Since quite a long time, I had this wish of staying in a remote village in India. To observe the village life, be a part of it for some time and enjoy the gift of nature around. This time around I had my chance and trust me it has been a wonderful experience. Somewhat different than I thought it would be, but overall fantastic.
Interacting with the local villagers and getting to know their opinions about things was the thing I was very much looking forward to. What really amazes me is that you can strike a conversation with anyone and they’ll talk with you. There’s no turning back and avoiding or ‘who-the-hell-are-you and why you talking to me looks’. It’s the friendly atmosphere that just builds up God knows how. On the whole, people are very helpful.
When it comes to village life, we say it lacks pace. There’s no 8.47 local to catch, neither a stressful job where the boss and the company both get the hell outta you. But what we fail to see is their share of problems. Life there is not as simple as it seems. Walking for 2 kilometers daily for pulling out drinking water from the well, working in the farm, mulching cows and buffaloes, running around nearby markets for getting good price for your crops is not simple. More than 10 hours of load shedding is a regular thing. We never have to worry about feeding the cattle 3 times food and 3 times water, do we? As for the stress part, ask a farmer what he’s going through with rains being late by a week. I don’t want to say village life is tougher than city or vica versa, just that comparisons should be done amongst equals and not two different things.
During the visit I had to appreciate how beautiful simplicity is. Simple food which consisted of only 3 things Dal, Bhakri and Rice tasted so good. A simple photograph made an ageing lady so happy that it made her day. Children would come running from the fields and houses to get a single peppermint toffee from us. The natural alarm of the Murga in the morning, clean view of the sky and stars in the night. Such a nice feeling just looking at the stars and thinking about life.
It was painful hearing their problems and encouraging hearing the solutions. There’s no pay for the teachers of the local school for last 2 years, yet the teachers are selflessly teaching. Trying to bring in more and more students to school, especially raising awareness of the need for educating more girls. This year the school where we went to has students giving the SSC exam for the first time. Something which makes their village proud. In remote villages there is acute shortage of water. They get only around 15 liters of water daily. Despite this, the villagers cheerfully fill our 1.5 liter bottle to the brim. Almost bringing a tear to my eyes.
Now, as far as interacting with the locals is concerned, that was great too! People there are very excited about Mumbai. For them it a dream place where people mint money. A place where the Shahrukh, Amir, Salman and the other Khans live with beautiful heroines. A wonderland. They love to boast about their village too. About how cheap the things are and how cool the air is. There’s a lot of gossip the villagers do amongst themselves. This includes bitching about the person who’s not present at the time of talk.
I got the opportunity to be there around when a marriage was about to take place. For some reason it got delayed and people staying there for the only reason of ‘food after marriage’ had interesting stories to tell. They started making guesses as to what the dowry amount would be, how much the bride has studied and all. One eye was always on what is cooking and when it will be served. Neighbors were talking about the foodgrains they had to give to the marriage home for the wedding lunch. Chaos all around. Different experience again. This was also the time I heard stories of ghosts and haunted places in the village. Trees and farms where village people are scared to go because of scary happenings. I dunno how many of those are true but they were interesting for sure.
Lastly I want to end up with this. Village people have the general belief that kids in the city are not strong enough. They’ll not survive the harsh climate and the toil of the villages and can work around only in AC cabins. They will not be able to adjust to simple rural food. Not always true must say. At the same time we city people sometimes think kids from villages are backward. They have poor mannerisms and etiquettes. This too is very wrong. They’ve had a different life than us. It’s the lack of opportunities for village students that makes the difference here. For a person who had food with bare hands all his childhood, how can you expect him to be eating noodles with chopsticks. Not that they are backward enough not to buy a Burger, but never had the chance to have one their life to like one. This discussion can go on for a while. Best thing is not to compare and take the best of the two worlds, city life and village life.
