Few years back, I used to visit my grandparents who used to stay in a village in India. My grandfather was the most educated person in the village ( he was a Civil Engineer who had graduated back in 1950’s) and hence was the most respected elderly person in the village. I feel extremely sad he is no more today, and may his soul rest in peace in heaven.
But those days were different in around 2011-12, even just 8-9 years back in India. I was persuing my Engineering studies and during summer time, I used to travel with my Mom to visit my grandparents. The roads in the village were unpaved, and blackouts were frequent ( Rather, having steady supply of electricity was rare). My grandpa had retired from Govt service, after having supervised as Deputy Chief Engineer over many construction projects, including famous dams like Koyna dam, Ujni dam and Bhatsa dam in India.
He was practicing agriculture in his ancestral village, and he had quite a few cows and buffaloes. He hired few men from the village to work on the farms. There was no advanced machinery for agriculture, like tractors. The region had dry climate, and hence, most of the agriculture was dependent on the monsoon rains. Even though the govt had dig a canal, but the water in the canal often was over-used/ mismanaged and hence dried up frequently.
There was no television in our village house. As electricity was infrequent, having a television did not really matter. My grandma only had a radio which she used to listen to songs and daily news broadcast. But there was no scarcity of good and healthy food. I remember, she used to milk the cows in early morning, and then she used that fresh and healthy milk for the daily use to make tea, coffee or other dairy products like butter and ghee. The vegetables were obtained from the farms directly, either planted by my grandpa or some neighbours. Even fruits like mangoes, grapes were never purchased from outside the village, all were grown in the village itself. The lunch and dinner often had roti, or bhakri (a bread made from jowar), curd milk, peanut chatni ( grind peanuts with masala’s), raw onions, rice, daal( lentils) and vegetables. All this made a perfect lifestyle with healthy food consumption.
After all the daily chores, we used to sit in the frontyard and talk a lot about all the family affairs, or I used to tell about my college experiences, or even what’s new in the world. There was no internet, no whatsapp, no facebook, no twitter back then. Atleast it hadn’t reached the villages. Leave aside the noise of social media, many of the houses even did not have a smart phone. Recently, I heard that it is difficult to find even a single house which does not have a smartphone or even a facebook account nowadays.
Life was simple back then, and I simply loved it. Whenever I visited the village, I used to feel so relaxed from all the hustle and bustle of the city life. There seemed to be no stress, no deadlines, and no tensions in life there. After all that was not needed. Life used to be easy going, and people lived a stable life. Their needs were less, and hence, the greed was also less. The food was healthy, air was pure, and society respected that way of living. I used to woke up using the nature’s alarm of hens clucking. The house was designed in such a way that the rays of morning sunlight used to enter our bedroom through ‘zaroka’ or roof top window. Where can we find this ambience these days, especially in cities?
Later in life, I did a lot of globetrotting, like moving to USA, seeing the luxurious New York, staying in some of the finest places on earth. But never ever I could find that calm and serene environment, that stable life, those kind hearted people in any other part of the world, that which is close to my heart..
I really miss that life, that ambience, those good and simple village people. Just in the span of a decade, it seems that life has changed like never before. Those days had all the simplicity of life, and only those who have experienced it in their life, will understand the value of those gone days….
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