Keep walking, rain or shine.

January 31st went by, and with the morning of February 1st a beam of hope pranced across my room, it will be spring in no time! The many-sweater weather of North India still unsettles me for a hundred days every year. The sun playing hide and seek, and the fog wrapping my world in a cold blanket, winter literally and figuratively sends shivers down my back. Khori too copes no better, I found out. The villagers here shivered just as much as I did and took solace in the unending stream of chai that kept flowing from the kitchen. After back-breaking bus/tempo journeys followed up by an average 5 km walk to reach a village, the exhaustion is writ on the face. Chai, just not for the winter but to refresh too.

Chai.

Born into a Tamil household, tea was never my cup of tea. Nothing beats a filter coffee after meals, before meals and in between meals. Here in the villages that I visit every day, any conversation that extends over two minutes automatically turns into a chat over chai. One can just not refuse!

House 1

"Chai le lo!"

"Nahi ji, abhi khana khaya hai. Thank you."

"Hamare gaon tak aaye ho. Kyon nahi? Idhar le lo!" (A porcelain cup is thrusted in my direction; any indifference or protest would lead to a spill-over. To avoid the mess, I drink)

House 2

"Chai logey?"

"Nahi ji, abhi unke ghar mein piya tha. Bahut chai ho gaye."

"Udhar ka tha unka chai, ab hamara piyo!" (Next I know, I am drinking tea)

House 3

"Accha ji, chai-pani? Roti?"

"Nahi ji, main chai peeti hi nahi." (Tactic changed. So proud)

"Toh dhudh le lo. Ya lassi?" (Couldn't deny. There I went sipping milk or lassi, which is always served in half-litre glasses!!)

House 4

"Aur chai piyoge?" (Frustrated I think, why do they bother asking. Then too I try the last trick-refusal)

"Abhi abhi lassi piya hai. Dahi aur chai, mera paet kharab ho jayega. Nahi ji, thank you."

"Aap aise isliye keh rahe hain, kyonki ham gareeb/Harijan/gaon-wale hain."

I begged for forgiveness and gulped down another cup of tea.

Over tea the camaraderie eases comfortably, no doubt about that, but the interaction before that one cup leaves me reeling. For me it was an effort to leave them unoffended, for them it was a custom to leave their guest fulfilled. The athiti devo bhava culture is soaked in the communities, which makes my refusals so offensive. The worst of course, is the fall-out of them feeling inferior because of their caste, economic status or place of residence. Meaning no offence at all, I make quick apologies to bail me out and accept their cups of chai with utmost gratitude. It hits me how hard these societal dogmas still prevail in the rural areas. Especially the caste difference. chai is just not another drink, not a conversation-enhancer. It is a status-symbol of its own kind. It was a parameter offering to see if a person was willing to interact with the other!! After my talking and more tea-drinking, I again go walking. Walking across the fields, walking across the hills. Walking when it sunned down hard and walking when the cold hung numb on the limbs.

To my disappointment, February was turning no better than January. Forget winter, but messy battles raged Upstairs. Rain and wind, dust and hail, Haryana gave me all its love. Ferocious clouds loomed over my solitary walks, rattling thunderstorms woke me from my sleep. Rain lashed across the nascent crop and over the hardened rocks The sun refused to show face for nearly three days. With rain though, everything changed. My perspectives too.

Rain.

It raged on like a monstrosity for the first two days of the week. There was little road between the puddles. And in all those villages without proper drainage system, the sewer was the canal in the middle of every path. The fields however seemed to glow afresh after the rains. Again, being brought up in Chennai, rain was an odd occurrence, especially only as a spoilsport on Diwali every year. The nightmarish condition of roads in residential areas, water refusing to drain away, Chennai was hardly a place to fall in love with the rains. Delhi was no better. Fussy, I maybe, but rains ultimately ruin daily plans and there is a soggy feeling everywhere. The fields, surprisingly, snapped out that feeling in me.

What I had only seen as a wallpaper on Windows, I now see as the green wheat fields in Rewari. The rains gave the unending acres a refreshing appeal and the clear skies seemed to mock the drab winter of the past few months.

The farmers, when asked if the rains fared well for them, told "bhagwan ne sona barsa hai." If only gold actually fell, I felt, they would indeed be a prosperous lot. The crops would benefit from rains at this time, I was told, not from hail. In few parts of the district hailstones had damaged crops. But the rains did something to the place, or perhaps me, apart from the crops glistening in its aftermath. I realised that without the pollution and concrete gray scale of a city, the rural environment is a wonderful setting to enjoy the rain. There is so much green; once the skies clear one can enjoy that view too. The houses are spaced with aangans and backyard gardens, there are just so many nooks from where the rain could be enjoyed. That is if I were standing and watching the rain from under a tree or at the front of a courtyard. That was not the case. I had to walk.

