Life in an Indian Village
A self-reflective piece of my first time visiting family in India as part of the Indian diaspora.
Summer in the Gaam. It was not the whirring of the ceiling fan or the stifling heat that persisted regardless. It was not the smells of breakfast being cooked or the cows greeting the day somewhere outside. It was a rhythmic thudding, the thorough beating of laundry with a wooden washing paddle a few houses down that woke me, puzzled, that first morning and served as my alarm every morning thereafter.
Each day, by around 7am, the cows of the farming village, Delwada, had been milked, the milk collected in large stainless-steel churns. Some of which is taken off to be sold and the rest shared out amongst the village in time for a morning chai. As my uncle continued, however, I came to learn that there was much more to India’s sacred animal. It was not just the optional addition to chai they provided, but also the electricity used to boil the water for it in the first place, with generators converting their methane to help power the village. With it being a farming village, their manure too came in very handy, he told me.
Much of the harvesting is done early in the day too, before it gets too hot out. Already starting to sweat but wanting to keep up with the busyness, I rallied my mum as my translator and went for a wander.
We greeted an elderly neighbour who was sat, legs dangling on the shaded swinging bench in our front porch reading the morning paper, I saw scooters whip by, wild dogs sniff around, children on their school holidays throwing water over the concrete to cool things down for them to play, tractors being taken out from garages and trucks returning with that morning’s harvest.
Peaking over our wall, I saw our neighbour and her maid surrounded by huge piles of deep green and a number of full-to-the-top boxes yet to be added to said pile. Language was a barrier that persisted, but I could still feel their affection, and amusement, for my curiosity, as they sorted the sellable bhinda from those slightly too short or curved.
It was mango season! The morning haul had taken a hit from some monkeys, but there were still plenty of boxes slowly filled, as we took long wooden sticks with baskets fashioned at the ends, and carefully picked the ripest. It was mango all day, everyday. But it was not just the sweet orange flesh we were stuffing our faces with. All parts of the mango is used in some way or another.
Upon hearing the noise, our neighbour, unasked, gladly came over to help break open the mango shells that had been drying in the sun. We were retrieving the seed inside – one of which supposedly has the same nutritional benefits as 2kg of mango pulp. The seed is boiled, grated and dried to be eaten as a snack – also doubling as an organic digestive aid, or can be powdered and added to dishes and drinks. The mango flesh can also be pickled or made into lassi, cows are fed the skin and the seed shells burned for fuel.
I was starting to notice a pattern, but I could only wander, and wonder, for so long until the drops of sweat were too frequent to ignore.
I didn’t think I’d be able to eat, with the sun at its highest by lunchtime, but the smells were always too good to resist. I waited for my aunt to send a photo to the village’s WhatsApp group, some of the wonky bhinda she had already put to very good use, before tucking in. Thirty minutes and almost a whole bowlful of mango later, I pushed my plates away, brought the leftovers outside for some wild dogs, and ambled over to help with the washing up, whilst sluggishness started to wash over me. I resisted the allure of an afternoon nap, and joined my cousin pushing counters around a board game with her neighbourhood friends who had stuck their head around the door in search of afternoon entertainment, daytime soaps playing in the background.
There was some shouting coming from outside, my translator was also taking a nap so I couldn’t tell what was happening. I was starting to notice a different pattern.
My aunt was woken, and hurried outside.
She returned minutes later, smiling, with bags of spiced nuts, bhusu and jalebi.
With the heat keeping most at home, this is prime time for mobile street vendors. Twice a week the stall with dry snack foods and sweets makes its way around the village, biscuits every Friday and in the height of summer, a farmer selling fresh sugar cane juice made there and then with his mobile juicer, comes every day. It was not just food or drink though, once a week respectively, there were stalls selling flip-flops, toiletries, like mops and buckets, jewellery, hair accessories and house clothes all brought straight outside your door. We dipped our hands in and passed the bags around.
Slowly, as the temperature cooled, the pace picked up again. A forty-minute drive took us to Bardoli, the closest city and the birthplace of the 1920s no-tax movement that protested British rule. Agriculture is the main industry and clearly seen with stalls upon stalls selling farm fresh fruit and vegetables and street food you could easily eat your weight. We passed by shopping malls, browsed Ayurvedic beauty stores, I stocked up on the Moringa powder I could usually only find online. I smiled at the circle of men sat on a blanket they’d laid outside a street food stall to play cards. I laughed with a child enjoying the attention as he helped his parents sell jackfruit. And I found comfort in the crowd of faces that for once, looked like mine.
Until I realised they were staring. It wasn't exactly the height of tourist season.
The sun set but warmth lingered - both literally, and metaphorically, as we came back to a village still humming. Neighbours chatting on porches or gathered in a circle with chairs they’d brought outside, playing cards, playing music or making the most of the full moon light to take an evening stroll. Patterns upon patterns.
~but of course, patterns are only patterns to an outsider looking in.
Back from our walk, I was snapped from my reverie as my uncle told me of how the swinging bench I had greeted a neighbour on that morning, he had made himself from repurposed wood and metal.
He was beaming with pride, sparkles in his eyes. Another pattern.