Only In India (most probably)

I was on a bus to the nearby town of Sholingur. The bus was approaching a  busy T-junction. The road was wide enough to accommodate two buses going side by side, with just a few inches between them. Drivers here are quite adept at calculating their safe margin.

As we were getting closer to the T, our bus had to pass another one waiting on the other side. The observant driver spotted an arm jutting out from the other bus that would hinder his manoeuvres. This was the right arm of a young girl, probably in her mid-teens, who had fallen sleep during the bus ride.

My anxiety was growing as our bus was getting closer.  But the driver, maintaining a  “safe distance”, applied the brake, extended his arm out the window and casually tapped that protruding arm. That must have scared the girl out of her wits. She reflexively pulled her arm in letting our bus pass comfortably. Releasing the brake, our bus driver moved on as if this was nothing to write home about!

***

 

We were in Dev’s hometown Agra, visiting his relatives. Agra is a small town that is full of people and traffic jams. The ever-crowded bazaars have pedestrians, cycles, horse-drawn carts, manual- rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, flat-bed-rickshaws, small trucks and of course cars. Sometimes, one can find a herd of buffaloes too! 

Typically men in this town chew tobacco when they are not eating or sleeping. So, invariably they can be seen spitting out a red liquid every once in a while. I have always been nervous of the moment when someone would accidentally spit on me, since the probability of that happening seemed high.

On a busy market day, I was walking the bazaar street and was about to pass a person who had already initiated the process of spitting. It is easy guess that by the way their bodies bend a little forward, ready to launch with a full mouth. I had no way of stepping back or forward or sideways without getting spat on. There I was, facing my nightmare! I shrieked, “bhaiya! Stop!” The interrupted spitter was taken aback and he looked up. I grabbed the opportunity and quickly went ahead by just a few steps gesturing to him to wait till I go past him. With his mouth still full, he gestured to me saying that I can go. Once I was at a safe distance I saw him spat. I thanked him for having waited for me and asked him to look before he leaps the next time. His smile was priceless.

-- Hema

Their Honest Opinions

After purchasing our agricultural land, we decided to spend a few days camping at our neighbour’s farm. The facilities were quite basic – one big room with a leaky roof, no furniture, no shelves and no toilet/bathroom. We used the rocket stove, which we had built earlier, to cook our meals. Learning to keep the fire going was not easy for me. The first day, I served breakfast at lunch time, despite the fact I started cooking very early. Thankfully the kids were quite patient with me. They said, “This is real camping!”

As I was sweating over one such meal preparation, a lady showed up at the door to check us out. She asked me a lot of questions. Apparently she had come to know that the adjacent land had just recently been bought by foreigners. So she was eager to come and meet the foreigners. When I told her that it was we who had bought the land she immediately said, “I am quite disappointed that the new owners are not foreigners. I wanted to talk to some foreigners. And here you are, the new owners, talking in Tamil!”

This lady had walked a kilometer in the sweltering heat, just to be able to get a glimpse of some foreigners. I felt sorry for her. I didn’t know how I could assuage her disappointment. I was frantically raking my brain for ideas. It suddenly occurred to me that she might cheer up if she hears some English. So I asked her if she would like me to talk in English. Her face lit up and she nodded happily.

I called Abhi and explained the situation to him. I asked him to play along in English for a few moments. He obliged, but with a puzzled look on his face. The next few minutes of our conversation in English brought a smile on the lady’s face and that was apparently enough for her to head back happily in the hot sun.

***

The inquisitive care-taker of a neighbouring coconut grove stopped me on my way to the farm one evening.

He: “What exactly do you do there, on your land?”

Me: “I am planting trees”

He: “I have seen you carry saplings uprooted from the creek side. Is that what you are planting?”

I nodded enthusiastically.

He: “But they are useless plants. Why are you wasting your time? Why don’t you grow some cash crops?”

I didn’t want to brush aside the curiosity behind his questions. So I told him a bit about natural farming, bio-mass producing local trees, mulch, permaculture etc.

