Travelogues are not interesting, hence I am writing few comments that I want to share.
It's my first visit to Eastern UP. Though amethi is nationally known for being Gandhi bastion but it seems, after Rajiv Gandhi, they haven't done much for it. People here speak Awadhi dialect though many a times, it appears to be a mixture of Awadhi and bundelkhandi. However that may be due to my poor understanding of these dialects. Sultanpur is adjacent to amethi, of the Majrooh Sultanpuri fame. However, it is not sultanpur and is sulatanpur, meaning the town of good vines or 'latas'. Rae bareli is another adjacent district. Varanasi and Azamgarh are around 200 kms each from here, faizabad is closer.
I got to see fields of wheat and sarson. They do not appear vast like that of Punjab as they are interspersed with small hamlets. Honestly speaking out of my so many excursions, I first time got to see the difference between a village and a hamlet. Hamlet are called 'Purva' here so there are hamlets like magdhu ka purva, sari ka purva which may also be called pure magdhu or poore sari. Hamlet have households, all of which belong to a single community. Many houses have walls made of mud only. They are made around a feet thick for strength. I had earlier seen walls that had bricks or straw mixed with mud for making walls but only mud is new for me. Construction of houses is not very artistic or geometrical. However, the doors are ornamental. It appears they buy ready made wooden or metal doors and install them. Most of the hamlets I visited were that of muslim population and green colour paint is predominant. Usually there is one mosque in every hamlet but people do not seem to be very religious. The population generally appears to be poorer than what I have seen in other states. Few people have demolished their katcha house and constructed brick houses, which are usually double storied. Still they do not have any kind of plaster or paint on them, not even any drawings as we get to see on the huts of Bengal. However, the mud houses are very cool, spacious and open with lot of light and ventilation. People generally hang the brooms on the walls. A household has generally 7-8 members with 5-6 children. Their are joint families also but usually it would be like two quarters in one compound with a common entrance. People rear backyard poultry, goats and cows. Education level is very low though they say that literacy is around 35%.
If one visits a hindu hamlet, grossly it looks the same as the muslim ones but there are differences. The mosque turns into a temple. From far you can recognize it only because of it's conical top, otherwise the same shade of green and the shape of pillars can confuse one. The farm animals are different. One doesn't find hen or goats. One finds buffaloes and cows. Then at the other end of the hamlet there are few houses of harijans and their temple. They make the tools like sickle, axe etc used for farming. Villages and farms seem virgin, untouched by development but yes, every household has mobile phones. People don't appear to be very ambitious, may be because of lack of education. The poorest are labourers in the farms. Those who are educated are mostly into para-governmental systems and society is dependent on them for the effective reach of the governmental policies to reach them. They serve as the connecting link. Those who are good, they do lot of social service, have good clout and make some money also. they have motorbikes for transport, however a petrol pump is only 50 kms away in the district headquarters. I saw some local shops selling loose petrol in cans which these people must be using but cars have to travel 50 kms to get fuel.
I got the first hand experience of what my father used to say that 'rains in this season are very bad for the crops'. I saw fields of unripe wheat destroyed by rain. Few people have harvested their crop before ripening and trying to mature it in shelters near their houses. I also saw crops of mustard with pods of mustard seeds. Another crop that I saw was that of 'arhar', once harvested and kept it emanates a bad smell. Most of the villagers are small farmers. News reporters are paid meagerly for the news that is accepted. They are more like rumour mongers and reporting is significantly false.
The fruits available here are quite tasty.
People do not seem to have strong cultural rituals, unlike east and south.
There is no district hospital in the district. only a CHC that has facilities for some surgeries. People go to Lucknow for higher medical care.The road from lucknow to amethi is bad compared to the usual state of roads in country. There is an industrial area just as you reach amethi. That is exactly what is different. There is a BHEL campus on one side and Indo-gulf on the other. The BHEL campus is like the campuses of other maharatna companies. Once you enter the campus, you forget you are in which state. Clean, wide roads, landscaped gardens, all facilities including clubs, sports school etc are there. We are living in a guest house here only and taking a stroll amidst the beautiful flowers in the morning has a very soothing effect.
On the other side of the road is Indo-gulf campus. The company belongs to Aditya Birla. They make fertilizers here. The campus is better than BHEL. There is a magnificent Birla mandir on the lines of other such temples in the country, reminded me of the one in Jaipur, yet it is unique. One can easily spend few hours here and get refreshed. I was reminded of a magnificent mosque that I had seen in Burhan pur. The narrow filth laden, serpentine by-lanes opened into a huge mosque like an inverse Houdini act. Here also a crowded congested bazaar led to a serene temple. The temple has idols of naked deities on the outer walls of its mandapam. I think the only modern day, north indian temple to be designed like that, that I have seen. It had Ram Darbar in the sanctum sanctorum. That again appeared departure from the routine as I have seen either Lord Vishnu or Radha Krishna in Birla mandirs. But my knowledge is extremely limited. The roof of the gopuram is ordained with stories from Ramayana in the form of statues carved out partially into the stone that is applied.
The factory makes fertilzers and needs huge amount of water to cool its machines. The water is drawn from a well dug in the Gomti river around 40 kms away. That is also a good sight to see. Three pumps draw out the water and send it to a cleaning plant located 400 meters away. Here water is mixed with alum and then deflocculated and further treated. This water is then carried for 40 kms through pipes. Gomti appeared to be a small river, it arises in a lake and merges into Ganga, I think both within UP.
