When you ask someone here where they're from, they'll say the big city, where they work until you press a little further and inquire about their village. Bollywood movies idealize the village as the microcosm of functioning society, colorful and happy places where everyone sings and dances and resolves conflicts in a mediation-like harmony. Conversely, the real state of the village can be hard, harsh, and often desperate. Farmers across the country are committing suicide at an alarming rate as their crops fail and their lands are repossessed. There is generally very little work to be had in the village, and young people leave them in droves. There is nothing besides working the land for the better educated to do, and so they head to metropolitan centers.
Our host, Deepak, hires an engineer/green energy consultant named Mahesh at his firm, who invited us to spend Ugadi (New Year) in his village yesterday. He returns every holiday as a break from the grind and grit of Bangalore. He's "done well" by village standards (and, certainly, by anyone's), and his parents and extended family still reside there. He is now considering a permanent return to his family's farming business, with an eye to expanding into a major business, complete with produce and a large herd of dairy cows. He envisions it as agribusiness with an ecological approach.
We arrived late at Mahesh's family's house (above), and were immediately served an incredible breakfast of freshly steamed idlys, jaggery and coconut chutney, vadas with coconut and green-chili chutney, rice, and a potato-onion stir-fry, all of which was preceded by the traditional combination of a piece of jaggery (like a mealy but smooth brown-sugar cube) and a tiny, bitter neem leaf. The food was amazing, and even Janet ate until she was full. (We're all quite accustomed now to eating with our right hands, thanks to our local Ethiopian places in Seattle.)
Through Mahesh's generosity (pictured above with son Dan), we got the chance to have access to what most tourists don't, to what Deepak calls the "authentic India"---the rural life that most native Indians relate to as their family's place of origin. Mahesh's village is a grid of about 250 families in a rural setting, most in small, colorful attached houses with open interior courtyards and a shared water pump for each lane. Life is simple, but productive. This Karnataka (the region, which also includes Bangalore, a couple of hours away to the north) village was rural, but not lacking. Its main street offered small stores and gathering places, like the primary school (below).
One of a number of clustered villages near the inviting Cauvery River, this village is part of an area patchworked with rice, corn, banana, and ragi (teff, the same high-protein and -iron grain used for Ethiopian injera) fields, which looked more than a little lush and successfully fertile. Check out the corn! No, this isn't Nebraska! And the bananas! (I have a new appreciation for this fruit. And how....)
Mahesh took us in his SUV (the biggest vehicle in the village besides the tractors) to his extended family's house, where we were greeted with plastic chairs being pushed out for us. We were quite an oddity. The neighbors came over to gawk at us, particularly Janet, the miniature version of the big white people with hats. Everyone was kind, hospitable, and generous. Everywhere people waved and stared, offered us chairs or tea, and smiled back when we smiled first. The children peeked shyly from around pillars on their front porches.
We sat on an open porch at a spiritual retreat above the village with a monk who was the younger of two monks responsible for the general spiritual and ritualistic well-being of the surrounding area. He served us tea, and took a shining to Janet. I noticed a piece of jaggery on his reading table, covered with tiny ants. He called on the sick, ministered to the deceased, and gave insights and help to those in need.
It was a hot, hot day. Almost too hot. Visiting a local temple, I cracked my head on the low threshold going in. And, because I'm just me, I also hit it coming back out. I blame my hat, but my brain was already addled from the temperature outside. Walking around temple grounds without shoes was like walking on coals. But the intricacies of the stone carvings made a little jumping from foot to foot worth it.
After the head-banging experience, we drove for a little while, then pulled into a forested parking lot that looked a lot like a trailhead in the Cascades. It was lined with ice cream trucks and other sundries, and we wandered ahead until the trees gave way to the Cauvery River (who'd have thought? I assumed it was spelled Kaveri until I consulted my guidebook). Shoes and all, we waded through the crowd of barely dressed young men and stood in the water, watching the splashing and water cricket players. It felt amazing. It wasn't the Ganges, but then, I don't think I'd set my pinky toe in the Ganges after some of the documentaries I've watched....
Making our way back to the village (and after a substantial snack of fried rice crackers---my new crackling alternative! Melted in my mouth!) where we started, sweat pouring off our faces and our shoes squeaking with water and river sand, we sat down to yet more food: lunch! This time, vegetable curry and rice, leftover vadas, and jaggery-coconut sweets. Despite the feeling that the last thing on earth we needed was more food in the sweltering afternoon, we shoveled it in, knowing full well that it was a special opportunity to have food prepared in the village manner: over pots in the fire, women sitting on the floor rolling the sweets by hand, and in a house where cows mooed between bites from under their hay-lined shelter next door.
