RAM NAM OR DHAN

RAM NAAM KE KAARNE SAB DHAN DALA KHOY;

MURAKH JANE GIR PADA DIN DIN DOONA HOY.


Please give your view on the above.

2. My memories of the childhood, some are hazy and others are vivid. When I was four years old, mother sent me to Aligarh to my nani's house. They lived in Mamu Bhanja. The house was big but very old and in a dilapidated condition. Parts of the house were not unable, and some rooms had caved in. In those rooms lived snakes and rats.

3. In the street, just in the outside part of the house, was a halwai shop, but most of the time this one was closed. There was another halwai shop, khyali Ram's, almost opposite the house.
To go in the house, first you enter the door, then there was a covered area, under the roof above, after that a courtyard, on the right of which were two broken down rooms, on the left was a latrine, stairs to go to the roof, and a ghoora where all the kuda was thrown. Then a few stairs, to go in a covered passage, on both sides of which were rooms, then you come into the courtyard, or aangan, where at night a small tin lamp with kerosene and batti inside it, burned, giving the' floodlight' to the house. There was a handpipe supplying all the water for all the residents.

4. To enter the house at night was an ordeal for me. As we used to hear lots of ghost stories in those dayswhich we enjoyed very much but which made us more afraid of ghosts. I still believe that there were not only snakes in that house, some of whom we spotted from time to time, but there were ghosts too. Since there was no light in the outside area, we had to pass through a big aangan in the dark to go into the inside part of the house. So, if the halwai shop outside that house was open, then there was an electric bulb lighting up some part of the passage and it was a great help. But his shop, as I said before, was rarely open. So I waited until someone came and then I could enter the house with him.

5. Inside area had at least four large rooms,. two kitchens and a few kothris. My nanaji had four brothers, and all five of the brothers and their families lived in that large house. There were also two rooms upstairs and a large open roof where we slept during hot summer months. There were plenty of monkeys around who stole the laundry drying on the roof, and then did their khon khon to attract attention to be able to exchange their loot with a piece of bread.

to be continued.....