servants of the public. We service our people; we don’t rule them. Our priority is good of our people. And these are the worldly things. We should keep away from them as far as possible.”

If the Indian politicians were thinking like them, our India must be developed till now. But then I realized that the population of India is not like the people of our village.

“Naresh said to me he is right, but it is not the business.”

Then I made him meet their son, and they had a deal. We succeed to put an AC and a solar panel in their house.

So, the moral of the story is that the old school is not always bad. If we are old school, that doesn’t mean that we can’t have these things; we just love our culture.