Community Stories:-1

Community Stories:-1
The Road between Jaspur and Gweel is Still Troublesome
Bhishma Kukreti (Jaspurwal)

(My one of grand mothers (father’s bodi/tai) Kwanra Devi (wife of late Sheesh Ram Ji) told this tale. For providing a message , I had to travel from Jaspur to Gweel ( Malla Dhangu, Pauri Garhwal) and come back with reply for the message. Though, the distance between Gweel and Jaspur is hardly two or two and half kilometers but the road and going down from Jaspur and then coming up from Gweel to Jaspur is terrible and tiresome. I asked grand mom about who built that very bad , terrible, tedious tiresome, road from Jaspur to Gweel . Grand mom Kwanra Devi told this tale)

The incident might be before three hundred years back when there was only Jaspur village in the area of Malla Dhangu. There was no place as such Gweel in Malla Dhangu. One day, great grand mother of Kukretis went to gaushala (cow pen or byre) for milking cow. She untied cow and calf free from keel-jyud (big wooden nail -tether ). As soon as the calf got untied he ran away from byre. Looking at the running calf his mother became restless and she also ran away after the calf. Frightened, our grand mother with empty milk-vessel (parothi ) also ran after them. While running after calf and cow, she called her husband. Now the situation was this that calf was running fast and cow was running after the calf. Grand mother and grand pa were running after calf and cow. The calf was running towards east south of Jaspur, up and down, through jungle, through rivulet , through bhel (slope of hill) and like that.

After many hours the calf reached a place, which was plain and was surrounded by three rivulets . The calf was tired and he stayed there, his mother also reached there and started licking and her child. After a few minutes , following calf-cow, grand mom and grand pa also reached there. All were tired.

After taking some rest, grand mom milked the cow. The place was very even. After milking the cow, grand mother told her husband , “ I milked the cow here, therefore, we shall call this place Gweel .” .Then after they all came back to Jaspur following same tedious path made by calf and others running after him. From there on the Jaspur inhabitants started coming to place named Gweel by grand mom by this path. Later on they built many cow pens at this place Gweel. After many generations and after the Gurkhyani era, our elder grand pa built many cow pins, new house in Gweel like a small forte (kwatha-bhitar), temple and started to live there but never leave to walk on the road made by the calf. No body thought to change the tedious, tiresome, troublesome path from Jaspur to Gweel.

After finishing the community tale, grand ma Kwanra Devi told,’ myar buba! This the story of road between Jaspur and Gweel. This is not the story of Jaspur and Gweel but in every village of world that we walk on the tedious roads made by cows and calves.”

Moral of the story is that when we go on the beaten path we walk on the tedious path. So it is better that we make new paths
( From: Salan baten lok katha : Tales from Salan Garhwal)

Copyright@ Bhishma Kukreti/April/2009/Mumbai .