by Venkat Iyer
One of Meena’s students from the college where she now teaches once a week called one day to say that they had found a small kitten abandoned near the college and had no idea what to do with it. She asked if we would like to take the kitten and give it a home. Minimus was a small white ball of fur when we got her to the farm. She must have been just a few months old. Mini soon became the princess of the farm. She got the best food and all the rules were bent for her. She had free access to the house, sometimes even spending the night on our bed.
Mini behaved like a dog at times, following me all around the farm as we went about our work. She got along well with Crash and Eddie and played with them. Though Pepper hated the cats and always chased them, she gave a free hand to Mini. At times we found both Pepper and Mini sleeping on chairs next to each other.
We had always feared that the tomcats would leave us and that is exactly what happened. The first to leave was Crash, followed by Eddie a few weeks later. We searched for them all over the farm and even asked around in the village but they were never seen again. Meena kept saying that it was time to get Mini spayed, else we would have a house full of kittens if she got pregnant. We had already got Pepper spayed a few months ago. For some reason or the other it did not happen and soon Mini got pregnant. We had no idea who the father was for we never saw any male cats around.
Mini decided to litter on the book shelf in the spare bedroom. The room was converted into a maternity ward for the five kittens that she delivered. She gave birth to one female and four male cats. We could not keep so many cats and asked Baban to check if anyone wanted them in the village. Baban agreed to keep the female and our friend Fawzan took two males. We were left with two males whom we named Dada and Whitey.
Mini had one more litter of six kittens before we took her to the animal hospital in Mumbai and got her spayed. The second litter of three males and three females was grabbed by my friends Vipul and Purvita and one pair went to Atmaram in the village.
We had no idea that the demand for kittens was so high in the village. Months after we got Mini spayed there were many who stopped me on the way and asked if I had any spare kittens. I told them that I would not be having any but we had hopes that one day the cat at Baban’s would litter and they could have some from there.
Unlike the tomcats Mini turned out to be a master hunter. After her first litter was big enough to eat, she started hunting and would bring home rats for the kittens. On some days she got home four rats one after the other. We had no idea we had such a large stock of rats on the farm. We were grateful to her for reducing the rat population on the farm and could soon see the results. The number of pumpkins eaten by the rats had dropped drastically. I still remember one particular year when they ate up eight of the pumpkins that had grown at the farm.
She also had a liking for the buff striped keelback, a thin snake that she would catch and play with. She never killed it and let it go after playing with it for a few hours. Each time she got one of the snakes home, Meena would say, ‘I hope she knows the difference between a keelback and a viper.’ Her other favourite was the skink, which was a regular victim of her hunting skills. Besides the outdoor hunting she also specialized in catching lizards at home. Soon, most of the lizards had disappeared and the few that were left inside the house went about minus their tail which they dropped when attacked.
Sometimes at home, Mini would design her own games to play. A bottle cap, a clip fallen on the ground, the rug near the door or anything that caught her fancy became the object of her games. She would let out low growls and leap at the object, throw it in the air and try to catch it. If it was a rug that caught her fancy she would crawl under it and emit gurgling noises before sneaking out. When she is in this mood, we call her VP Nintendo Corp for the games she invents.
13
Village Economics and the Man Who Hates Banks
Economy in the city meant keeping a watch on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), inflation, our industrial growth rate and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) repo rates. Here in the village it was just simple economics. Do you have money to survive? Most of the village was dependant on agriculture when I moved here in 2004. Everyone had children who were either in school or college. The parents worked the land all year long and just about made money to survive.
Decades ago the village was completely dependent on the monsoon for agriculture till the Surya canal project got them water for a second crop. The land holdings kept dropping as each generation distributed the land amongst themselves. The land is now completely fragmented. Everyone has pieces of land here and there. No one has contiguous pieces of land so they can think of investing in a fence to ward of cattle. If they had a fence they could grow vegetables and fruit trees which could augment their income.
They grow rice and some pulses in the monsoon. The canal water is used to grow groundnuts for oil or rice again. Other than that they have a few vegetables that they grow around their houses. For the rest of their existence they need the elusive cash.
Cash usually comes from the sale of paddy straw or rice if they have excess. The paddy straw market is like the stock exchange, going up on demand and crashing on excess supply. Some years you can get Rs 1500 for 500 kilograms and sometimes it crashes to Rs 900 for 500 kilograms. Though the government has announced a Minimum Support Price (MSP) for rice the broker who comes to the village rarely gives that price. Rice is usually sold at around Rs 10 a kilo or maximum Rs 12 if the quality is good.
