The Village
There was a time when I could not go to my village, just because of the hawa pani. I have some kind of an allergy with the environment of my village. Its not far from our quarter, just about 10 kms. And the environment doesn't change so drastically also. But its something which I have not been able to understand. Let me go back to my childhood.
We celebrate N festivals through out the year. Some of them I don't even know. But the one connected to the village is the arrival of new crop and the celebration. We still have our khet, but now we don't do it by ourselves. Someone takes it in contract and gives the money. Since kheti was the primary source of income in the earlier days and my ancestors basically lived on it this festival is really important. We call it Nua Khai in sambalpuri , the local dialect. That means "eating it for the first time". This is one festival when all the family members gather at our village and we offer the new rice as prashad. After the puja, my dadi ma distributes this new rice to each and everyone. We kids just play around in the open angan eating amrut or tender coconut. We have six coconut trees, two guava trees and two mango trees in our angan. Through out the year a heap of paddy will be there in the angan which is used to grow mushroom. Apart from the fruits we grow gajar, muli, gobi, mirchi, bhindi, tamatar, corn, baingan, dhaniya and a few more varities of hari sagsabzi which I don't know by name. And there are banana trees also. More on them later, because they are one of the most used trees in the household. Ours is like the typical gaon with angan, bagicha, kheti. The little changes in life have taken place and the comfort levels have increased. There is a TV, Cooler, cable connection and usual stuff. There was a time when we had cattle also. But there was no one to take care of them. Now they are residing at the padosi's angan. I have seen the kheti pretty close. My kaka will instruct the laborers to do whatever they have to do and I used to go to the khets to see the progress. The ride on tractors are the best in a gaon. We do kheti in the traditional way, ie to reap the crop, use some of them as seed and rest use. Now with technology came the hybrid variety. But no one had tried it in our place. My kaka gave it a shot. He followed the instructions and asked the laborers to plant them far apart. We never do that in the traditional system. Just after a few days of planting them, the rice saplings didn't seem to come back to life. My kaka didn't go to khet for one week. Later we were surprised by the speed of growth. The whole of our khet was visible from a far distance, because the plants were big and bushy. The yield was so much that, the laborers were finding it heavy to carry it back to our angan. Ppl started asking if they can get seeds from the new fasal. Unfortunately we can't do that with this hybrid variety,we have to buy seeds. In the night the paddy will be spread in a round fashion and a tractor will roll over it to extract the rice grains. The tractor will go round and round to do this. We used to sit on the tractor and enjoy it. Oh I am carried away by the khet, let me get back to the festival. So when its lunch time, we eat on banana leaves. It has a altogether different feeling. Ma will make puri, kher and N stuff to eat. There will be some traditional sweet which are distributed to the padosis. Though I have been to my village so often, but in my childhood I could not spend much time there. Once one lady came and saw me and asked my mom, "Is that someone from your colony whom you have brought to show the gaon & the festival". There is something about the hawa pani as my dadima says. My skin gets itchy and it becomes red. Even if I don't step out of the house it happens. One doc said gradually when I grow up this will go. Now that I have grown up,I don't get that. My dadima was the most confused on this. Why the hell this happens with our own village, it doesn't happen even in the nearby village. Now she is happy that I have grown up :) Oh ya my dadima, she is a really nice sweet dadima. When we go to the village, she will ask someone to get a few coconuts, or guava or tad or bhutta depending on the season. And in summers we have plenty of mangoes. I remember while going to the village there used to be these mutter ke khets. We just used to get in and eat tender mutter straight from the khet. There is a bridge on the way which dries during summer and ppl grow kakdi, with just a bit of salt it tastes great. Summers we used to sleep in the angan with the open sky and cool breeze. That was amazing. You don't even need a cooler or fan there. Ahh so many happy memories. When ever I go home, I just take my bike and go to the village. It feels great, simply great...
We celebrate N festivals through out the year. Some of them I don't even know. But the one connected to the village is the arrival of new crop and the celebration. We still have our khet, but now we don't do it by ourselves. Someone takes it in contract and gives the money. Since kheti was the primary source of income in the earlier days and my ancestors basically lived on it this festival is really important. We call it Nua Khai in sambalpuri , the local dialect. That means "eating it for the first time". This is one festival when all the family members gather at our village and we offer the new rice as prashad. After the puja, my dadi ma distributes this new rice to each and everyone. We kids just play around in the open angan eating amrut or tender coconut. We have six coconut trees, two guava trees and two mango trees in our angan. Through out the year a heap of paddy will be there in the angan which is used to grow mushroom. Apart from the fruits we grow gajar, muli, gobi, mirchi, bhindi, tamatar, corn, baingan, dhaniya and a few more varities of hari sagsabzi which I don't know by name. And there are banana trees also. More on them later, because they are one of the most used trees in the household. Ours is like the typical gaon with angan, bagicha, kheti. The little changes in life have taken place and the comfort levels have increased. There is a TV, Cooler, cable connection and usual stuff. There was a time when we had cattle also. But there was no one to take care of them. Now they are residing at the padosi's angan. I have seen the kheti pretty close. My kaka will instruct the laborers to do whatever they have to do and I used to go to the khets to see the progress. The ride on tractors are the best in a gaon. We do kheti in the traditional way, ie to reap the crop, use some of them as seed and rest use. Now with technology came the hybrid variety. But no one had tried it in our place. My kaka gave it a shot. He followed the instructions and asked the laborers to plant them far apart. We never do that in the traditional system. Just after a few days of planting them, the rice saplings didn't seem to come back to life. My kaka didn't go to khet for one week. Later we were surprised by the speed of growth. The whole of our khet was visible from a far distance, because the plants were big and bushy. The yield was so much that, the laborers were finding it heavy to carry it back to our angan. Ppl started asking if they can get seeds from the new fasal. Unfortunately we can't do that with this hybrid variety,we have to buy seeds. In the night the paddy will be spread in a round fashion and a tractor will roll over it to extract the rice grains. The tractor will go round and round to do this. We used to sit on the tractor and enjoy it. Oh I am carried away by the khet, let me get back to the festival. So when its lunch time, we eat on banana leaves. It has a altogether different feeling. Ma will make puri, kher and N stuff to eat. There will be some traditional sweet which are distributed to the padosis. Though I have been to my village so often, but in my childhood I could not spend much time there. Once one lady came and saw me and asked my mom, "Is that someone from your colony whom you have brought to show the gaon & the festival". There is something about the hawa pani as my dadima says. My skin gets itchy and it becomes red. Even if I don't step out of the house it happens. One doc said gradually when I grow up this will go. Now that I have grown up,I don't get that. My dadima was the most confused on this. Why the hell this happens with our own village, it doesn't happen even in the nearby village. Now she is happy that I have grown up :) Oh ya my dadima, she is a really nice sweet dadima. When we go to the village, she will ask someone to get a few coconuts, or guava or tad or bhutta depending on the season. And in summers we have plenty of mangoes. I remember while going to the village there used to be these mutter ke khets. We just used to get in and eat tender mutter straight from the khet. There is a bridge on the way which dries during summer and ppl grow kakdi, with just a bit of salt it tastes great. Summers we used to sleep in the angan with the open sky and cool breeze. That was amazing. You don't even need a cooler or fan there. Ahh so many happy memories. When ever I go home, I just take my bike and go to the village. It feels great, simply great...
posted by br!j :-) at 10:13 AM
1 Comments:
zaroor tere ko ek photo bhejunga
i m not sure i understand what u mean by
"atom on your photoblog is switched on"
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