Belgaum and Sulga

---

Belgaum and Sulga

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,

"This is my own, my native land!"

Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,

As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,

From wandering on a foreign strand!

- Sir Walter Scott

I remembered those lines when I started packing for our annual get-together of school-friends, which was at Belgaum, our own ‘native place’. The joy of revisiting Belgaum permeated my being.

Well, Mumbai is not exactly a ‘foreign strand’ and we are quite ‘at home’ here, or so we thought.

At our earlier get-togethers, there was great enjoyment in meeting the school-friends but this time, it was doubled by the venue, Belgaum.

For forty-odd years, we had pursued the goals of family security and prosperity in different towns and had attained a certain success in it. All of us were married, with children and grandchildren, and had ‘arrived’, so to say.

However, our inner self still yearned for the home of our childhood, our ‘maher’, and so, according to Scott, we would not go down ‘unwept, unhonour’d and unsung’.

This is a great solace.

So, because the get-together was at Belgaum, everyone came.

The two days that we spent in each other’s company were magical, scented days. We gossiped, reminisced, played games, sang together and went on small picnics. The feasts were spread out for us with special Belgaum delicacies.

All too soon the get-together was over and we parted with each other, loaded with gifts and group photographs.

We still had relatives – brothers, sisters, aunts in Belgaum, though nobody stayed in their original homes in Belgaum. All had moved to Thalakwadi.

My friends went to their own relatives to spend a few days.

Just as we had once gone to Gwalior, Avi’s hometown, on a ‘nostalgia trip’, Avi knew that this was a ‘nostalgia trip’ for me.

Avi had followed me to Belgaum and we did a ‘Jog Falls Tour’ from Belgaum for two days.

While coming back from Jog Falls, we decided to visit ‘Sulga’.

Sulga used to be a village four miles from Belgaum on Sawantwadi road, but now Belgaum’s urban growth has engulfed it fully. I was titillated to see a board of ‘men’s beauty parlor’ of, what obviously was, a ‘hair-cutting saloon’.

‘Sulga’ was to me what ‘Tara’ was to Scarlett O’Hara.

We had a large sugar-cane plantation there and our ‘ryots’ (tenants) used to make jaggery during the season. A large well supplied the water, which was pumped out. On the opposite side of the our sugarcane-plantation, we had a bungalow, which has now become quite dilapidated and obscured by a new, large house in the front. ‘Our’ bungalow was in a mango-grove and two huge Eucalyptus trees, which could be seen in the ‘panchkroshi’, (an area with a 5-‘kos’ radius) adorned the entrance.

Everything is now ‘Gone with the wind’. We could not even find the entrance to the bungalow so we just decided to visit the sugar-cane plantation.

The sugarcane fields still waved their crests (‘Tura’s) in the wind but I could not see any activity of the ‘Gurhal’ i.e. the process of making jaggery from the sugarcane juice. Our ryots used to be engaged in this process for days together. I still remember the huge cauldron in which bubbled the sugarcane-juice and the pungent-sweetish smell of the fuel, which was just the sugarcane-stumps left after the extraction of the juice.

Nowadays, they sell the sugarcane to the factories.

When we entered the plantation, we were surprised to see a spacious, modern house standing nearby. It belonged to one of our ‘ryot’s, who had left for his heavenly abode, but whose children and grandchildren lived there.

His daughter-in-law, who herself has grandchildren now, welcomed us, gave us tea and we talked about old times.

I was happy to see that our ‘ryots’ have prospered, because there were good relations between us.
The next day, I purchased the ‘kunda’, ‘Dharwadi pedhe’ ‘khari bundi’ and ‘mande’ and we made tracks towards Belgaum airport at Sambra.

It was the first day of the Mumbai-Belgaum-Mumbai flight, which has started newly, and we were the very first customers, so we were given royal treatment by the airline. We were presented with flowers, sweets, and cotton shawls and ‘aarati’ed while ‘shehnai’ music with drums and cymbals was played by the musicians.

Our photos also were taken by the Press and TV crews interviewed incoming passengers.

It was the nicest farewell Belgaum (actually the airline) could have given us and the afterglow lasted us a long time.

---

Photos

The well with nests of 'weaver' birds.
This well is not being used now.