My experience in a village.

I am from Delhi and have spent most of my life living in the city. Here life is so busy, no time for friends and families, rushing through peak hours going to work, sweating in traffic and dirt, pollution, etc. Well it’s not that bad as it sounds, I do have my share of enjoyment but those are mostly indoors like partying with friends, traveling on long weekends, traveling miles to get a breath of fresh air.

I am originally from Chennai so now you know how much I traveled from South to North. My father is currently retired as a college professor, but during peak days of his career we travelled across many cities. City life is almost the same across anywhere. As cities grow big, life becomes more tough. But there are few experiences which we don’t forget and we want to cherish them forever.

I was pretty small when this happened, so forgive me If I narrate it in bits and pieces.

My father was a lecturer in a government college and we used to relocate every 2-3 years. Most of the relocation was within Tamil Nadu, but sometimes you don’t have the option to choose from. When I was in my 1st standard and  6-7 years old, my father was transferred from Chennai city to a outskirts village between Tamil Nadu and Andhra border. It was a tough decision for my parents, as we used to stay in a joint family with my grandparents. Also we had been staying there for years, so leaving that comfort of the city and relocating to a village somewhere far away was really scary. Finally my parents packed all the stuff, hired a truck and shifted all our luggage. We had to travel in 2 different buses and 6 hours of journey to reach there.

It was a small village, so the bus drivers were friendly enough to stop wherever the passenger wanted to get down. The bus stopped in front of a big villa and I think it was the biggest house in that village built with bricks, all other houses were small and built with hays and leaves. As soon as my father opened the house door, I ran inside it, it was such a big house unlike in Chennai. I was so excited. My mom was complaining to my father, why did you take such a big house, who is going to clean it, etc. etc. But as a kid, I was happy, I had so much space to play and run around. We were tired of the journey, my mom had packed some lunch, we had some bite and then took a couple of hours of rest. Suddenly someone knocked at the door, to our surprise we had a bunch of village guys at our doorstep. I think they knew who my father was, and they had great respect for his profession. They have all gathered to help set up our house. In the city it is a rare thing, but in villages one’s problem is the entire village’s problem and all come together to solve it. The first day was awesome, I was just sitting on a chair and watching everyone around me arranging stuff. Well my job was to provide water to all. It took us a couple of days to properly settle down and know things around.

You know the Sun rises much early in villages, or my father is to joke villagers are ones who wake up the Sun. I was small so my mom used to take me along wherever she goes. My mom had made friends with all the neighbouring women. They had invited my mom (and me) to their houses. I used to be very excited to go to their homes as they had hens, goats running around their houses and small cute houses. Lalita didi, had become a very good friend of my mom. She was our neighbor and used to come very frequently to our house to help my mom. I used to get up early in the morning to visit her house, in fact the entire village used to come to her house at that time, as she used to provide milk to all of us. She had a couple of big buffaloes and they were very friendly, they used to let me in their shed which was built of hay. I used to get up before my mom and used to tell her, we are getting late, or I will not be able to see didi milking the buffaloes. The milk used to be very thick, I guess that was the  purest form and not adulterated. Buffaloes are very stubborn animals, didi used to take them to the river for bath, and she had to struggle to take them out of water, and then take them in the fields & forest to feed them. After feeding them, she used to go to the field and the buffaloes used to find their way back home. Didi used to tell me, these animals are very smart, wherever you take them they will find their way home back. I used to go with her to the river bank, where all the women used to come in the morning to wash their clothes. It was so fun, but my mom did not know how to swim so she used to be scared of water. But I used to enjoy it, and the villagers taught me how to swim. Most of the kids used to have baths in wells. We had a couple of wells in the village,some of them for drinking water and some for having baths. We also had a hand pump to fetch drinking water.

We did not have a market in that village, my mom used to travel to a neighboring town once a week. We used to get all our vegetables directly from farmers, the vegetables were so fresh. Most of the villagers used to cook food on wooden chula (stove), my mom was not used to it, so we had a kerosene stove at home. It was fun seeing women cooking over wood and charcoal. And as per them, that was the reason why their food tasted better. Most of the villagers used to work in village farms, and some of them traveled to neighboring villages for jobs. We had a rice mill in our village and pretty much that’s where most men used to work. Being a small village everyone knew each other. Slowly we got used to this lifestyle. People came back home by 5 PM and after that they did not have much entertainment as they did not have TV and power at home. They used to play some games on board, spend time with family, have dinner and go to bed quite early at 8 PM. In the city, we used to sleep by 10.

My father got me admitted to a private school, most of the village kids used to go to Government schools. Their school dresses used to be very dirty and in private schools our principal/teacher used to be very strict about it. My father used to tell me, these kids come from poor backgrounds, they don’t have enough to eat so they can’t afford new dresses. At that age it was difficult to understand. A cycle rickshaw used to come to pick and drop me at school and my father used to come to pick me up from school. Kids used to run behind the rickshaw, I used to get irritated, but then they became very good friends of mine. After a couple of days, I used to do the same, keep my bag in the rickshaw and run behind it. These kids shared their food with me and used to be very spicy, help me learn swimming (of course my father used to be around at that time), most important they taught me to catch fish using long scarfs, petting animals, climbing trees, etc. I learnt a lot from those kids, unfortunately once I left that place, I did not have the means to connect with them. I wish we had WhatsApp at that time.  

We stayed there for 3 years. After that we relocated a couple of times but all in city areas. Life in the village was very simple, just do hard work and have good night sleep and pretty much that was their life. They did not have a lot of money, but at the same time they were full of joy. I got married and relocated to Delhi, but I am planning to visit that village along with my kids and show them how life in the village is. I know things have changed, now there is TV, Power and Internet everywhere. Whenever it rains in Delhi and there is a cold breeze flowing, my old golden memories come back and they take me through those village dirty roads where I played happily.