Just like
Alice plummeted down into Wonderland, I closed my eyes the other day and found
myself deep; in to a landscape that is only the “stuff that dreams are made of”
anymore. I am a little girl, maybe eight
or nine and am at my ancestral village with my family. It is hot and the
village has no electricity. We have just finished lunch and the whole family, all five of us, are trying to rest in the inner-most room which is supposed to be the coolest. A "khus" curtain has been hung on the door and water is constantly dripping on it to cool the environment. There is a fabric covered, fringed board, hanging
by the ceiling, and a young servant boy pulls the rope to make this device,
supposed to be a fan, swing back and forth and move the air so the family can
take their siesta. As the adults doze off, we three kids go running up to the
roof-top to see the village sights that are new and foreign to our urban life. We are not allowed outside and the huge
entrance doors are locked. Outside the house are huge heaps of dried wheat.
Some of the wheat is scattered on the floor and we see a servant (except we are
not allowed to call them servants) guiding a pair of oxen, pulling a heavy
board that separates the wheat berries from the husk. Some women in brightly
colored suits and their faces covered with their dupattas (scarves) are sifting
them and piling them on to the ever growing heaps of glistening wheat berries. Some people have brooms and are sweeping the
wayward berries on to the heap. We are awe-stuck that this is what our bread
comes from. We are too naïve to know that this bounty also provides for much
else that we enjoy in the city.
The journey
takes me down another lane and I am in the village fields. A cuckoo bird is
singing non-stop in the nearby mango tree. It is hot and we take shelter under
the tree. A couple of cots with red and
khaki covers called “khes” have been put there in anticipation of our visit to
the fields. (I remember my grandma telling me that this khaki is precious
because the yarn is spun from natural khaki cotton and not dyed). There is a well by the tree and two oxen are
walking in a circle pulling the lathe that is attached to a string of metal
buckets, thus pulling water out of the well, that then runs into irrigation
drains which water the fields. The bells around the oxen’s necks chime in a
soothing melody. We drink our fill of the cool delicious water and splash one
another in frolic. I look at these animals and now I am perplexed. Weren’t they
the pair ploughing the fields earlier, and then thrashing the wheat and now
they are pulling water; how will they survive so much labor? My father sniggers
at my urban eye that cannot tell one animal apart from another. Of course, we
have several pairs of oxen and he tried to show me how they differ, but I still
don’t see the difference. Dusk is
approaching and we are sent home. Our father has to supervise some more fields.
When we
reach home, we find our mother making small bundles of corn and channa
(Garbanzo) beans and asking one of the female helpers to make sure the “Bhatti
wali” does not take out too much for her own share. Bouncing up and down we
want to go to the “Bhatti wali”. A
BHATTI is an in-ground clay burner. The lady who operates it is called a “Bhatti
Wali”. She uses a huge metal Wok with sand in it. The stove heats up the sand
and then she puts the grains in the hot sand and roasts them. Once they are
done, she sieves them apart from the sand, and when we get them in our baskets,
there isn’t a speck of sand—just delicious warm popped corn and chick peas.
This joint, we see, also serves as a social hub. As they await their turn to
get their grains popped, people take the time to chat one another up, get updated
on the latest gossip, and in case of young women, complain about the in-laws.
These last bits are always more interesting. Population almost always consists
of women, because men are at work at this hour. We bring our grains or “Daane”
as they are called in Punjabi, and eat them with jaggery, and when we are
bored, flick them at one another.
After
evening showers, our father holds court in the outer yard and we go hang around
his chair. It is intriguing to hear people come and give him daily reports of
how work is progressing, how much wheat is filling our coffers, and how new sowing
of cotton is progressing. They report on petty crimes in the village, and
request his mediation in matters of the law. This is also the time they could
ask for money, more grain allotment, a day off, or talk about next year’s
contract. During just one such sessions,
the doors start rattling, our father grabs us to him and before we know, there
is dust flying everywhere. The animals are braying and trying to break off
their shackles. The lamps go out, and it is pitch dark while the wind is
performing its howling dance. Anything that is not tied down is bounced and
flung to the other end of the courtyard. I whimper I want to go inside, but it
is not safe. After what feels like hours of a ferocious dark dust storm, the
wind abates and we go take another bath.
We fast
forward to another day. There is a device with two round stone pieces stacked
atop each other. The top one has a handle and a hole in the middle. It is
called a “Chakki” or a grinder. A woman is pouring something through the hole
as she is rotating the top stone with the handle. “Chachi (Auntie) what are you
doing”? “I am grinding Daal (lentils) for the evening meal”. “Can I try
it?” “Sure but just don’t tell the
mistress or I will get in trouble”. (Confusing; why would she get in trouble if
I try doing what she is doing? Adults!) !
”Just make sure you rotate it at a steady pace. If you go too slowly, the
grains will turn to powder, and if you go too fast, they will remain whole”. I
don’t think it should be that hard so I try a couple of rounds but cannot
synchronize the pouring and the rotating. It is only lentils after all! Who wants to keep on going in circles? That
spinning wheel in the other corner seems like a lot of fun. Haven’t we seen
granny Amma spin large cotton wicks into spools of yarn? There is a basket full of wicks sitting by the
spinning wheel. I pick one up, and stick it on the needle, pulling at it with
one hand and rotating the wheel with the other. All I get is a clump of cotton.
My mother sees me and yells so loud that I wake up.
I am back in
the 2012 Punjab. We have driven the entire country side and have not seen a
single working well. They have all been replaced by efficient, tube-wells that
either use electricity or diesel. The water still feeds the fields, but the
sweet jingling music from the bells around the oxen’s necks is gone. In its
place is the jarring phut-phut of the motor and noxious fumes from the diesel. Bullocks are not pulling carts to haul crops
or fodder; now people have tractors and trolleys No animals or humans are
thrashing the wheat and there are no marked thrashing areas any more. Combine
harvesters do the job, while women sit, gossip and gain weight, and men are
drowning in alcohol, or lying semi-conscious with drugs poisoning their very
essence, or both. Did I really have to
wake up?
