Wild Buffalo Rampage

Building a fence to save the banana plantation. Saving a Village #3

As I said in the previous section here on Saving a Village, I will speak about a day in the village, so here it is. Picture this. You are sitting between coconut trees on a Tuesday afternoon, and all you can hear is birds and squirrel. For the past half hour, I have been watching a mama squirrel teach her baby squirrel how to cross an electric wire.

This place is so far in the past that it is sometimes a blessing to even call this place home. Modern setting is increasingly webbed with internet. Even while I drive from Chiplun, where my parents live, to Narvan, I can see people sucked into their phones, playing social games which are of no use to them. Then gradually as I come closer to Narvan, things get much more real. Maybe it is the lack of mobile network or maybe it is because there are actually lots of jobs to be done in a village, whatever it may be but people do not give into these social media games and instead they indulge in in person communication. And then all of a sudden, no one is using their phones. It is a great sight to watch, especially if you are like me, who doesn’t like to play these online or offline social games. Village life is all about getting your feet dirty in the mud, climbing up trees and getting your hands dirty either by peeling mangoes or applying paint. Phones do not have a use in such a setting. Only the affluent in the village have the luxury to use one, and no that’s not a good thing for them either. They are busy in maintaining their status quo, playing hierarchical games while the ones working on the fields are far away from this. It is hard to find the ones in the fields anxious or depressed, but its changing.

One might say that this is progress, but let me contest this. We, I mean the ones who are pushing ourselves away from technology and creating offline hours and barriers to reduce our internet usage, have very well realised how important it is to stay away from internet. It is a game which is being played at all times and if you are not involved in it, you face social scrutiny, while also getting conditioned to increase usage and receive opinions that are being shoved down your throats against your will. Anxiety and depression is high within people who use excess of social media, and there are lots of studies to prove it. How is this progress then? Why isn’t this highly social life where communities are connected, not virtually but in real life; where they use all their senses, not a mark of progress? I think we should re-evaluate what progress means then. It is not towering buildings and 7G network, but how content and happy you are in your life. By that measure these villager friends of mine are much more progressed, mainly because they are street smart and they question every new thing and every new idea- which is becoming a rarity these days.

Anyway, back to the village life. Yesterday, I spent my time dabbling with writing an article and running around with a stick to shoo off herds of water buffaloes. A fence made out of living trees runs all around our farm but time and again water buffaloes find a way to infiltrate the fence. Times were better when Jadhav ajoba, a 70 year old cattle herder, would be in the surrounding fields, tending to his cattle and shooing off the stray ones. He sold his cattle owing to old age and the village lost the last remaining cattle herder. Not many will know what sounds he made to call his favourite cow or how he handled an ox with ease. It will be a lost art in no time. Anyway, times are changing and the next generation does not want to be doing such laborous work, instead they are interested in editing that reel on instagram.

After hours of to and fro, I was fed up. I drove them all the way past the dry river that runs next to the farm, only to come back to a dozen more of them who had entered in from the other end. I was running around like a mad man with a stick. This carried on for about 5 hours. Grandma had been concerned for some time. These water buffaloes like banana leaves and they end up eating almost all the banana plantation. And so, finally, grandpa agreed. We were allowed to work on a wired fence that will run throughout the compound.

But why protest in the first place, you would say. Well, the reason behind his protest was simple, he wanted to keep the old practices alive. Compound walls stop movement, and free and open movement is an essential part of the village. You wont find many compound walls in the interior parts of villages, they are often open to travel. Even if there is a compound wall, it is usually made out of bamboo and sticks and a fiercely thorny climber called 'vaghati' which runs throughout the fence. Usually some openings/gates are kept to accommodate the old paths that have been in use for decades.

I know, now you'd be thinking why grandpa takes the decisions? Why not grandma? In most houses, the elder people have the right to take decisions and its the same in ours. Grandpa takes decisions regarding the mango trees, plantations, house repair and grandma looks over the banking, kitchen and keeps the accounts. Its a well distributed affair and I have been witnessing it for almost 20 years - ever since I was able to understand what is going on!

It was late in the evening when Shankar, the brother of the old couple who live next door, came for a brief visit. He's built a house at the other end of the village and visits his brother's family often. Now call it luck, or sheer coincidence, but he had bought fencing wire and cement poles to build a fence around his house and due to some change in plans, he ended up building a wall, sparing all that purchase.

