I JUST LOVE HAZARIBAGH, DO YOU?

                                   The monsoon clouds gather over the counrtry side of Hazaribagh

Honestly, no one really knows the meaning of the word Hazaribag. The normal belief around is that the term Hazaribagh has grown from the merging of two Hindi/Urdu words ‘Hazari’ and ‘bagh’ (today however for unknown reasons the ‘H’ having dropped from the “bagh” , it is simply ”Hazaribag”) .

People generally tend to identify the name "Hazaribagh" with Hindi or Urdu which is presumably dubious. The interpretations for Hazaribag are:-

a) ‘Hazari’ means a thousand and Bagh would stand for ‘garden’, simply speaking, Hazaribag would then mean, a land of thousand gardens.

For some these thousand gardens belonged to some obscure gentleman called “Hazari Sao”.

Now this theory doesn’t stand as we do not have a clue of the remnant of a single ‘bagh’, forget the rest 999s.

b) ‘Hazaribagh’ for few others stands for a land of a thousand tigers. Now that seems to be a remote probability.

But if we look at the names of the villages around Hazaribagh town, these are NOT HINDI WORDS!

Surprised?

You ought to be as all these names are austric Santali and Mundari or even Dravidian Kurukh (Oraon).

Why on earth?

Well about a two hundred year ago Hazaribagh like the rest of Jharkhand was thoroughly tribal; they were everywhere therefore these names. When the onslaught of the mainstream people from neighboring Bihar, UP and Bengal began encouraged by the British, these humble tribal folks moved away leaving behind their villages having tribal names. They left behind their sarnas, megaliths and a landscape so spectacular and virgin till……

Lets us study a few village names around Hazaribagh which are primarily tribal in origin and their meanings as well:

Banadag                Santali                 ’Bana’ means a bear and Dag is its footprints

Katkaumsandi       Santali                 Katkum is a crab and sandi is a cock

Rola                      Santali                 A light hung on roofs

Ichaq                     Santali                 Shrimps

Birbir                     Mundari              A type of tree

Kanhari Hill           Santali                 An arrow head ( the hill does look like one ,try looking at it from Sindoor)

Holang              Santali/Mundari       a type of tree or the flour of rice.

Well the list is kind of endless.

Hey, but you forgot Hazaribag in this hullaballoo.

No I didnt , well, honestly I do not know the meaning of the term myself but judging by so many austric names in the vicinity even Hazaribagh is sure to be austric in origin.

What ever be it, Hazaribagh was once a quaint little British town. You can still notice how stunningly the Britishers planned it. The Kutchery Road from Indrapuri (erstwhile Ananda Bhawan) is made parallel to the G.G.S.Road to the Malviya Marg, to the Subhash Road and so on.

Notice how the Main Road is parallel to the Okney Road to the Lohsigna Road. The bus stand (erstwhile Lal Company) was kept outside the town. The Ranchi Patna Road which was once called ‘Rabindra Path’ after the great sage, poet, dramatist, novelist, painter etc Rabindranath Thakur which now of course no one remembers , is parallel to the Main Road .

There were trees on either side of the roads. Even I do remember that. The Main Road had trees on it both sides. The road to St.Xavier’s from Anand Bhwan to the Kutchery, the pvt bus stand was all dotted with trees.

                                                    

So when two Britshers, Bradely and Britt came to Hazaribag so stunned and bowled over were they with this fascinating town they wrote in their book, ” Chotanagpur, a lesser known province of the British Empire” “..if there is a heaven on earth this is it, this it. Every road here is an avenue with trees planted on either sides…”

                                        

Today the beauty is gone, so are the trees as the town is run by people, administrators and politicians who understand nothing of beauty.

Hazaribag today is a confused, ill run , ill goverened and an  illmanaged filthy town. Still I love her, I love to hate her, as I grew here. I have seen the town evolve into a horrible heap of trash, its trees, heritages gradually losing and no one seems to care.

Neither the residents, the town administration, the MLAs, MPs nor who so ever concerned. What a pity.

But there is hope; speak up for God’s sake, speak up on our town, save the heritages, and her environs…

Subhashis