SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

2.11.14  6 pm.
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

Long ago I was transferred from the mega-city Delhi to a smaller city Nagpur . My friends in Delhi maintained that I was going to a worse place where I would be miserable.  As it turned out, it was very enjoyable to live in Nagpur!

I discovered that small was beautiful!

To start with, for the same monthly rent that I had been paying for a  two rooms set in a multistorey building in Delhi, I had, in Nagpur, a single storey spacious accommodation with a backyard where I could do a bit of early morning gardening and grow some vegetables ! And the air was so clean and the surroundings so green that I started going on morning walks too!

Unless you are very rich, you will be far happier living in a small city.

While I lived in Delhi, there were emormous distances to cover and a  personalised transport was very expensive for me. I had  to travel by bus (there was no metro-rail in those days- even the metro is now getting too congested for comfort!). Regular use of a car or a taxi would mean heavy drain on personal budget. And what a bad experience it was to travel in a Delhi city bus!! It was not for nothing that the Delhi city bus service (named D.T.U in those days.- Delhi Transport Undertaking) was famously known as "Don't Trust Us" !! There were endless waits at the bus stops, unmanageable crowds in buses and unpredictable and unreliable bus timings.

In Nagpur the distances were short. One could save so much on time and petrol! And, besides, driving on uncongested Nagpur roads was enjoyable. In Delhi you had to drive through  mad traffic and heavy smog - which was sheer nightmare!

There was an efficent bus-service in Nagpur on a few routes. But more popular was a cycle-rikshaw - it was always there to take you anywhere and it was  cheap and pollution free. The city was full of big leafy trees, a variety of birds and butterflies! And the sky was real blue unlike the  smog-ridden pale sky of Delhi. On a cloudless dark night I could see the arc of the MILKY WAY stretching from the northern skies to the south. In Delhi you are not even aware that there is somethng called a "Milky Way" up there in the sky!!

We waste long hours in mega cities in travelling. When living in a small city we save this time and can utilise it for reading books, socialising and in indulging in a hobby! Yes one has so much more time in hand in a small city.Life there moves on leisurely - at a slow, relaxed pace. I became a member of a good public-library within days of arriving in Nagpur.

In those days Mr. Nayyar, the old silver-haired  proprietor, ran a popular south-indian restaurant near the Liberty cinema in Nagpur. He always greeted me with a radiant welcome smile as I entered the restaurant. I had made it a point to start the day by having a tall glass of  Nilgiri tea there before entering my office nearby. That was the only place where I could get high quality hot tea in those days. And his idli and Upama were also delicious !

I have always liked south indian restaurants. The stuff prepared there is wholesome, tasty and digestable. My favourite is steaming hot idli with an ample measure of coconut-greenchilli chutney.

A little later in Allahabad too I managed to discover a nice little south Indian cafe near the Lakshmi cinema in the university area. The manager was a lanky Tamil young man who seemed to like me. To reciprocate his warmth I bought a LEARN SPOKEN TAMIL primer and picked up a good deal of daily-use tamil sentences. It surprised him! How I enjoyed it!! Could I have done this in fast-paced impersonal Delhi ?

Smaller cities have family-run general stores (popularly known as mom-and-pop stores in USA). Unlike the super markets and mega stores, these small stores,not far from your house, have a relaxed personalised atmosphere . And they believe in good relationship with customers. Let me recount an interesting incident relating to one such store.

It so happened that once I  forgot my new scooter-helmet somewhere in the market. I could  not recollect where I had left it and had given up hope of finding it.  One day, as I walked down the main market road, a teenage boy came  running from behind and breathlessly said that a particular shopkeeper far back in the road was calling me. I was tired and reluctant to go back but he managed to take me back to a shop. When I reached there, the owner greeted me warmly and handed me over my helmet which I had left in his shop a long time back!

So that is the way you enjoy living in a small city. You have more time in hand, you do not keep wasting time in waiting for a bus or in endless travel. There are no traffic jams, no constant high-decible honking of horns, no traffic lights to beat ! And people care for you.

So small Is Beautiful indeed so far as  living in a city is concerned. If you want to live life King-size on a small budget you must opt for a small city. You have so much to gain there. And the only thing you leave behind is a TENSE, MAD, FAST-PACED, NOISY, POLLUTED WORLD  !!