VIJAY DEO JHA
Sahibganj, June 5: Watching children of Katghar village of Rajmahal loitering on the barren field and muddy pond all day picking pebbles and if you think that they are just school dropouts wasting their time; then you are pretty wrong.
This is a pebble economy at work here filling piggybanks of poor children that help them to meet their lesser educational expenses besides their ensuring a few bucks as pocket money.
This is a picture in contrast in Sahibganj that has grabbed headlines for all wrong reasons owing to the organized loot of the minor minerals by the mining mafias which the Enforcement Directorate is investigating.
Passing through Rajmahal-Tinpahar road and forking east from Bhainsmari Road some five km inside; the Katghar is situated some 40 km away from the district headquarter of Sahibganj. Though largely a nondescript place on the tourism map of the state but its unique pebbles attract outsiders. These pebbles are basically fossils that in size, shape, and colour accurately resemble to cereals like barley, rice, pulses, wheat, paddy, cucumber seeds, black gram, and many others.
Finding nonplus outsiders looking for pebbles; children instantly identify their probable customers and rush with their own collections. Charging Rs 10 or a little more sometimes for a handful of pebbles; is not a big amount owing to the time, labour, pain and precision involved in picking them. And if you happen to be an affluent or research person, they may solicit some more money and readily bring mud deposits from the nearby pond where these pebbles are found aplenty. And mind you won’t find these unique pebbles outside the given locality of the Katghar limit.
Katghar which falls in Mansingh panchayat under the Rajmahal assembly constituency; some 1500 families live here mainly tribal, Dhanuk and Mandal communities all survive on agriculture.
“Aise patthar apko kahin nahi milenge…dekhiye isme chawal, daal, gehun, makka sab hai. Bas aap ise khaa nahi sakte. School ke baad ham ise chunte hain bahar se kuch log yahan aate rahate hain to unko yah bechte hain. Ye yahan ke raja ka kankad hai,” Rinku a class six student said. Rinku studies in an upgraded middle school situated some two km away from his home. Since due to election school remained close children were found collecting pebbles.
Any idea how much Rinku and children like him earn out of pebble trade in a week or a month time? “Sometimes hundred a month depending on luck and bless of visitors. At least it helps me to meet my small expenses including school fees and books. My parents don’t stop me from collecting them. I have kept three jars full at my home,” Rinku said. Another Shaila Soren said how she brought a new school bag and a water bottle out of selling pebbles and offered an exhaustive list of children’s entrepreneurship. For instance, two months back, children said, a rich man from Mumbai visited this place took away pebbles for his personal collection and handsomely paid children for its collection.
But the area is devoid of any development — except a pucca road constructed a decade back — otherwise this place has the potential to attract curious visitors, and researchers that may support the local economy.
“All are poor villagers can’t afford to send their children to school. Picking pebbles is a favorite game and time-pass of most of the children since it brings some money also. People keep visiting because pebbles attract them,” said Dukkha Mandal a local farmer.
If these cereal size pebbles are attracting people due to their uniqueness; there is a fable associated with it that community members insist as true. Thousands of years back, villagers say, the area was ruled by a tight-fist king Mansingh. Sometimes a great famine and pandemic broke in this area. When beggars, fakirs and poor people turned to the king’s court for food the king always returned them empty handed.
“On this a fakir cursed the king that grains at his godown will turn into stones. Actually, these pebbles are those grains turned into stone due to a curse. These are found at a limited place in this village,” unlettered community elder Tarachand Mahto insisted. Mahto is excited to tell about the history of this village and showed a large crater — a well dug by Mansingh which finally collapsed during 1950 — besides a highland spread in an acre in the area which villagers believe had the house of the king.
There is no historical evidence to connect this fable with the fact. But there are well-established historical evidences that prove Mansingh; a lieutenant of Mughal emperor Akbar was governor of this area during the 16th century. Barely three km away from the village there are the remains of the Jama Mosque constructed by Mansingh in 1592 which was converted into a heritage site by the Archeological Survey of India. Strategically located on the bank of the river Ganga; Rajmahal was an important site during the Mughal period and Gaur dynasty in the medieval period. Apart from historians; Rajmahal attracts geologists also as its huge swathe is littered with remains of pre-historic times in form of fossils dating to the Jurassic and cretaceous era.
Sahibganj-based geologist and Head of Department of Sahibganj College; Syed Raza Imam Rizwi offers a geological explanation of these grain size pebbles. “Rajmahal is situated on basalt bedrocks which are often colorful and these pebbles are basically stones that weathered over millions of years. For reasons of geological research; Rajmahal is an important place. During the formation of Himalaya; volcanic eruption took place due to which Rajmahal-Silhat trap came to existence,” he said.
Children are not interested into what made stones into money fetching pebbles. They simply love narrating this story: “ek kanjoos raja tha.”