Staying in Rohtak does make you think. The reason is,
there’s not much to do after dark-or before. I therefore went into this
dangerous territory- thinking, I mean- again.
And here’s what came out.
Haryana and Punjab are neighbouring states, that share the
capital, Chandigarh, India’s most planned city according to most. Haryana also
looks pretty well-planned to me, except one thing. Things to do, I mean.
Gurgaon showed the way to the rest of India in terms of using malls to waste
(or use, depending on how you look at it) time, which Delhi-ites took to, and made
Gurgaon theirs to waste time in. The time that could have been spent fruitfully
discussing politics, sports, etc. was (literally) spent in the malls. And that
was how Kejriwal sneaked in and became CM – not once, but twice, while no one
was looking. And now they are stuck with him for five years.
Anyway, the stand-up comedian Surendra Sharma once joked
that the only culture in Haryana was agriculture. Another joke I heard from a
friend was that after 8 pm, the percentage of English speakers in Haryana goes
up to 90 (before that, it is 10). I am pretty sure these are just jokes, but I
found a rather oddly named University in Rohtak. I can’t resist sharing this,
because it has the most unexpected name. It is called Baba Mastnath University
(I am NOT kidding. You can look it up). I can imagine a student from there
appearing for a job interview and answering a question as to where he studied.
There is also a larger than life statue of the gentleman after whom it is named
close to the campus.
On the positive side, I found the food good, the people
simple, and the streets relatively clean-actually cleaner than parts of Delhi.
And nobody went to watch Roy, playing at a nearby theatre. So I presume they
have good taste in films.
