We’ve completed 2 months in the new life at Barkheda. The euphoria, the tempo, the enthusiasm continues and has strengthened. I realized that I’ve most experiences I’ve recounted here are pleasant. Today I’ll share a few experiences, which are as important (if not more) as the nice ones.
Before we’d completed even 10 days, we were returning to Barkheda from our first outing and on the way, we’d decided to halt at a new acquaintance in Uljhawan (a village 6 km away). We spent a good time there and by the time we started, it was past sun-set. The road is a tar road for 3 km and then a 3 kmkachha road. When we were 1km away from Barkheda, I suddenly saw huge stones on the road. It was pitch dark and I was on a single lane kachha road. The head lights of my car could only throw light on the straight road and there was no way I could see what is on either sides of the road. Kids started getting a little tense. As luck would have it, power in both the phones was drained. I couldn’t even call anyone for help. Where do we go to spend the night? I scanned through my options. One, drive 40 km to Bhopal and stay back at Rajesh Gupta’s. Two, look out for a decent hotel…nearest city was Sehore, but it was unlikely it would have a decent hotel. Three, go back to the new acquaintance in Uljhawan and spend the night there. Almost always, I tend to choose the least expensive option, unless there is a real problem in the option. There wasn’t much problem in this case. Now, I needed to get the car turn in the opposite direction. I drove into the field nearby, thankfully did not get into any pit or on a stone or thorns, reversed and headed back to Uljhawan. A flurry of thoughts suddenly emerged…what if I’m stuck like this with a puncture or some other car problem! What if there is nowhere else to go! I must have my phone on. We reached Uljahawan and felt relieved.
We later realized that it was not the end of our eventful day. Current wasn’t there and it was pitch dark there too. Uljhawan is a very dirty village and the way to their house has lots of clayey mud with lots of water, making it quite difficult to avoid stepping into a puddle and getting into 6 inch deep wet clayey mud. I lifted Shreya and crossed after parking the car. We reached the Mohanlal’s (the new acquaintance) house only to find him gone out. His wife and daughters welcomed us back. We were sitting in the dark and the old man (Mohanlal’s father) started asking many questions and quite a few times wondering aloud if we were in our senses to take a decision to shift to village life from a city. After some time the host arrived…back after his daily drink, sloshed. He behaved as sober as he could and was very kind. I was the only one yet to have dinner and had it with him, wondering whether we should really stay back there. Very courteously, we asked for a place where we could sleep – all 4 of us together. The hosts were very nice and kind to us (despite the alchohol). We went into the room and locked ourselves inside. Then we waited for the night to pass. It was enough adventure for a day.
Cooking on a chulha is a very good experience. But cooking on chulha everyday, all meals is a very different experience. Even if you have to make tea heat a little water, you need to light the chulha – makes you think if the tea is really required. Two months, cooking all meals on the chulha is really a praise-worthy effort, primarily by Rekha.
One day last month, there was quite heavy rainfall accompanied by hailstorm. It started to rain around 6 pm. Strong breeze, nearly a storm had arrived. All the Sreejan Kartas are supposed to live on their farms, than stay in the common rooms. They were not shifting since the last 4-5 months, despite repeated reminders. Finally with some close monitoring, we managed to push them out of the common area, into their farms. That stormy night, we were the only people in commons. To make matters worse, it started raining heavily. We have tin roof here. The hailstorms and rain drops were making such a loud noise that a person standing next could barely hear. We had to cook for the night, despite the storm and while we were struggling with the chulha, lights went off. It was a perfect scene for a horror movie. We kept ourselves together till Bhura came and repaired the light. It’s worthwhile imagining the scene.
These experiences apart, Shreya has had a bout of viral fever twice. Once the temperature had risen to 103OF and there were no doctors in the vicinity.
Village life is not purely romantic. It has many uncertainties. We’ve had our share, but far from dampening our resolve to continue, it has strengthened us. We need to keep our nerves at all times. Panic, almost always, weakens individuals as well as their determination to go on.
