Shah Jahan road

i used to be a newspaper editor. then my life was turned upside down and i sold my house to the municipality chairman.

The main road is cut by shah jahan road at right angles. On its upper right corner, is a park by the name of shah jahan park. In the middle of the park stands the statue of the great king himself, looking down on the traffic. Before being converted to a park, the property belonged to me.

In those days, I used to be the editor of a weekly newspaper, the news weekly. It was small paper, but I earned enough to sustain myself, my wife and my mother.

In that paper, there were three columns that I wrote- editor’s column, philosophy, and municipality news. Don’t ask how i got the municipality news section. It is tale for some other time. 

Due to this column, I visited the municipality chairman almost daily. We were very good friends.

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When India became independent, the municipality of our town, which remained in the background, suddenly took to the stage. Roads were swept, drains were cleaned and streets were decorated. but still the municipality chairman was still unsatisfied.

Then, what can be called his maddest decision; he renamed every street and park in Natrangpuri in the name of freedom fighters who fought for the freedom of our country.

Gone were elephant extension, main road, Temple Street and Allah road. At least ten ward councillors wanted to name the streets in front of their house mahatma Gandhi road. Eight others wanted to rename them Nehru road or netaji subhash road. At one point, the council just went mad and named four different streets mahatma Gandhi road!

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At the starting of Temple Street, there used to be a statue of molten lead. No one knew who’s it was, and nobody bothered to know it. They had got so used to the statue, that the people ignored the fact that it existed. It was generally used by birds as perch.

After a little research, the chairman found out that the statue was of the mughal emperor Shah Jahan, erected there by a British governor who liked all those people who had tortured people.  . He discovered that the emperor had cut hands if people and captured all of India. The chairman believed that he was a tyrant.  Temple street had been renamed Nehru extension. Now it was impossible to keep the statue there.

Tenders were published to remove the statue and to transport it to the municipality office, were there was already a problem of space for storing it.

The lowest offer made by a contractor was 50000 rupees. 

One evening, when I was visiting the chairman, he suddenly said to me “why don’t you take the statue? You can take it for free if you do not charge us transportation costs.”

I was a little taken aback. But then I calculated the whole affair as a pure investment. Suppose I could move the statue to my house within 500 rupees ( I knew the contractors were over estimating) and sell it for 7000 rupees?  I could even sell the statue to a meusem. I imagined throwing the newspaper business. I just realised that I could be equally mad as they.

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I took a loan from my father in law and promised him a fantastic rate of interest. The distance between the place of the statue and my house, its new home, was not long. I hired bulls from solahpur oil mills, where they were made extremely strong by pulling stone slabs and grinding peanuts to extract oil. Each bull cost me 1 rupee a day and 1 feed. I hired 10 bulls.

the main problem now was to remove the statue from its pedestal. The Britisher had made sure that it would be very difficult to remove the statue. The emperor stood on an 10 foot high stone pedestal. I brought 10 wood cutters who had rippling muscles and took 5 rs per head per day.

10 days passed without any progress. We were able to chip the foundation here and there. My resources were disappearing at a very fast rate. I was soon going to become bankrupt. The magistrate gave me permission to acquire a few sticks of dynamite. Without injuring any limb, I brought the tyrant down. The men hoisted him up on a specially made cart to carry the statue to my home.

It took us another 3 days to reach my home, in spite of the short distance. The cart would sometimes stick at odd angles, neither moving in front or back, halting all traffic. My role in all this was to shout orders.

At night, i would stay with my statue and sleep there, under the stars.

 When the statue reached my home, i was relived and believed that all my problems had come to an end. Little did i realise that my problems had just started.

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I wrote an elaborate article of the story of the journey of the statue in my newspaper.

A few days later, the chairman visited my home in a very perplexed state.

“you shouldn’t have written that article. It has somehow reached all corners of our country. Now we are in  a great trouble.”

Apparently, the view of the chairman about the statue was very incorrect. The mughal  emperor had built many monuments, had abolished death punishment and established a religion which took good from all the religions in an attempt to establish spiritual peace in his empire. Now, all kinds historical societies wanted the statues to be taken back to its old place.

“but it is impossible! It is my statue. I like to collect statues of mughal emperors.” I said in vain.

In a few days peace protest were organised in front of my house. I sent my wife and mother to my village to create space. I was ok with the protests, but I had to use the back door a great deal. In counter �"protest i hung a sign in front of my door saying- statue for sale. Excellent gift for history lovers. Offers above 7000 rupees will be considered.

This made them want to kick me. 

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Three weeks later, relief came in the form of a government order. The government had orded a re-election. The chairman suddenly became very worried. He came to me next day for advise.

“what should i do?”

“i don’t know.” I replied haughtily.

  “oh don’t say that!”

“why don’t you buy the statue?”i suggested “i will give it to you if you at least pay my transportation charges”

“but our funds don’t allow it”

“you must have your own funds. Another election will surely cost more than that”

Next day, all the newspapers carried the news that the municipality chairman had acquired the property and the statue. It would shortly be converted to park. The street would be renamed Shah Jahan road. 

Author's Note

ignore grammar. surely reply!

Reviews

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Does memories can create wounds and even healing them by time?!.....answer can only get from the person who's been through such!
Please don't feel your story has got grammar mistakes as writings comes from heart....cause it beats, the signals might have troubleshoot....but your content doesn't.......
This piece touched heart!😊