We live on our farm, at the foothills of a range of hillocks. We are off the main road by about a kilometer. We go to the market area in Athimanjeripet once every couple of days or so for all our house-hold and farm needs. This is a three kilometer ride one-way. Athimanjeripet is a village with a population of about 5000. Here is an account of my ride to the town and back, from a couple of days ago:
Subbamma went “Madam! Long time no see! How are you?”. I found her limping more than usual after the recent surgery. I was wondering how her husband was doing. I hadn't seen him in a while.
*
On the road, Nalini, a retired school teacher, was waiting for a bus. She said that arthritis was quite bad. She is a cheerful person, I enjoy meeting her, however briefly.
*
I stopped at Lata’s place to pay for the manure we had picked up from their place, earlier that week. Lata’s neighbour got curious to know what was going on. After a couple of minutes of chit-chat, she went about doing her usual business having had her curiosity satisfied. I paid Lata for the manure, bought some coconuts from her and left soon after.
*
We used to live in a rental house when we initially came to Athimanjeripet. There I got to know Babu, our landlord’s brother. As I was riding towards the town, he was zipping through on his motorbike; he acknowledged me as he went past. This quick acknowledging gesture of the head making a quarter turn and back took me some time to get used to, not to mention the practice needed to get it right. I was wondering how his new business was going. During corona, he started selling fruit on a truck stationed by the roadside in our market.
*
A bit later I spotted our potter on his bicycle. He did the same quick quarter rotation which I was happy to reciprocate. I was remembering that his wife had recently passed away.
*
I arrived at the bazaar street, the one and only one we have. The cloth merchant’s shop, a tiny 8’ X 20’ space, was stocked with sarees, T-shirts, fabric for men's shirts, pants and women’s blouses. He had a couple of stools at the entrance of his shop to seat his customers. He typically brought the fabric out to the customers at the entrance. He let me step into the shop and look at his collection. Once I finished my shopping, he said that he was offering me a discount of ₹10!!
*
My next stop was the tailor’s shop. Rama, in late 20’s, used to work at a textile export factory in Chennai. When he couldn’t suffer the long hours any more, he quit the exploitative job to start his own shop here in the village. He gets inundated with orders, especially during festival seasons, school reopening times and months in which weddings happen frequently. He is never short of work. This also means he can’t deliver on time. Thus it was my nth time to his shop asking about the status of my clothes. I remembered that one of his relatives was recently hospitalized after a snake bite. I asked about that relative’s health. He updated me about those hospital visits, the expenses involved, the stress in the extended family etc. It was needless for me to ask if he got around to working on my order. Happy that his relative survived the snake bite, I left his shop. Rama asked me to call him after a week.
*
A little disappointed about not getting my clothes, I started my ride back home. The banana vendor waved at me and said “no”. I knew what he meant -- “I don’t have old bananas to spare today”. I usually stop at his teeny-tiny (5’ X 3’) make-shift, road side shop to pickup the bananas he can’t sell -- overripe, mushed up, with black spots. I bring them home for our chickens. He sets these aside for me to pickup once in every two days or so. He is happy to give these away and I am happy to get these for our chickens. In return, when I want to buy bananas, I make it a point to buy from him.
*
The next two kilometer ride was not eventful. As I approached our village, I saw Mohan on the road. I remembered that his son-in-law had come over last week and there was a big dispute. I asked him about that and he said that they had decided not to send their daughter back with her husband. The guy being a drunkard had beaten his daughter many times in the last few years and the decision is now made to have her live here with the parents. The story gets complicated as this daughter has three kids and there is no source of income.
*
With a heavy heart, I kick-started my motorbike. A couple of minutes later, Das waved to say that he will come over to get his cow. He had brought his cow earlier in the day to graze at our farm. We get milk from Das’ cow. I said okay without stopping to talk further.
.
*
I came back home and started my chores. It is quite normal to meet people on the road, chat, get to know the happenings and share a bit from our side too. This gossip is essential, as Harari says in the “Sapiens”. There are downsides of gossip too, no denying that. But the lack of human connection makes our lives dry and disconnected.
*
To compare and contrast, I would like to talk about our lives in a suburb in northern California. We had lived in the same house for 11 - 12 years! And yet, we didn’t know a single family there for 10 long years! Only during the last year (ironically when we decided to move) we had neighbours who wanted to talk to us. Our neighbourhood was beautifully maintained, landscaped, had all the amenities but yet lacked life. I had two babies in that house. Not one soul came to see me or the babies! We and all our neighbours got out of our houses in our cars and came back in our cars -- it was as if our remote-operated car garages were spouts from where our cars emerged out and the garages sucked us and ours cars back in when we came home. Nobody ever needed to walk out of the house! We could hardly see people out on the roads. In all those twelve years, there was a two week period when they were laying roads for which we needed to park our cars outside the neighbourhood and walk the last bit. This changed our lives! We got to see people walking to work, coming back from the stores, gathering on the street. I started looking forward to that little walk in the mornings and evenings, just to see new human faces.
*
Now, twenty years later, when I go to Chennai (or any other big city) especially to the new areas where high-rise apartment-living is the norm, I remember my northern California suburb days and wonder how people in such apartments, leading nuclear lives, feel about their disconnect from the rest of society around them; or do they even have the time to know that there is a disconnect?
-- Hema
No comments:
Post a Comment