Moong Over Microchips

by Venkat Iyer

  Our lunch usually comprises of rotis, dal and a vegetable. We have a variety of pulses at the farm and so we make a different dal every day. There is moong, tur, val, chawli and chana. For variety we eat rice and a south Indian curry like sambar or rasam on some days. Most days we have lunch by 12.30.

  A brief siesta from 1 to 2 and it is time to go back to work. Baban arrives after his lunch and we herd the hens back to their cages. Pepper is then unleashed. Once released, she accompanies us all over the farm following our activities.

  Around 3.30, we have a tea break, and then back to work. I break around 5.15 to return to the house to feed the pets. Dinner time for them is 5.30. Meena usually does her workouts around this time. At 6, on most days, I leave with Baban to go to the village. This is a quick drive to the tea shop to catch up on the day’s gossip or visit some ailing villager.

  On my return, most evenings we sit by the river till it is dark and the insects arrive. Back home by 7, dinner preparations begin. It is also the time to check our emails and see what is happening on social media. After a quick bath, we either read a book or watch a movie from the vast collection of DVDs that we have accumulated over the years. Meena does her writing during the day in between her household work and has a fairly well-established routine.

  Dinner is usually around 8.30 p.m. I go to sleep by 9 p.m, while Meena sits up and reads, watches films or works on her computer till 10.30 p.m.

  The schedule of the day gets a bit hectic when it is the sowing or the harvest season. Those days the helps arrive by 7.30–8 a.m. and stay till 11.30–12 noon. After lunch, they resume work from 2 to 6 in the evening. On those days, Meena cooks as well, so I can spend the day on the field.

  The work at the farm ranges from pruning trees, weeding, watering and checking for pest attacks besides the usual sowing and harvesting. Before sowing, the land needs to be prepared with the grass cleared and the required preparations done which varies from crop to crop. There is a lot of planning that has to be done as each activity is time-bound and has to be done at the right time. Even a couple of days’ delay in watering the crop can lead to a huge dip in production. With the erratic power supply, the planning process becomes even more complicated.

  There are days when a trip to nearby Kasa would be required either to get some provisions and fish for the cats or to catch the power guys in case of a drop in the power supply. I have a three-phase motor to draw water and a drop in one line means that the pump will not start.

  Recognition

  A year after I had quit my job and started farming, the Times of India1 published an article on my transition from a corporate professional to a farmer. It did evoke a lot of response at that time and we had a stream of visitors from the city coming to the farm to check what we were doing and also to understand how we were handling the transition. Many even expressed a desire to buy land and farm like we did, though I doubt if anyone actually got down to it.

  A few more articles2 on my life as a farmer appeared in publications like the Hindustan Times3 and Mint.4 We were even interviewed on the television channel Times Now5 in a chat show. These articles and media coverage did bring in visitors and calls from people, mostly from the city, who appreciated what I was doing and were encouraged by my decision.

  In 2011, a Marathi daily Agrowon,6 a paper dedicated to farmers and farming activities, decided to feature me in their annual Diwali issue. The journalist Vijay Gaikwad paid a visit to the farm and spent a day understanding what I was doing. The detailed article along with pictures of the farm was published in the Diwali issue and what followed was totally unexpected and overwhelming.

  I started getting calls from farmers from across the state congratulating me on my work and decision. For almost a month I took 25–30 calls per day talking to various farmers who said they felt encouraged after reading my story. They felt that if a person with a steady job in the city could move to a village to farm then they were surely in the right field and hoped they would be able to get over the current crisis that faced the agrarian community.

  Initially I started noting down each caller’s number and name till the calls were so many and so frequent that I had to simply abandon my jottings. I was happy that I had managed to generate some sort of confidence in the lives of so many farmers across the state.

  There were some calls which were scary too. A young boy called from Bengaluru, saying that he was working for an IT company and hailed from a remote village in Maharashtra. He had got married recently and his wife was still in the village while he earned his living in Bengaluru. After reading my story he had decided to quit his job and go back to his village to start farming. I had to caution him and ask him to do his homework before taking any rash decision.

  There was another call from a person from Nasik who was contemplating suicide since his crop had failed. He called to tell me that he had postponed his decision after reading my story. I spoke at length to him and promised to help him in any which way he needed.

  There were other callers who just called to say how they were pleased with what I was doing and so on. Some of them would call at 5.30 in the morning and say, ‘As a farmer you must be already in the field by now so we called early.’ A few of them became so irritating that I started saving their numbers as ‘Avoid Calls’ on my phone and never answered them.

  Years later, in 2016, the same story got circulated on WhatsApp. The reaction was similar to the one we had got after the print story. A lot of people called just to congratulate and appreciate what I was doing. Some people visited the farm to see a city slicker coping in the village. A few of them were keen on emulating me and grilled me on how to go about it.

  I always shared my experiences with them and told them about the 5 Cs that they needed to have to do something different with their lives. They were:

  Courage

  Commitment

  Conviction

  Cooperation

  Capital

  We had got an amazing response and I felt that I had indeed done the right thing by deciding to be a farmer.

