Part I: Toranagallu

I live in a Steel township. (for the uninitiated, a 'steel township' is not a township built out of steel, but a township meant for employees of steel companies) Have lived in Steel townships all my life, and I love steel townships. The peace, the calm, the well planned outlay of the colony/town/city, the cleanliness, abundance of greenery, the lack of population and pollution, excellent educational and social environment, and the friendliness and feeling of oneness among the residents all combine to make steel townships my favourite places to stay. These are the kind of places where you still get to see lots of sparrows (of the real and not the stuffed variety), squirrels chase each other from tree to tree, colourful butterflies flit from flower to flower (and by colourful I mean the actually multicoloured ones and not the mono coloured excuses for butterflies that we sometimes get to see in a few places) and the twittering of a wide variety of birds wakes one up every morning. They are, I believe, one of the best places for a kid to grow up and therefore consider myself extremely lucky.

I have seen (visited/ lived in) quite a few steel townships - Rourkela, Bokaro, the Ranchi Steel Colonies, Jamshedpur and Toranagallu. I have been very impressed with all of them but till I saw Toranagallu, Ranchi satellite township was my favourite and Jamshedpur was the ideal (the standards to which, I believed, all steel cities must aspire). Now, post-toranagallu, though ranchi still remains my favourite, Jamshedpur has given way to Toranagallu. My! the place is beautiful! A small and a relatively very new town, (just about 10 years old) Toranagallu (a village between Hospet and Bellary in Karnataka) houses the Jindal Steel Plant and the adjoining Jindal Steel Township/town. The motto of JSW is stated to be "one tree for every tonne of steel" and boy have they lived upto it!

Wide Roads, all possible facilities built in within an overall township radius of just about two kms, amazing huge lawns (amazing - esplly because the area sees temperatures around 45*C and is very dry), trees trees and more trees and all the aforesaid qualities of a typical steel township, all enhanced many times because of the sheer beauty of it all. The entire place looks like one big holiday resort and I'm not even exaggerating. Of course the place is small and as yet very new and of course Jamshedur, having the advantage of time has far more facilities etc but I say, give Toranagallu time, and certainly it seems set to give Jamshedpur a good run for its money!

Compare this setting to the noise, pollution, heat, traffic, the crowds and filth of places like Calcutta, Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi etc. and I know exactly where my loyalties and my affection lie. It is at times like this, when I know that I have no chance of working or living in townships like these anymore and will have to stay in cities such as those enumerated above, that I start questioning the soundness of my decision not to take up engineering. You might say, these Steel companies too hire legal professionals but then there is also such a thing as job satisfaction! Makes one wonder at what could have been. (~sigh and a shake of the head~)