She emerged from the fields on my left while I was walking on a country-road this evening. She looked so real. So earthy. So lovely.
Before I knew it, I was asking her permission to take a photo of her. Saying neither yes, nor no, she went her way. I felt utterly foolish for thinking I could catch anything about her in a photo. She must’ve been tired after a long day at work. I wonder what it was I wanted to capture and why. I wonder how she felt in that moment. I wonder if living in a village is enough to extricates the city-dweller in you.
The nearest village to us is Shukravara-sante, which means Friday-fair. Sante is a periodical gathering of buyers and sellers at a particular place. This coffee-growing region has huge plantations where hundreds of people work. They get the day off to rest and do their weekly shopping. Hence, Friday is Sunday. It is the highlight of the week. The nearest town is miles away and why would one take the trouble to go there if the freshest produce is available nearby?
A collection of temporary and permanent sheds with people sitting on the ground, selling glass bangles in fancy colours, coconut-graters for a pittance, honey-mangoes, unfamiliar greens, dried red chillies in heaps, dried fish emanating its peculiar smell, plastic buckets and mugs in bright colours, cardamom and pepper, clay pots made locally to set curds in, snacks being fried on the roadside, fresh cane juice with ginger and lemon. A hundred yards of pure delight.
We’ve been here three weeks and visited the market three times. We can get most of our weeks shopping and see all those smiling faces again that are becoming more and more familiar every week. My flimsy Kannada and their meagre Hindi and English are sufficient when stretched. In the moment inadvertently provide live entertainment to the locals and laugh with them at myself.
The milk collection point is just down the road. It’s where the villagers bring milk from their farms for being sold and sent to a big dairy 40 Kilometers away. At 6.30 every morning when Simon brings a litre and a half of it in the steel milk churn, it is warm.
Opposite the chicken shop is a general store that sells eggs. The lovely family that run the chicken shop can’t sell their eggs in their own shop as people expect them to give them away for free. So, they sell the eggs to the general store and people buy them from there. An egg costs seven rupees which is roughly 7 pence.
Saagar would be surprised that I was trying to learn a new language, that we had moved to an unfamiliar part of India and started afresh. Simon and I have wanted simplicity for a while and it’s finally coming. Couldn’t agree more with Charles Bukowsky who said, the less I needed, the better I felt.
Looking forward to the market tomorrow. Move over Sainsbury’s.
kidsaregifts 