The Tale of Raju Samal

My Editorial on 17th August 2016 at Nirvaya News Paper , Bhubaneshwar.

In my sleeper class journey from Secunderabad-Bhubaneswar I met Raju Samal - a youth in late 20 years, a road-side fast food maker in Hyderabad suburb earning easy money enough in coma prison to his fellow Odia migrants to Hyderabad. Stylish Raju was well spotted among all other fellow migrant workers travelling together. He was benevolent in offering tea/coffee or eatables that passed by. I hid my identity to get well among them so that I can look into their depth and get real story of pain and pleasure lying at the bottom hidden but fresh, unpolluted by complexity of urban life. Raju narrated his long journey of 12 years starting as a waiter in a small illegal bar-cum-restaurant to now a restaurant owner how small it could be. He has brought other two brothers, he's the middle one. They operate with blessings of a local dada who comes everyday for drink with chilly chicken. Brothers join him. The fun and frolics continue till late night to repeat for the next day. Raju had a video of a drink session. He showed me.

Drinking infront of elder and younger brothers, an Odia family, that to any Indian family, refuses to accept. But, it was before, not now. Odia young migrants are now taking a different culture into age old rural life that probably old may find difficult to accept. Some changes are possibly fine but some need not be so. Worry is with the extravagant life style they are prone to. Unskilled labour waits unknowingly to the vagaries of age. Again cultural change they bring into unsophisticated rural society can reach a flash point to bring chaos in mass. 

Do the local colleges / intellectuals / Govt and non-Govt agencies look into this subtle but vital change happening to rural young mass ? Wish this does not land us at 'Udta Odisha' !!!