Trip down the Landra Tangori Road.

I was looking for sector 76 in Mohali. Some body told me that its on Landra Road. I got bit nostalgic listening about Landra. It was almost 8 years since me and father went down that way looking for Tangori.
A frail looking sardarji told us the way from Landra "bau ji, is raste te sidhe chale jao....kuch 20 25 minute dan rasta hai itho. Engineering college sadak de sajje paase hai ik building chhotti yahi". My dad kick started the scooter. Sitting at the back seat, I was trying to imagine my future college. My Chemistry teacher had painted a very grim picture of the college. "Tangori??? othe ye barkha pai jaye tan kishti te jana painda hai." he used to deride it like anything. Even then I had opted for this college over quite a few government colleges like Firozpur, Gurdaspur and Bhathinda (supposdely i was interested in doing Electronics and Communication engg and Mechanical was the best these colleges could offer me). My mates at Thapar had also asked me go for ECE (I had wasted my dad's money at Thapar by opting for Civil there) Its been over 15 minutes and there was no sign of the college. Couple of minutes later, we saw a building. "ohi lagda hai!" said my dad. "hai?? nahi oh tan poultry farm hai!!!" I said after a while and both of us were laughing like anything. Another ten minutes on those dodgy roads and we reached there. It was a 1.75 building college. One for classes, .5 for workshop and another qaurter of unfinished one. We filled up coupld of forms and started our 23 Km trip back to home. On our way back, we were thinking that its a decent choice which is on verge of something big. Sort of high risk high returns thing. Four years passed and I was Er. Ashish Sharma. Our college had grown with us. Now, it had 5 buildings and a decent ground. Only thing which had gone worse was Landra Banoor road. From potholed road, it had become dust bowl. I and my scooter were happy to that we don’t have to tread through these paths again. Well, at least my scooter was lucky on that front.
I didn’t realise that I had reached Landra while searching sector 76. Inadvertently, my bike turned towards Tangori. On right side, CEC was still there but loads of colleges had sprung up along with that like mushrooms. B-school, Pharmacy college, general education college, engg college. You name it, they had it in that small area. I was wondering if they have these many rooms there to accommodate these many diverse studies. After driving a while, I started noticing major differences. Road was bit wider, it had lesser potholes and loads of billboards and flags had replaced lush green views on both sides. Emaar MGF, Unitech City and pearl City. These were the names of builders who had decided to change the landscape in favour of developed Greater Mohali. Damn, these builders had bought entire stretch and beyond. PUDA like IPL had played this township card very well. They had sold the rights of acquiring these lands directly from Farmers to these modern day imperialists and had drafted these sectors out of nothing. These townships were suppose to come up in next 3-4 years and were already selling the flats/plots/villas before laying the foundation stones itself. Somebody told me that they are making this road a four lane highway. Woahh…superb business proposition. This would take that area into different orbit all together but I was felling a bit sad as well. This had taken stolen the virginity from those fields. Papa trackers were replaced with JCBs. Farmers with security guards, greenery with lines of bricks ready to be walled. Farmers I saw on the way were looking a bit down. I am sure they were small land tillers who didn’t get their chance to wash their hands in that dhan ganga which would have flooded the area. These acres were sold for crores.
Once I crossed the railway line, scene was back to normal. Greenery was back and so were hordes of buffaloes that now seem to react for your horns. Positives of developments I must say. Then I reached SUSCET. College was deserted (it was Sunday silly!). Nothing much had changed since our convocation apart from ground which was lush green now. Security guard there was bit sceptical of my intentions. “Who would come to this desert on Sunday?” he must be thinking. “Ki labda hai bai?” he asked. “kuch nahi.” I said ‘Aiwe hi apni mitti labhda aaya si’ I thought. I told him that I am an ex-SUSCETian (hope that’s we are called). I asked him “If I could I roam around?” “yaar bamb bumb na rakh dayi” he said apprehensively. That statement summed the situation. Swords which were brandished 8 years back have been replaced by guns and pistols. Year on year, quality of batches must have gone down. Rayats, landras, bhaddals seem to winning this one. These colleges either had money or power. Our college mgmnt seemed to have neither. Irony is that Tangori’s polytechnic was now more famous than Engg college. I picked up my helmet and started moving back. That moment I saw the placement board placed at reception. Infy, TCS and many others. Big names were there. May be I was wrong. May be its bad to make perception based on security guard’s tales. May be our college was on the way up. That was pretty good silver lining behind the clouds. On that positive note, I started my long journey back to Chandigarh. Uff…it still is very costly affair going on your bike alone, Keshto J

P.S. Gogs, if at all you are planning to hitch hike with Manu and Chetan, then go ahead bindaas. That Landran petrol pump is now closed down.