Clik here to view.
Image and Narrative contributed by Suryanandini Narain, New Delhi
In 1980, Raka Prashad, my husband Azeez Narain’s mausi (maternal aunt) undertook a meaningful four-day trip to Dhanbad’s coal mines, in Bihar (now in Jharkhand) as an MA student of Industrial Psychology at Delhi University. This photograph reveals the story of Raka’s attempt to comprehend a tragedy in her own life through a physical revisitation, and emotional recalibration.
Raka’s father, Prem Prashad was born in 1921. A bright man, he went on to study at St. Stephen’s College in Delhi and then at University of Birmingham in the UK and in 1951, he married Sudha Kishore . Their life as a young family in Asansol, West Bengal where he served as General Manager for the Asansol Coal Mines, was an idyllic one – with a large home, many visitors and frequent family holidays. Raka was the middle child, with an older sister Surekha, and a younger one, Meeta.
A part of Prem Prashad’s duties was to engage with the site on a daily basis. This meant that he frequently visited the offices, and the coal fields, going down the mine shaft to supervise the manual excavation of coal. In 1964, on a fateful day, he went down the mine shaft in a routine manner, but never surfaced. He had suffered a cardiac arrest in the mines, leaving behind a young wife and three little daughters. Raka was only seven-years-old.
The young family left Asansol for good the same year and settled in Delhi, closer to extended family and friends, and with better educational opportunities for the children. 18 years later in 1980, when an opportunity for her college batch’s annual field trip came up, it was on Raka’s suggestion that the faculty at her department agreed to a trip to the Dhanbad site ( an hour away from Asansol). For the students, this was an opportunity to undertake field-based observations necessary for their degree. The trip was hosted by the Indian School of Mines (now IIT Dhanbad), and Raka, her classmates and her teachers were all accommodated at its guest house.
Raka who had often thought about the unseen site and tragedy, felt that the ground buried deep under had to have more answers. She felt a deep need to confront the place where her father had breathed his last. She superimposed her desire for closure from the incident at Asansol, with the visit to the mine at Dhanbad. Considering she had never been inside a coal mine, Raka bravely donned a hard hat, and surrounded by friends descended into the shaft as her father would have, 18 years earlier.
This emotionally stirring time was further accentuated when Raka found out that the then Director of the Indian School of Mines was a Prof. G.S Marwah, a batchmate of her father’s from their college days at the same institute. Her trip had coincided with his daughter’s wedding, to which Raka and her classmates were warmly invited. This too would become a poignant encounter, as Mr. Marwah’s paternalistic figure momentarily foreshadowed her own absent father’s.
The Prashad family’s fate had taken a different course from the families of their father’s colleagues and friends whom she met that evening; their children growing up in sprawling bungalows, into secure futures. Having been raised by a single parent in humble circumstances, Raka identified this time as pivotal in determining her resolve to confront the adversities she had faced in life. She worked hard to build a successful career as a counsellor and cared for her ageing mother.
Today, Raka is retired from the post of Counsellor In-charge, Directorate of Education, Delhi, and looks back with a sense of satisfaction at a self-made life. Her mother and her sisters have dealt with their hardships in their own ways, but each one has seen personal and professional successes, and continue to solidly be part of a feminine network of support.
BECOME A PATRON : Work on Indian Memory Project takes time, money and hard work to produce. But it is necessary work because parallel views on our histories matter. If you like the project, admire it, and benefit from its knowledge, please consider awarding us an honorarium to make the future of this project robust and assured. You can support Indian Memory Project for as little as Rs. 500 or more
The post Closure In The Coal Mines appeared first on INDIAN MEMORY PROJECT.