He: “You seem to show the way to places that no one wants to go to. Anyway, what about your income and expenses?”

Me: “Both my husband and I do not have jobs now. We are living off our savings and trying to keep our expenses low. We do a lot of the farm work ourselves.”

He: “I understand that you might be able to pull it off. But your husband ... hmm ... he is too old for that.”

Me: (shockingly) “Oh no! You are mistaken. We are pretty much of the same age. Gray hair is hereditary in his family. ”

He: “I feel sorry for you. You have been fooled.”

I laughed my lungs out and started walking my way.

-- Hema

Oh Senna siamea, Thank You!

About a quarter acre of our land is devoid of top soil. Locals told us that the previous land owner had sold the top soil from that patch, about 10 years ago. We used to call that area “the bald patch”. The soil here is heavy clay. In fact we used this subsoil for our earthbag construction project, by excavating a shallow pond.

Every time I was near the bald patch, I felt a pinching pain to see a place so dead as that. Since we didn’t have a water source close by, I couldn’t attempt to green that area. Then came the monsoon rains and the shallow pond was full. In November I transplanted a small Senna siamea plant (hardly ½’) on one of the edges of the bald patch. It was just an experiment.

Senna siamea is a fast growing (leguminous) tree that will grow in a range of climatic conditions but is particularly suited to lowland tropics with a monsoon climate. It belongs to the family of Fabaceae. I was interested in this tree mainly because of the prolific bio-mass that it produces, which can be used as mulch. I had seen these trees grow in uncultivated areas, like along the creek. I didn’t know if it would survive in our bald patch that is quite unlike the creek sides.

The little S. siamea didn’t have much of a shock from the crude transplantation that I did. I was worried if the heavy clay would allow any air exchange to happen. But the plant didn’t seem to care. It started putting out new leaves and I was the happiest person in the world. Some days, during the monsoon, the downpour caused severe erosion. I was worried if the little S. siamea would be able to hold on to its dear life. But the plant had very little problem. It continued growing happily. The monsoon ended in mid-December.

I was watering it for the next two months, manually carrying water from the pond. The S. siamea continued doing well. It in fact put out a new branch! I was jumping in joy. The dry spell started and by mid-February the shallow pond had dried up completely. This meant that I had to carry water and walk for about 5 minutes from the manual (hand) pump, to water this plant. I couldn’t obviously do it as often as I wanted to. So, the next two months was more or less a dry spell for the little plant. But this didn’t abate its growth. I was quite amazed by its resilience but was also concerned about the upcoming summer heat for the plant.

Fortunately, this month we had about 15 cm. of summer rain. The S. siamea continues to thrive and is now a handsome 3’ tall young tree. Watching this plant’s growth has been a phenomenal spiritual learning experience for me. It was as if the plant was speaking to me, saying:

“No top soil?

Not a problem. Here I will toil.

Heavy clay?

That is okay.

Roots get very little air?

I don’t care.

Soil erosion?

Tightly I will hold on.

Too much rain?

I just am fine.

Too little water?

Can’t deter (me).

I continue to be happy as can be.”

Thank you, my dear little S. siamea. I will remember this during difficult times.

-- Hema

Raising Eyebrows

For more than a year now, we have been living close to our farmland, near the small rural town of Athimanjeri. Like in all small places, here everyone knows everyone else. Through close marriages, most people are either related or their families have known each other’s for decades. Caste boundaries in marriages are strictly observed. People know and remember great details about their fellow villagers’ lives.

We are told that typically people don’t move into any village, but people do constantly move out looking for jobs in nearby cities. Thus when we came to live here, there was a lot of curiosity among the local people to know about us. There were questions from all kinds of people, and even after more than year of being here we still get tons of them.Here are some questions and conversations that ensued from them.

***

Before we bought our land, I went into a nearby household hoping to find out something about the land’s history. I was invited inside by an old couple and their daughter-in-law. Before I could begin, the lady of the house gestured to her daughter-in-law something to the effect that I had to be questioned first. And so I was:

“Are you married?”                                                                                   

I nodded.

