Me and Khap panchayat

Me and Khap panchayat

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This happened in Panipat sometimes in late seventies. I was posted from BHEL for commissioning of Panipat Theremal Power station of Haryana Electricity Board  . We were staying in a township which was about 20 kms away from the power station. This township had predominantly jats and  Punjabi refugees. My house owner was Thakral, a teacher who was a  Punjabi refugee. This small hamlet had it's own socioeconomic dimension of rural plus urban. It was a common practice to own cows and buffaloes by the inhabitants in that area, it was common sight to come across some tau type with hookah basking on khatias/charpais and chatting away with neighbours  .Where i was staying i was the only one having a black and white TV set, yes those days BW TV sets were the only one available. On Sundays my drawing-room would become a cinema hall at 6 pm, when Hindi film by Doordarshan would be telecast-ed. My house owner with his family and neighboring friends would come to my house for watching movie. We would organise all available chairs and spread durries in front of the TV set.We did not mind, initially my wife would serve tea but then my house owner advised us not to bother. The life went on beautifully well with my project job and these rustic interactions.

We had an engineer named Ramloo whose wife was quarrelsome, she would often fight with her neighbours, whereas Ramloo was a meek guy like a sheep. They were staying in a house which was shared between them and Grover, the site inchrge of Genlec. Grover was on first floor and Ramloo in ground floor. It so happened that our site in-charge Shamnani who is no more now was on leave so i was holding dual charge of erection and commissioning both. During that period it was reported to me that there had been a serious fight between Ramloo's wife and Mr.Grover. Grover had used abusive language to Ramloo's wife, i knew Grover well and could not believe that he could do that. I was pressurized by my colleagues to resolve the issue. In the evening I rushed to their house in the township  . I could see people from adjoining houses coming out with charpais and proceeding towards Ramloo's house. Lot of people were already  there with their wives on their individual charpais  in front of Ramloo's house. I asked my people to find what was going on. They informed there would be a panchayat where Grover had to stand trial. It appeared Ramloo's wife had made such a ruckus in the area that elders of the area had decided to call a panchayat meeting. I spoke to them, they insisted that Grover had to be punished for misbehaving with a lady.

I went inside Ramloo's house, his wife was crying away and shouting at the ceiling, it was directed at Grover upstairs. I called Grover, he meekly came down. I inquired his version. He said after doing the cabling work whole night he was sleeping in the morning when this lady in her usual style was going on shouting at her kids, that noise disturbed him. He came down asked her to stop shouting and that led to war of words between them. I asked the lady what did she want from Grover, there could not be a police case as panchayat was already there. She haughtily informed me that was the reason why she called panchayat. That was a cheeky one by a South Indian lady in a North Indian town. I took a hard stand and told brusquely to forget about panchayat  and let us resolve the issue like two matured educated families. She went on insisting for Panchayat i asked Ramloo to control his wife. Finally she said let Grover ask for pardon by touching her feet in front of that gathering outside. It was too much for me, i told Ramloo either he was controlling his wife or next day i would transfer him out of Panipat and his kids would suffer as it was middle of academic session. Grover was in tears fearing that he had to face humiliation like that, which probably  would compel him to leave Panipat but then the project will be hit by his departure. Whereas that was the time when the commissioning of the thermal power station was in peak.This conversation was going on for about one hour but in the meanwhile the charpai crowd outside was swelling. Finally i brokered peace by asking Grover to apologize in front of us inside by folding hands.  Ramloo was under pressure from me, he explained the danger in his native Telugu to his wife, she reluctantly agreed. So the crisis was avoided.

I came out with Ramloo family and told the crowd that dispute had been resolved and requested them to go back to their respective houses. They were not happy about the resolution because they could not take part in the song and dance of a Khap panchayat court and met out judgement. They were robbed of their fun.