Page 22 - Vasant Bahar

Childhood and Struggle

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y name is Vasant . But my life never has a blossom, it
Mwas always full of struggles. My birth date is 9-9-1956.
But it is 1-9-1955 on the school records. Kaneri (Tal. Karvir,
Dist : Kolhapur) is my native place. Then, my village was
a beautiful natural place to be in.There were many trees.
Ample of rainfalls. I do not remember how the winter was as
I was embraced in the warm arms of my parents and elderly
people of the family. My house did not have electricity; there
was no need of fans and AC in the summer season. All the
houses of the village were made up of the huge walls and
roof made up of soil. Today, the houses of the village have
cement walls and manglore or hand made by potmaker soil

slabs. I would better keep mum about the family atmosphere
of today.
Every evening, the office boy of our gram panchayat

used to light up the lampshades of the roadside poles after
cleaning the glass of the lamp. One of the person from
panchayat used to ring the bell aloud to convey any message
to the villagers. This way of conveying message is widely
known as ‘Davandi’. We all children used to run behind that
person.
Sometimes, we used to witness the plays, jalsas,
Tamashas, Mela etc. Many a times the government used to
show us a film at the chavadi. We used to get informed about

VASANT BAHAR / 14