  9

  Settling Down

  By July 2004 we had finished setting up the house with all systems running. Many things still hadn’t been done, like painting the house, but we had exhausted our budget.

  It was not until 15 July 2004 that I actually spent a night at the farm with all the workers who had become my friends. They were scheduled to leave for Mumbai the next morning and we had a small party that night. After they left, I was on my own and it was a strange feeling. The first night alone at the farm is an experience I will never forget. It was completely dark since there is no ambient light like in the city. It was quiet except for the occasional cricket or gecko calling its mate. I left the porch light on to break the darkness. It was not of great help as the light cast eerie shadows keeping me awake. I would imagine weird noises and keep thinking that something had entered the house. That night I must have got up at least a dozen times to check the whole house for aliens.

  In some ways I was reminded of our treks when we slept in strange caves and temples. But on the treks we were usually in groups which added to our security. Here I was all alone with the nearest human at least a good 200 metres away. I was sure that even if I screamed no one would hear me so far away and even if they did, I was not sure they would come to my assistance. Once I got used to the silence and the darkness, I found that the nights were extremely peaceful and I always got up early feeling absolutely refreshed.

  There are no landlines in the village and the advent of the mobile phone was like a revolution. People kept calling each other for the sheer thrill of being able to communicate finally. For a while we did have the Tata wireless phones but they stopped the service some years ago.

  The village has electricity though there are only five official meters in the village. There was a time a few years ago when the entire village had meters and official connections for power. But non-payment of bills resulted in the disconnection of power su
pply and the meters were taken away. It all started with one villager not paying the bill and stealing power. This crime caught on and soon enough everyone stopped paying the bill. Every evening people would step out of their houses with long poles with hooks at the end of wires to steal power. It is an extremely dangerous activity and Natwar, one of the villagers, was electrocuted in June 2004 while attempting to put the hook on a wet day. I thought that this would be a lesson to all of them. I was stunned when the very next day I saw Natwar’s wife out with the familiar pole, doing the same dangerous thing that had taken her husband’s life only a day earlier.

  Over the years things have changed. The state electricity board has introduced stringent rules for people who steal power. There were rumours that they had taken away someone’s television set when they caught him stealing power. The board also introduced a cheap power connection scheme where one had to pay only Rs 15 for a power connection. Within a couple of years every house in our village had a meter. It is only in the neighbouring Adivasi hamlet that there are still a few houses stealing power.

  Our village is too far away for any newspaper vendor. The only way we get to read the paper is if someone brings it from Kasa, about 10 kilometres away. Kasa has a huge market, a hospital and two banks.

  Initially, when I started staying in the village, every morning I would feel an urgent need to read the paper. I even went to Kasa to look for a vendor. One day one of the village elders asked me if there was anything in the paper that was actually relevant to the village. It struck me that he was right. Even if I read about some scam in the government or some bridge falling down in another country a couple of days late it was perfectly all right. Anyway, even if I got it hot off the press, what was I going to do about it? Nothing.

  Things were to change in the years to come. Social media applications like WhatsApp became a source of information though the accuracy was sometimes suspect. With better Internet connectivity I could check the news on websites. The need to read a paper in the morning, though strong, was manageable now. Besides everyone in the village except us had cable TV so they got the news as it broke.

  What was important was the weather forecast, especially pre-monsoon. In spite of all the fantastic technology we had, the predictions were never right and even if they did come close to being correct, they were too broad-based to have an impact in our village. Meena used to send me messages on the monsoon bulletin. If monsoon showers were expected in Maharashtra in the next twenty-four hours, we would find that it reached the village a good six days later. They were not incorrect—it did rain in Maharashtra in the next twenty-four hours—but it is a huge state and the predictions were too wide-ranging to be of any use to the farmer. I found it better to rely on local knowledge. It was simple. If the mountain across the village had mist till its base it was expected to rain the next day. And rain it did.

  While I got information on the monsoon from the official meteorological department website or from Meena’s daily monsoon bulletin, Sitaram Kaka from the village relied on his almanac for the monsoon predictions. It is a game that we both played where I predicted based on my information and he based on his almanac. Days later we would compare our predictions and most times he won.

  There was enough work every day to keep you busy. If there was no specific task, there was always weeding to do. The weeds grew as if they had some magic potion and no amount of weeding could stop their growth. I spoke to some professors at the Kosbad Institute but they could only recommend some vile chemical which I had no intention of using. The other option they gave me was simple—just weed regularly.

  Some days were hectic. If we had more work we would get help from the village. I knew most of the people in the village by name and was aware of which families were in need of money. I had built a reputation of paying on time and most of them were eager to work for me. Of course, they came provided it was not sowing or harvest time in their fields. We learnt to time our activities according to the village schedule so that we completed our work before they started theirs. We had the benefit of a river and a pump to draw water.

