Not so nice a day!

It’s been raining for the last 3-4 days. These last days of a season are always tricky. You know that these are the last few days, but you don’t know how many more. We’re supposed to sow wheat when the temperature starts dropping. As of now, we’re just waiting for the rains to finally end.

Rekha was not too well yesterday and I missed my exercise, since I had to fill-in for her. Not a great start to the day. Then the news came in that all the four cows along with the four calves were missing since last night. Three of them were milking cows and we didn’t have milk at all. Leaving the cows and their calves free is quite a blunder on the part of the guy who was talking care of them. Siddharth and Shreya spend almost 1-2 hours everyday with the cows and are quite happy doing that. Their sudden absence was unsettling them as well. Rekha also was quite sad and so was I. I suspected foul play. May be this guy deliberately let the cows as well as calves loose or worst still, flicked them himself. I had a bit of a tough talk and without making any allegation I indicated that if the cows are not to be found, we’ll have to report the matter to the police. In the afternoon, I again had an sterner talk and told him loud and clear that the cows were lost from under his nose and he better make sure they’re back by evening. When the cows didn’t appear for another one hour, I started getting surer that this is a mischief.

This was slipping point and I started slipping into gloom. All our ‘not so good’ experiences started coming to fore. So much so that I started seriously thinking that if we need to leave from here, where could we go? The main concern was that we’re unable to find people we can trust. A typical villager looks at us as the monied urbanite and an opportunity to exploit. Also, they don’t understand at all why we’re here and what are we doing. All they can see is that we’re staying with 2 small children in a remote place. When the negative spiral begins, it just goes on and on. I discussed with Rekha and we realized that we actually have NOWHERE to go. We’d hate to get back into a city. We’re sure that buying land in a village and starting afresh is something we’ve realized we’ll never do. Living like this with anyone else may not suit us or them. We came to the conclusion that we have nowhere to go. Nowhere whatsoever.

By evening I was prepared to tell the cowherd to pay-up for the lost cows. Just then, someone located the cows. Siddharth was so happy, so was Shreya. The gloomy thoughts took a back-seat.

The new day (today) had a better start. Sun had appeared. We also decided to go to Bhopal, watch a movie, get some basic info on solar energy. Though the movie was an absolute disaster, the mood is much better than yesterday.

I think it is very important to make a note of some gloomy days as well. These days teach us a lot, make us capable of fighting it out.