There was garbage, there was color, there weren't toilets, there were family altars. Cows, saris, water jugs, and chopped wood. It's the stark contrasts I'm slowly starting to get used to here. This tiny glimpse into village life simply showed me how closely these opposites coexist.
Till next time in another city!
Our host, Deepak, hires an engineer/green energy consultant named Mahesh at his firm, who invited us to spend Ugadi (New Year) in his village yesterday. He returns every holiday as a break from the grind and grit of Bangalore. He's "done well" by village standards (and, certainly, by anyone's), and his parents and extended family still reside there. He is now considering a permanent return to his family's farming business, with an eye to expanding into a major business, complete with produce and a large herd of dairy cows. He envisions it as agribusiness with an ecological approach.
We arrived late at Mahesh's family's house (above), and were immediately served an incredible breakfast of freshly steamed idlys, jaggery and coconut chutney, vadas with coconut and green-chili chutney, rice, and a potato-onion stir-fry, all of which was preceded by the traditional combination of a piece of jaggery (like a mealy but smooth brown-sugar cube) and a tiny, bitter neem leaf. The food was amazing, and even Janet ate until she was full. (We're all quite accustomed now to eating with our right hands, thanks to our local Ethiopian places in Seattle.)
Through Mahesh's generosity (pictured above with son Dan), we got the chance to have access to what most tourists don't, to what Deepak calls the "authentic India"---the rural life that most native Indians relate to as their family's place of origin. Mahesh's village is a grid of about 250 families in a rural setting, most in small, colorful attached houses with open interior courtyards and a shared water pump for each lane. Life is simple, but productive. This Karnataka (the region, which also includes Bangalore, a couple of hours away to the north) village was rural, but not lacking. Its main street offered small stores and gathering places, like the primary school (below).
One of a number of clustered villages near the inviting Cauvery River, this village is part of an area patchworked with rice, corn, banana, and ragi (teff, the same high-protein and -iron grain used for Ethiopian injera) fields, which looked more than a little lush and successfully fertile. Check out the corn! No, this isn't Nebraska! And the bananas! (I have a new appreciation for this fruit. And how....)
Mahesh took us in his SUV (the biggest vehicle in the village besides the tractors) to his extended family's house, where we were greeted with plastic chairs being pushed out for us. We were quite an oddity. The neighbors came over to gawk at us, particularly Janet, the miniature version of the big white people with hats. Everyone was kind, hospitable, and generous. Everywhere people waved and stared, offered us chairs or tea, and smiled back when we smiled first. The children peeked shyly from around pillars on their front porches.
We sat on an open porch at a spiritual retreat above the village with a monk who was the younger of two monks responsible for the general spiritual and ritualistic well-being of the surrounding area. He served us tea, and took a shining to Janet. I noticed a piece of jaggery on his reading table, covered with tiny ants. He called on the sick, ministered to the deceased, and gave insights and help to those in need.
It was a hot, hot day. Almost too hot. Visiting a local temple, I cracked my head on the low threshold going in. And, because I'm just me, I also hit it coming back out. I blame my hat, but my brain was already addled from the temperature outside. Walking around temple grounds without shoes was like walking on coals. But the intricacies of the stone carvings made a little jumping from foot to foot worth it.
After the head-banging experience, we drove for a little while, then pulled into a forested parking lot that looked a lot like a trailhead in the Cascades. It was lined with ice cream trucks and other sundries, and we wandered ahead until the trees gave way to the Cauvery River (who'd have thought? I assumed it was spelled Kaveri until I consulted my guidebook). Shoes and all, we waded through the crowd of barely dressed young men and stood in the water, watching the splashing and water cricket players. It felt amazing. It wasn't the Ganges, but then, I don't think I'd set my pinky toe in the Ganges after some of the documentaries I've watched....
Making our way back to the village (and after a substantial snack of fried rice crackers---my new crackling alternative! Melted in my mouth!) where we started, sweat pouring off our faces and our shoes squeaking with water and river sand, we sat down to yet more food: lunch! This time, vegetable curry and rice, leftover vadas, and jaggery-coconut sweets. Despite the feeling that the last thing on earth we needed was more food in the sweltering afternoon, we shoveled it in, knowing full well that it was a special opportunity to have food prepared in the village manner: over pots in the fire, women sitting on the floor rolling the sweets by hand, and in a house where cows mooed between bites from under their hay-lined shelter next door.
There was garbage, there was color, there weren't toilets, there were family altars. Cows, saris, water jugs, and chopped wood. It's the stark contrasts I'm slowly starting to get used to here. This tiny glimpse into village life simply showed me how closely these opposites coexist.
Till next time in another city!
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