  When there were many people to work it was resource planning and deployment that was important. I had to ensure that each group had the right mix of people and they did not end up fighting with each other. Each task could be done only by a certain number of people. Too many people could ruin things. Somewhere, I was glad of my project management training and the numerous projects I had completed for IBM.

  To be able to do this one needed to have a good grasp of the village dynamics. Baban was my mentor and guide in this matter. How else would I know that Kamu did not speak with Parvati or that Nilesh’s brother had tried to stab Sridhar Kaka years ago and relations were not cordial? It was a continuous effort to ensure that everyone worked in unison and went back home safe. They may quarrel outside the farm but I was not very keen on having a bloody riot on my premises.

  When the villagers learnt that I was staying at the farm alone, I got a few visitors every evening. They would come in groups and sit on the porch and chat with me. I would politely offer them tea to which they would reply, ‘Is this a time to drink tea?’ I was unable to understand why they kept asking if they could leave after a while. I would reply in the positive and they would all leave immediately. Finally I asked Baban what was happening. He burst out laughing and explained the reason for their visits. The norm in the village was that in the evening if anyone came home, you offered them a drink. These guys who were visiting me were looking for a free drink. I quickly spread the word around that I had no intention of distributing alcohol and within a few days, these unsolicited visits stopped.

  It was not a norm for people to stay alone here. I noticed that if due to any reason someone was compelled to spend the night alone they always invited a neighbour or friend to stay over. The fact that I was staying alone at night was a novelty for many in the village. There were also people like Baban’s mother and sister who limped all the way to the farm to check who this person who stayed alone was. Besides, the fact that I cooked and cleaned myself without any woman to help me was fascinating for them. It was also unusual for the menfolk to stay away from their wives for so long.

  The other thing they could not understand was why we did not have children. I got suggestions to visit the best doctor in the area who could resolve my problem so that we would be blessed with a child. Sridhar Kaka was so keen on getting us a child that he even got us an offer from a nearby village. A couple there who had three sons were willing to offer their youngest to us for adoption. Adoption was common in our area and they managed it quite well without any legal procedures and paperwork. One just needed five people from the village as witnesses for the adoption and it was sealed. We had politely refused these offers.

  At first, it was the evenings that were difficult to pass. There was no television or radio. No Internet to surf and no one to even chat with. It is too dark to venture outside the house and even when the villagers did, they would be equipped with a stick and a torch. There were too many reptiles to take a chance in the darkness. Initially, after Baban and company left around 6 p.m., I found it very difficult to pass time till I crawled into bed. I had no idea what I could do. There was actually nothing to do. Yes, I could read but then that was possible only if there was electricity. It was much later in 2015 that we got a battery backup.

  I thought about the city and wondered how many people in the city could actually spend an evening without doing anything. I realized that in the city, I was restless too and always looked for something to do. I could watch television or listen to music or the radio or go for a walk or meet my friends. I don’t remember a single evening when we would sit around doing nothing in particular. As the days passed, I found peace in myself. There is a calming effect when one does not have to do anything in particular. It is almost akin to meditation. Something in the city made people restless; one had to do something to pass the time.

  It was not long before that I learn
t to pace myself. I cooked dinner or watched the stars or just sat in the darkness on the porch listening to various insects. A couple of years ago both Meena and I had attended a course on amateur astronomy and that came in handy on these lonely dark nights. I moved my dinner time to 8.30 p.m. so I could go to bed early. I was always an early riser and at the farm the chirping of the birds woke me up much before the first rays of the sun had shone.

  Later when Meena moved to the farm and we kept pets, the schedule was more or less the same. We shared the housework and evenings were no longer lonely.

  Breaking from the Trap

  When I initially took over the farm, I was completely dependent on Moru Dada for my agricultural activities. It was he who got the gravel for the road, the electrician to check my pump and also arranged for Baban to help us. Everyone around seemed to be either related to him or indebted to him in some way. He was the master fixer; one just had to ask him and he would get things done. As I spent more time at the village I realized that it may not be a good idea for me to be so dependent on him. I also discovered that he had been overcharging me for all the services he gave us. It was not a large sum but he added a small commission for himself in each transaction. It had not taken me long to realize that I was in his vicious trap and conclude that I had to get out of it.

  Moru Dada was sure that I was here only for a short while and would soon be running back to the city to make my millions. He used to taunt me every time we met by asking me if I was missing my ‘computer job’, as he called it. He was using my short tenure at the village to make as much money as possible from me. I knew what he was up to but kept postponing the eventual showdown.

  The last straw was during the first monsoon season. I kept asking Baban to arrange for a plough and a pair of bulls to till the land. His replies were elusive and he kept hinting that we should hire a tractor. He kept telling me that there was no one in the village who had the time to hire out their bulls and how the tractor was best for the kind of soil we had at the farm. I was not ready for this since that meant a huge expense which I did not wish to incur. Besides, the entire village ploughed the land using bulls and the traditional plough. Why should I be the one to use the expensive tractor? I had also read that the tractor was not good for the soil as it dug too deep and turned the soil too much.