Jhar Jharai Jhagadjhal:

A Surprise Visit, A Long Friendship

On a whim, he asked the driver to turn left from Ghess onto a narrow village road.

“Where are we going? That’s not the road to Bargarh,” his spouse said, puzzled.

They had been driving since morning. It was peak summer, well past lunchtime. Food and rest could wait—perhaps not a toilet break.

The village they entered twisted through a series of sharp, narrowing lanes. Whenever he spotted someone, he rolled down the SUV window and asked two questions:
“Will the car pass through?”
“And where does the retired professor live?”

A teenager, absorbed in his smartphone, shrugged him off. But a little later, a middle-aged man offered clearer directions. “Keep driving till the end. The master’s house is the last one on the right.”

It was siesta time. The house lay still and quiet.

He pressed the bell—no response. A power cut, perhaps. He called. After several rings, the professor answered, his voice thick with sleep.

“Yes, Dost? You never call at this hour!”

“I’m at your home.”

“Hursia nain kara—stop joking.”

“No, really. Please open the door.”

He came down from the first floor—and stopped. Forty-eight years had passed since they had last met.

“You’ve lost some weight,” he said, smiling. “But you look as handsome as ever.”

“And you—why so lean?”

“Diabetes, BP… the usual companions.”

His wife and daughter-in-law soon appeared with generous plates of snacks—biscuits, namkeen, bananas, sliced apples—and cups of milky, sugary tea.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? We could have prepared lunch.”

“I was on my way to Bargarh. I wasn’t even sure I’d find your village. But I couldn’t resist the temptation. Next time, I’ll inform you.”

He paused, then added with a grin,
“I hear mutton from young melchas—he-goats that graze in these forests—is superb. Will you serve us usuna rice and shikar jhol when we come again?”

“Of course,” his friend laughed. “My wife makes an excellent curry. You’re most welcome.”

“Do you grow organic paddy? Any traditional varieties? Which rice makes the best mudhi?”

“Muin nain jaani,” he replied in chaste Sambalpuri. “Mor kania chaash-baas katha bujhsi.”
(I know nothing about it. My wife manages the farming.)

A few days later, a packet arrived: Chinajuri rice from his friend’s own harvest—parboiled at home, milled in the village.

“Makes excellent pakhal,” the note said.

It did. The taste was unmistakably superior to the expensive, branded rice of the market.

WhatsApp Reunion

In the early, heady days of WhatsApp, a small group of former postgraduate classmates from a university in Odisha rediscovered one another nearly five decades after college.

For a while, the excitement was genuine. They exchanged stories, updates, fragments of lives lived far apart. Soon enough, the conversations thinned—replaced by predictable greetings and recycled forwards. Like countless such groups, it faded as quickly as it had blossomed.

Except for two.

One had returned to his native village after a career in teaching. The other had settled in a distant state after retirement.

Let them be RD and PD. The D, naturally, stands for Dost.

OMG, I’m Senile

A few months ago, they were chatting.

PD: RD, do you still get Jhaain, Thuro, and other small fish in your paddy fields during the monsoon?

RD: Jhaain is rare now. Pesticides have taken their toll. You may find some in ponds or rivers—but not much.

A few days later, PD suddenly realised he could not recall the name of RD’s village. Alarmed, he sent an SOS.

PD: I’m unable to remember your village name. OMG, I’ve become senile! 😢

RD: Jhar. People often say Jhar-Jharai-Jhagadjhal. Surely, you’ll remember that!

PD: Jharpatria RD—etkara mane rakhmi. 😊
(I’ll remember it this way.)

“I’ve saved your number as Jharpatria RD,” he added. “Now I’ll never forget.”

Jharpatria—a vivid word: a forest fringed with scrub.

Years earlier, PD had called the poet Haldhar Nag to understand the rustic metaphors in a popular Sambalpuri song—phatai khaili bela kukila re.
“That’s a jharpatria song,” the poet had said—songs sung by forest gatherers, alone or in chorus.

PD hadn’t known it was a whole genre. But the word stayed. And now, it anchored memory.

PD: And Jharai? Jhagadjhal? Real villages—or are you teasing me?

RD: Quite real. Near my village are two smaller palis—settlements linked to a larger revenue village. Once, the gountia here had twelve such palis. People simply strung the names together: Jhar, Jharai, Jhagadjhal.

He paused, then added:

“Long ago, all these villages were deep forest. Cheetahs would raid at night—lifting goats and sheep from flimsy pens.”

A moment later came another message:

“It feels good, Dost, when you call. How quickly time has passed. Perhaps we don’t have much time left.”

“You live far away—but it doesn’t feel so. Thank you.”

A Little Ditty

To tease his friend, PD composed a playful Sambalpuri ditty:

Jhar Jharai Jhagadjhal
Nani phandiche mahani jaal
Dekhi chanhi pila baat chaal
Jeevan jaaka kete janjaal.

Beware, young men,
Venturing into Jhar Jharai Jhagadjhal;
Lovely lasses
Have laid magical traps.
Once ensnared,
Bound for life.

End Note

The title may puzzle at first—but it is undeniably lyrical, alliterative, and memorable.

This may read like a story—but it is, quite simply, geography.

Jhar, Jharai, and Jhagadjhal are small villages in the Bargarh–Sohela–Padampur region of western Odisha, near the Chhattisgarh border.

Not far away lies Ghess—the village of the fearless Binjhal zamindar Madho Singh and his sons, who fought alongside Veer Surendra Sai against the British and became martyrs. Ghess is also home to Padma Shri Haldhar Nag, the celebrated Sambalpuri poet.

And somewhere in that cluster of names—Jhar, Jharai, Jhagadjhal—lives a friendship that time could not erase.

***

Prasanna Dash