Bygone Doon: Time Travel in the Shadow of COVID-19
Nudged by COVID-19 fear and isolated for the present at our village, just an hour’s drive from the city, but in material terms decades removed from the madding crowd and the concrete crassness, I indulge in reminiscences of bygone Doon! The nostalgic deja vu like air still stirs in the countryside. Wheat stalks are perceptibly embrowned by each passing day. Sugarcane plots are already thinning out as the crushing season comes closer to the final weeks before the sugar mill in nearby Doiwala shuts down for the season. This landmark engine of social change is nearing ninety years of its existence in what was once a dreaded part of the Dehradun district. But the mill’s presence has been transformative for the way traditional farming was put on the level of an organised industry and has proved a boon for the economy of the district since 1933, and the more significant as the mill was located in a remote and unhealthy part of the district. What locals and revenue officials call the Pa...