Childhood days are generally remembered with nostalgia for the moments of fun, adventure and friendship of a magical past. It is a time of love and laughter, of shared secrets and friendly quarrels, and of the snug reading of books alternating with the boisterous playing of games. All this and more is brought back to the reader through the pages of the book, An Elsewhere Place: Boyhood Days in Hazaribagh.
The book becomes doubly interesting when it is read by someone who has known the said ‘elsewhere place’ and has just as nostalgic memories of the place it is set in. I did not spend my childhood in Hazaribagh but had visited it often during those long ago days when it was a quiet, charming little town surrounded by hills and forests. And today, we have a home there where we stay for long periods. There is a great difference between then and now. From the little resort town of yore Hazaribagh has turned into a busy, bustling place with traffic jams and concrete buildings crowding out the huge, shady trees that once lined its roads.
As someone who has experienced Hazaribagh in the good old days and now sees it in its modern version, I opened the book with great excitement, hoping to bring back memories of the town in all its past glory. I am delighted to say that I was not disappointed.
The author begins the book with a chapter on the town as it was years ago, when he was a child living in a bungalow surrounded by fields of mustard and groves of sal and eucalyptus trees. It is an evocative chapter about the days when the place, earlier an old British cantonment, was occupied by lovely old bungalows, with names like Rosalynd, Balmoral and Gibraltar. His childhood was spent in a house with a large garden, fruit trees and vegetable patch. It is no wonder that the author remembers his childhood days with such pleasure, and has vivid memories of the great times he had in the serene surroundings of the hilly resort.