Last Thursday, the weather was unexpectedly kind in Seemanchal. The temperature hovered in the 20s, and a gentle breeze moved through the air like a quiet blessing—softening what is usually the harsh onset of a North Indian summer.
We had a full day ahead: two weddings and a small celebration marking the circumcision of a young boy in my native village, Faringora. The kind of day that feels less like an itinerary and more like a return—to people, to memory, to a slower rhythm of life.
We set off around 12:30 pm, after offering our midday prayers at home. Our first stop was a village called Ibrahimpur in Uttar Dinajpur, West Bengal—Birahampur, as we call it in our Surajapuri dialect. The drive took about an hour, winding through narrow roads that stitched together a series of villages, each quietly alive in its own way.
The landscape was lush, almost indulgently green. Brick houses, punctuated with houses made of mud and hay, stood with a certain understated pride, many with a tractor or a small car parked in the backyard—a subtle marker of progress. And yet, life moved at its own pace. Men in dusty lungis, women in worn saris, farmers bent over fields, and women carrying sun-dried bamboo twigs and firewood for cooking. Children played lazily—some sprawled across makeshift bamboo platforms or charpoys, others chasing each other without urgency.
A hailstorm had passed through a couple of nights earlier. You could see its aftermath in the maize fields that stretched across the region like a green carpet. In patches, the corn plants lay tilted, some flattened completely—a quiet, visible loss for farmers who depend on them, sinking them further into debt and poverty.
And then, suddenly, celebration.
The wedding venue in Birahampur was a pleasant surprise. Under the shade of tall trees, colourful tents had been erected with care and intention. It wasn’t extravagant, but it had heart. Men, women, and children—dressed in their finest—moved about with an easy joy, drifting between food stalls serving jalebis, pani puri, and steaming cups of tea.
I had seen such arrangements in cities and small towns—often larger, louder, more polished. But seeing this in a village, even at a modest scale, felt different. It felt earned.
Outside the tent, a TV screen played recordings from the previous night’s wedding rituals. People paused, watched, smiled—recognising faces, moments, fragments of shared memory.
But like most Indian weddings, the true centre of gravity was the dining area.
We found our seats without much fuss amid plastic dining tables covered with reusable plastic covers. We were lucky as we had reached slightly early, as per local standards of arrival time. Paper plates arrived, and soon after, the food: pulao rice, rich red meat with thick, oily gravy, chilli chicken (just two pieces—I initially mistook it for achar), papad, yogurt, and rasgulla to end. Simple, hearty, familiar. And yet, in that setting, it tasted like something more.
There was also a videographer moving from table to table, filming people as they ate—some smiled into the camera, others looked away awkwardly, mid-bite. Later, outside, I noticed a drone hovering above the venue, capturing aerial shots of the gathering. Even here, in a quiet village, the language of modern celebration had arrived.
After the meal, we made our way to a small table under an umbrella. Two boys sat across it—one with a register and pen, carefully noting down names and amounts of the gift money, and another with a handbag, methodically collecting the currency notes. I didn’t recognise them at first, but they recognised me. I had last seen them as children; now they had grown into young men, carrying forward these quiet responsibilities. I handed over the gift in my father’s name.
After that, I ambled around the venue for a bit. There were mango trees offering shade, and I spotted a few kadamb trees too. A lemon tree stood quietly in one corner, and a papaya tree nearby bore small, imperfect fruits—nothing like the polished ones you see in supermarkets. Dogs and chickens moved around leisurely, completely indifferent to the celebrations. It was a scene untouched by urgency, grounded in its own rhythm.
One of the best parts of such village weddings is the people you meet—the unexpected reunions. I met faces I hadn’t seen in years, even decades. Time had left its marks, but recognition still flickered through the lines and wrinkles.
I met a distant uncle, and naturally, I asked about his son—let’s call him Dabbu. When we were children, Dabbu had a peculiar habit that made him the subject of endless laughter. Whenever nature called, it called urgently—and immediately. He would announce it without warning and rush to the front yard of our village baithakkhana, pull down his half-pants, and relieve himself right there. In those days, toilets were rare; children used the backyard, and adults went to the fields or bamboo groves. Luckily, we had a toilet at home, one of the very few in our village.
His father smiled as he spoke of him. Dabbu now worked as a house painter, was married, and had two children. “But he has lost all his teeth,” he added casually. I tried to picture him that way—and failed.
By the time we reached the second venue in Teonsa, it was past 4 pm. The tent there was set up in open fields, surrounded by tall, upright corn plants. It was more modest than the earlier one. Lunch was long over, and we had already eaten, so we simply met the family and had a cup of tea.
As the day began to lean toward evening, we drove to our native village, Faringora.
Every time I visit Faringora, I find myself comparing it to the village I carry in my memory. The change is overwhelming. Apart from our ancestral home and a few houses nearby, everything else feels unfamiliar now. Progress has redrawn the landscape.
The young boy, perhaps five or six years old, whose circumcision was being celebrated, was dressed like a groom—in a sherwani and turban, with a garland of fake currency notes around his neck. He sat on a decorated stage, against shiny yellow and green backdrops, while his father fed him kheer and bananas. A videographer hovered nearby, capturing every moment.
The boy’s father is one of my cousins from the village. He drives a private hire car that he owns.
A meal or snack was offered but we were already full and tired, so we settled for a banana. I sat for a while in our ancestral home, letting the silence speak. Slowly, people began to gather—men and women who knew me from another lifetime. They looked at me, smiled, and then said what everyone eventually does: “You’ve grown old.” They remembered me as a boy, and seemed taken aback to see me now—with salt-and-pepper hair and a greying stubble. I suppose that’s how time works—you grow older, but in some memories, you remain frozen.
By the time we left, the sun was beginning to set. As we walked to the car, a few villagers followed us, waving, smiling, calling out farewells.
And just like that, the day folded itself into memory—three events, countless faces, and one quiet realisation: villages change. People age. But somewhere between a breeze, a meal, and a familiar face, something of the past still lingers—soft, persistent, and deeply alive.
Written on 30 April 2026. Kishanganj, Bihar.
zafaranjum.wordpress.com 