Of Folkore and Watering Hole


Most people in the scientific field will know what happens when the going gets tough. It is not as if you are physically drained of all energy and all your bones are stiff. It is the mind that cannot take it anymore, and is at the brink of a breakdown. What happens then? What do you do? Nothing. There really is nothing that you can do except go back to your assigned room and weep about it for a while. The situation as I describe is more or less what happens in NBRC, at the end of the world.

On the banks of the road that turns out from the institute lies a watering hole in a tin shack. The tin of the shack is often noisy from the apes who dance on it, the banking from naked apes chattering.

The clean forest air seems like the perfect buffer to absorb the anger and resentment of everyday disappointments. Sadbir Singh is the owner of a little shop just outside the gates of the National Brain Research Centre. His son is called by the name Manu (in Hindu tradition it refers to the very first king to rule the earth), and the shop as known by all is called Manu’s shop. The Gurgaon mall culture is one of the reasons why this tiny self service shop is also called ‘NBRC mall’.

India is called the land of rich heritage. It is a land where history dates back from before Christ was born, and the habit of spreading folklore has come down since then for thousands of years. In the mean time language was invented, and so was writing, yet no matter what you did to put things on slate and paper, Indians would still prefer telling stories through ‘word of mouth’. The folklore of today, or gossip as many people want to name it, is a consequence of heavy influence of Western culture from the last few hundred years.

The bank of the first turn out of NBRC where Manu’s shop is located is the hub of folklore. Here the anger and resentment of everyday disappointments is poured out to ears of those willing to listen, and for the rest whose ears are not tuned into anything in particular.

Grouped in threes and fours, and sometimes in larger numbers, sit interested parties suffering from the anxiety of troubled research parameters. There is smoke too that emanates into the jungle air out of dry nostrils and buccal cavities. The cigarettes burn brightly except when there is sighting of a faculty like some leopard out of the jungle, at which times the smoke is just like a transient haze around the head.

When night falls and there is fear of a scorpion or snake, the huddles become tighter. The voices become softer, and the trees have ears. Manu’s shop is a day-long accumulation of news from in and around NBRC, uninteresting. Sometimes the monkeys flock around trying to catch some stray news on the welfare of wild cats in the region.

Manu’s shop is not a liquor shop, though he may oblige sometimes to fix someone’s mood. Soft drinks may cool the esophagus, but what cools the mind in the searing heat of the Aravali Hills? From Coca Cola bottle with no fizz, to Maaza bottles with white sediments, humans and animals alike concur that having Parle G biscuits is probably the next best way to survive. Absconding lab members have no place to hide. The farthest they can be from the lab without the risk of getting lost is Manu’s shop. Often, looking away from the institute gives respite and is thought to be a good idea of hiding from the prying eyes of guides. At such times the human beings of NBRC wish this place was really a ‘hole’ for temporary concealment.

But, I have not been democratic. Any opinion about NBRC isn’t complete without the opinion of the Macaca population. They bear a right of way and a right of speech, except, if only they could speak like politicians (the noises they make are not much different from what us humans call speech, but politicians have a more dramatic way of speaking gibberish). Thus for the time being, the frugal dominance can be enjoyed, and before the rise of an Ape-Town can occur, the naked apes can claim their rights by the power of the bamboo stick. Democracy can go to hell and socialism remain in air-conditioned common-rooms. The hills watch upon them, the leopards poop, the monkeys sneer and they sneer back, and the trees have ears. All in all it is the story of a happy ‘family’.

Dwaipayan Adhya

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