But wait a second, you said there are no compound walls in the village.

Yes, I know! But I also said that things are changing. I might add, they are changing rather rapidly.

He needed someone to buy it and we wanted an easy way to get the material. The nearest hardware store to get any such equipment is some 30 km away. Its a drag to bring in heavy material through the bumpy roads. Sharing becomes essential. At times people bring in extra materials, knowing very well that someone else might need it. So, it was time to bring the materials home.

Sanju dada came in at 9:30 am and we were off to the market. The only guy available who had a transport vehicle was Amol, who has recently opened a digital store in the village- first of its kind here. After a few minutes of refusing, he finally agreed. We rushed to the market to get a cement bag and then reached Shankar’s house. Then after filling in the cement poles and barbed wire we drove to our house. Sharda, who was sitting in her house sewing beads, joined in after watching us do the work by ourselves. She picked a couple poles and Sanju had a friendly banter with her, rubbing off the excess cement on her saree. She did the same. Now these are not kids, these are people in their 50’s having absolutely no clue about how far the wokeness has taken us. They have no idea that in some part of the world, there would have been crusaders preaching Sharda about how it is wrong for Sanju to touch her saree without her permission. Thankfully those internet crusaders are yet to reach our village.

Grandma called in, “Tea is ready.”

It is a ritual to have tea breaks every once in a while. Sharda, Sanju dada and I sat on the steps sipping tea and making plans on where to start the fencing project. Akshata, who does the cleaning work, joined in. Topic had already shifted to their next community meeting, which was due coming Monday.

The kunabi tribe in the village, who is also the most populated tribe, hold meetings every first Monday of the month. They have discussions about festivals, collective work, weddings, etc during this meeting. I think it is a brilliant way for the community to come together. People who come from a tribal background are generally aware about communal living. It is the people with money who like to live in nuclear families.

After 10 minutes of teasing each other and Sanju dada reciting some incident from last community festival, grandma shooed us off to work. Sanju dada carried a cement pole on his arm and helped me carry one on mine. One after other we took 5 poles from the front yard of the house to the edge of the field, which is 4 minutes walking distance. Sanju dada was off to work. He started digging holes to put the poles in. I was just around the corner cutting off the excess tree cover on the fence. Suddenly he remembered, we need grit to mix in the cement. Damn. We never thought of that.

We walked all the way to the house again to discuss that with grandma. Like always grandma already had that figured out. Remember the old couple I talked of who lives next door? They had recently worked on some house repairs and had excess grit lying around in their backyard. Gaja, their son, had returned for a few days from Mumbai to help them out.

We walked to their house and asked if we could use some of that grit. They agreed. Just like that, we had all the things that we needed lying around the village. Isn’t that incredible. Imagine doing this in a city!

It was already 12:30 in the noon and Sanju dada left for lunch and siesta. I too had lunch and slept for an hour. I love these afternoon naps. I don’t know why these are becoming rare. These were non existent in England. I think it has something to do with the tropical climate.

Sanju dada makes a deep echoing sound when he comes back to work at 2:30 and that is my clue to get out from the bed and join him. We walked back with some grit and started mixing the cement. As we did that, Sanju dada started looking around. I scanned the farm and there they were, a bunch of monkeys, looking at us while they ate cashews. I ran back to the house, picked up the pellet gun and chased them to the edge of the next farm.

-No, we don’t kill monkeys here. It’s just the sound that scares them.

Life is really hard in a village. You are so tired working, walking, running that you are destined to get a sound sleep at night.

By 4 we had another call from grandma. “Tea”, she shouted.

I’ll stop here today. I want to ask you all a question. Are we really benefitting ourselves by becoming more materialistic?

I know and I say this often that I am living in the past because I dont only live in a village, but I indulge with the people who work here. This way I get to know how they think, how they stay patient through difficult times, how they figure out solutions to almost any problems. But, most importantly I realise, that their current lives and our past lives were less about material ambitions and more about community. Now we have put ourselves in closed office spaces, gated bungalows and we wonder why we are lonely and depressed. We dont have to teach them how to live like us, in out cities. If we look closely, we hold a chance in understanding that we can gain a lot from learning their ways, which are less about materialistic things and more about compassion, patience and humility.

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