Well, lets begin with where the life starts. Right at the birth. In India, the social prestige one is going to enjoy in his life is decided by the caste in which one is born. In CIL colonies, it depends on the post of the father in which one is born. You are a General Manager's child, you are right at the top of the hierarchy. You are an engineer's child, you are somewhere in the middle of the hierarchy. And god forbid, if you are a worker's child, you'll have to work very hard to know your hierarchy. Thinking of it, i remember how i came to know about my caste details only in standard tenth when i had to fill up the board exam form. I had a feeling i belong to the warrior clan of the Gupta's (of the Chandragupta Maurya fame) as my surname sounded in tune with them. So to hear that my forefathers were not these brave fighters but those (smart) businessmen was a shock initially. However, this just shows how your colony hierarchy supersedes every other hierarchy atleast in the mind of children.
Another interesting aspect was the selection of tuition classes for your subjects. Since the colonies are, most of the times, located away from cities, you need to find someone to teach you the tougher subjects in the colony itself. You see, parents dont want to take the risk of sending their children outside the colony and thus contaminating them from the OTHER SIDE (read people outside the colony). So you do a search for the right class. And the criteria being. Yes, you are right. The number of girls attending the classes. It gave you a tremendous opportunity to increase the number of belts you receive on the Friendship Day.
Then there were the weekend Club Days on Saturday nights. With all the aunties busy playing Howzie (Lotto tickets) and uncles busy in discussing the break down of shovels and dumpers, it was a tremendous opportunity for us (read boys and girls) to gel together and play some cool games. The best being Lappan Chuppan (Hide and Seek).
Of course, one thing which surpassed all these was the excitement on the day of some important results. The whole colony came to congratulate you as if you have won some big amount in KBC (or if compared to the current hot shot - you have got a date with Dolly Bindra). Those are the moments you cherish for your lifetime.
Those were some days!!! Times have changed now. And so has the colony life. People spend more time on FB then meeting and playing with their friends. The charm and excitement of Club Days has also taken a back seat courtesy Bigg Boss and its inmates. The good old Ambassador and Maruti 800 has been replaced by some swanky new cars -- Volkswagen, Swift Dezire, Honda City et al. However, there is a umbilical cord that still binds the people residing there. And that is their belongingness of this great organisation called Coal India Limited. And this is the cord that will keep them binded for the rest of their lives.
So all you people who have invested in CIL and feel apprehensive about its future, take a chill pill and change the channel from CNBC (from where you will get some nerve recking analysis of CIL future) to NDTV GOOD TIMES (guess why?).
Thanks for your patience :)