At the village Bhankli,  right after the rain, I spotted a peacock in a backyard of a house.
Peacocks strut on the roadside, goats meander into unmanned wheat fields and the buffaloes sun all day long. 

The pools that sprung out of nowhere made it harassing to balance on tiptoes and get across the really narrow and winding lanes of the villages. On one such afternoon, I reached Bhankli to speak to a women's group on the necessity of taking a political initiative and participating in the Gram Sabhas. The village was behind a rice and grain godown. The main road leading to the village was cut off by the un-passable puddle. I had no option but to find some other way. The warehouse stared down on me like Goliath on David. I was desperate to get to the other side. I quickly walked through the unused part, and climbed the wall and jumped over to the other side, in a hurry. A sharp yelp rose from behind me. Unknown to me, a group of men were playing cards on the other side of the wall and I had just jumped over their heads and landed just a hair's inch away! It was blasphemy for a young female to do any such stunts in a village. To their oncoming lectures on morals I returned my best smile and walked on.

"How did the villagers, especially the old men and women, manage to get in and out of the village during the rains?!" "What about a pregnant woman?" "How about somebody carrying a load?" These thoughts crept across my mind, wondering if there were actually villages that got cut from the rest during the rains for lack of proper roads? Still reeling from my little thrill of jumping over a wall, probably the first in the last 4 years, I kept walking. Bhankli was nearby, I had to walk only a little. On many days, I have had to walk 8-10 km to reach a village. No tempo, no bus, at times not even people walking on the path for the whole distance. Dogs give company on pleasant days, on other days it is just a never-ending walk between trees, thorns and fields. Haryana's landscape changes so quick. It's green a moment, brown the next and yellow, right after. Soaking in the variety, I keep walking. On another day while walking, a tractor passed me by.

Canine company on a pleasant day in a cleaner village, Aliyawas. I'm not that lucky to find a soul or a clean street on many days.

TRACTOR.

There was a little hesitation that I had to overcome, I was not used to asking for a lift. I got offered many, but I had asked for very few in the last 5 months. Budana, my destination was at least 8 km away from Tatarpur, where I was. The puddles and the rain were no incentive to keep on foot. And I did it; stuck my hand out and meekly asked, "Budana?" The farmer simply pointed to the seat next to him on the tractor.

I shifted to Haryana in October. I saw tractors drive to anaz mandis with sacks of bajra to be sold. I saw tractors tilling the fresh soil from my backyard. I saw tractors leveling the soil in the fields opposite to my campus. I saw a cart attached to a tractor and women singing while travelling in them. It was October, I really wanted to ride on a tractor.

February, I got my chance. The thrill of jumping a wall the previous day had not yet abated and I had hopped on to the tractor already like a child latching on to a candy offered. Navigating through the bumpy road and un-drained water, the tractor got off to a slow start. Still plastered with a grin, I was just planning to get my camera out and click a few pictures. Then the tractor gave a lurch. Gently shaken, I put the camera in my bag. The moment was so unexpected, the jerk first and then the tractor took off at a really good speed. Nearly 80kmph. It was an effort to not squeal like a teenager at the amusement park! What fun and doubly sweetened by the massive wait of 5 months.

A quick shot from the camera on my phone before the tractor sped away!

In no time I was at Budana and the farmer dropped me off with a wave of a hand. I mumbled my thanks, standing rooted to the spot even after the tractor had long gone. It was taking me several moments to register this "first-experience". Then reality dawned, I still had to walk through the crooked, dirty lanes to reach the meeting. So, I went walking.

All the chai, talking and walking were giving me sounds, voices, sights and insights into the rural life here. A glimpse into the people's thoughts, challenges, opinions and occupations. Perhaps, it struck me, only if the leaders and policy-makers took off a little time away from their high-walled rooms in Lutyen's Delhi, to just walk into the villages, the streets of a city and talk to the people in their farms, in their living rooms, we would be having a better government. Perhaps, like a Vinobha Bhave, maybe even a Forrest Gump, all that a person had to do was to get on his feet and keep moving.  Not in air-conditioned cars or scam-tainted helicopters. The voice of a democracy is best felt from the mild tremors in the ground. Keep walking.