“Are you bai?”

Wthout knowing what exactly “bai” meant, I said no because I thought I was not “bai”, whatever that was. Only later did I come to know that she actually had meant to ask “are you Muslim?”

“Are you Jesus?”                               

(Who, me? Of course not!  Can’t you see?)

I was struggling hard to not laugh out loud and to understand what she wanted to ask. I quickly realized that she must have wanted to know if I was Christian and said that I was not.  

“Are you Australia?”

(Identity Crisis! What am I? Who am I?)

My answer was no.

She then asked me why I didn’t wear the accessories that married women typically do. I didn’t feel like talking to her in detail about my thoughts on such matters at our very first meeting. So I ended up saying that I don’t like wearing such accessories. She simply gazed at me.

***

A curious tenth-grade girl approached me shyly when we went to meet her father who was a construction worker. She asked me if I was a foreigner. I said, “I am not!”, and just to drive home the point desperately, “I speak Tamil, just like you do.” She refused to agree with me. She said that I looked different from the local people and that I was white skinned. I went close to her, put my arm next to hers and asked her to compare our skin colours. Mine was only a shade lighter than hers. She was not convinced. She raked her brain for the next few moments and announced happily, “But you can speak in English! So you must be a foreigner”.

***

Dev and I were riding to the town on our bicycles. We were wearing wide-brimmed hats for protection against the strong sun and must have presented a strange sight. On the way, we got stopped by two motor bikers.

They: “Where are you going?”

Me: “To the town”

They: “Our local police department wanted to know what you do here”

Me: “We have a piece of land and we are trying to farm it”

They: “But then why do you ride bicycles?”

Me:  “Why not? And why do you ride motor bikes?”

They: “Oh! We are going to the town. We have got some work there”

Me: “Same story here.  You are on your motor bikes and we on our bicycles”

They: “We thought that you travel around the nation preaching”

Me: “No! We don’t have the time for that. We have a family to take care of”

They: “Sorry Madam! It is your attire, your hat and bicycle that got us suspicious”

***

For certain groceries we end up going to the larger town of Sholinghur. The town has a lot of narrow, old-world bazaar streets, brimming with people and temples. Despite the crowds, it is still not unpleasant to get around on foot, not in small measure due to the fact that there are still few cars here. In a narrow by-lane we like to stop at a small coffee kadai with a split personality. The back and side walls of the shop have on display rows of slippers and shoes, and then just to complete your sense of incongruity, there sits a sewing machine in a corner for small tailoring jobs. So while you are sipping on your hot coffee or tea, another customer would be trying on the latest polyurethane VKC-brand sandals.

One afternoon when we were there, we found the small space filled with the owner’s three kids doing their homework, while waiting for their father to fix them cups of hot milk or tea. We got our drinks, and when his kids had walked out, the owner turned to me to ask what my relationship to Dev was, gesturing at Dev as if he was a piece of luggage (Dev’s broken Tamil often makes him invisible). Once he understood that we were married the next question was obvious: “But then why don’t you wear the accessories?” I said that we didn’t believe in that and also that we didn’t want to buy gold.  He must have felt sorry for me because his reply was, “Well, although you are poor at least you both are fair-skinned, so you look rich.” And then he gave us a two rupee discount on the coffees.

***

A land related issue recently took me to a Government Office in the bordering Andhra Pradesh. All the signs here were in Telugu. Not knowing Telugu made me understand how intimidating it would for an illiterate person to enter such premises. I was sent back and forth from one office to another when I asked for some publicly available documents.

As I was walking down a corridor, a man in his fifties asked me where I was from, followed by the usual set of questions. Once he figured out that I was married, he scanned me for the forehead mark and other accessories. Since nothing matched his expectations he got a little wary. He paused, made sure that there was no one in the earshot, and then lowering his voice conspiratorially, finally asked in English, “Love marriage?”

I didn’t have the heart to disturb him any further, so I lied, “No. It was an arranged marriage. Parents were involved in the process.” He left the place with a sigh of relief. 

- Hema