The Millennial Witch

It was June’17, I can tell for I remember the dry, prickly heat and the beauty of the dunes. And if signboards were to be believed, we were at some sparsely populated, low storey colony of weavers- in Bhojasar, Rajasthan. The houses- Kacha and Pucca- all carried this unique smell of yarn, atypical silence of routine and uniform taste of tea. Most of these houses were occupied by the grizzled wrinkly weavers who had lived there all their lives. Some had happily took to their family business and the rest were pushed there by circumstances. But most of these grumpy-looking old men had set their children free to choose denim over hand-woven fabric, decaf over desi-tea…basically city-life over village-life. Gopalji said, “I don’t know if I made the right decision, but my loneliness is the cost I pay to buy them their independence!”

I gulped down the 3rd cup of tea, collected my notes and walked back to the bus station with my friend and adventure-companion, Jagruti. We took resort at a tea-stall where our local-aid, Kundanji, had first left us early in the morning. The tea-guy looked at us and whispered something to his runner. Now we had been village-hoping with backpacks for a project for a few days, so receiving those ‘Not-Fit-looks’ was not new to us. What was new was someone tiptoeing to us with curiosity and looking at us with dismay!

A bus passed by, screeched and reversed. A courageous, young lad ran to us and asked: “Are you from the city?”. Jugs nodded. He ran back and this time he came with his driver who asked, “Is it just the two of you?”

“What is the matter?” I asked.

“Don’t you chop off braids of young girls?” he asked.

“Yes, now stop bothering us or you’ll be the next” I snapped. They stepped back and the bus left.

The tea-guy looked at me with horror and dialled up a number in panic, blabbering something. The murmuring sound raised higher and higher and we were suddenly surrounded by ladies in colourful odhnis and men in white dhotis. The sparse locality was not really so sparse, after all. Before we could register their sound and translate that to whatever little we could make of it the aunties had started sneering and repeatedly shouted ‘Baal Katni’.

At this point, the tea-guy struggled his way through the crowd and took the centre stage. He addressed the mob in a stern voice and cleared the gathering. Then he turned to us and handed us some newspapers. The titles read something like:‘Baal Katni has entered the village’,‘Sleep outdoors and lose your hair to Baal Katni’, ‘Two urban women come to town and chop off braids of young girls’ and so on. Eh! If you pair up jeans with a loose shirt and tie your hair in a bun...what do you get? A millennial witch! Right.

By the time Kundanji made it to the spot with some help, it was too late. The situation had gone out of control. The tea-stall was lively with the natives. The runner was serving tea to everyone while Bhujia and Kachoris were doing the rounds. And, we were told the story of ‘real baal katnis’ by the elders in the community. The same people who were scared of us and tried to scare us were showing all shades of hospitality then. The party lasted till the bus arrived. We hopped on the bus. The driver looked at us and asked: “Are you from the city?”