Some of the enterprising villagers grow vegetables after the monsoon which they cart to Boisar or Kasa to sell. Depending on the yield they earn about Rs 20–25,000 every season.
Most of the children study till class VIII in the nearest school. A few interested in studying further go to Nagzari 12 kilometres away and study till class XII. The school in Nagzari just started a graduation course a couple of years ago. Until then the nearest college was in Dahanu or Palghar. The youngsters have no interest in farming and are keen on working for companies. Luckily for our village there is the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) industrial area at Boisar that has hundreds of factories that need labour.
Most of them work either in the manufacturing units or the packing units. A few work in some readymade garment factories that have sprung up in Boisar. These kids earn about Rs 10,000 to start with and if they manage to stick on they get regular increments and bonuses too.
The first thing they bought when they got their salary was a fancy smartphone and the next plan was to save for the down payment of a motorcycle. Once they got drawn into the debt cycle there was no looking back. As one EMI got over they would start the next one. It could be a bigger television or a fancier mobile or the latest motorcycle. They hardly contributed to the house expenses and one could see their parents still struggling to run the house on the meagre income they generated.
Besides these expenses, there was also the infamous wedding celebrations for which they would save. Each one wanted to outdo the earlier wedding. The flashier the wedding the better and the occasion would be discussed in detail for days on end.
Umesh, Anantha Kaka’s son, studied up to class VIII and landed a job in Pantaloon, a readymade garment factory in Boisar. He was part of the assembly line which manufactured pants for men. He worked hard and in due course was promoted to line supervisor. He then decided he wanted to get married. Over the years he had saved some money but that would not suffice for a grand wedding. His plan was to have a band for at least two days and serve the best mutton for his wedding.
With no solution in sight for the money, he did the next best thing he could think of. He quit his job. I was shocked at what he did, till he calmly explained the reason to me. He said, ‘How else will I get my provident fund?’
He waited out the two-month cooling period to apply for withdrawal of the provident fund. He got the money and a month later had his dream wedding. Once the euphoria of the wedding had subsided he just went back to the company and rejoined.
He was recruited back on the assembly line at a lower salary than what he had drawn earlier. He was confident that in a few years he would be back as line supervisor.
A year later he was promoted and has now moved to Boisar with his wife and kid to live in a rented apartment close to his place of work. He visits the village on holidays or if there is a death in the village. His old parents continue to till the land and live in their hut in the village.
Pavan Kaka is a person that one could study to understand the village economy. He lives with his wife in the village while his only son stays with his wife in her village in Saphale close by. They run a garment shop in Manor and for setting it up they had borrowed money from Pavan Kaka. The boy never gives any money to his parents. Pavan Kaka survives on selling his paddy straw and some of the rice he grows.
Though the son never gives a single paisa to his parents, each time he visits the village he would return with loads of stuff. A tin of groundnut oil, a sack of rice, a bag of vegetables and sometimes a can of kerosene too. I saw this once and asked Kaka if his son paid him for all this. Kaka said, ‘He did offer, but I did not take.’ I knew it was a lie to protect his son’s reputation.
Each year before the monsoon, he borrows money from the credit society to buy seeds and fertilizers for his rice. After the paddy is cut and threshed he tries to repay the money by selling the paddy straw. If there is a drop in production for some reason he is left with less money after paying off his debt. It is a balancing act that he performs every year. Both of them are growing old and finding it difficult to till the land. I wonder what will happen when it becomes impossible for them to do so. He is over sixty-five years old and applied for the government pension scheme three years ago. Every year he makes a trip to Dahanu to fill up the forms. He went this year too and is hopeful that it will be cleared and he will start getting the pension.
Most of the families in the village have a similar tale to tell. There are some of them like Dashrath and Prakash who have stopped tilling the land and are working as security guards in Boisar. Arvind moved to the city and is driving an auto there. They at least get some money home at the end of the month.
There are a few in the village who try to generate some additional income. One villager has set up a rice mill in the village by taking a bank loan. Another has set up a bottled water plant in the village. Dina has got two trucks which he uses to deliver construction material. Hari too has a truck and is into the construction material business. Baban’s eldest son Jayesh has a Tata Magic which operates locally and a Tavera for long distances. Baban’s younger son Mahesh has completed a basic computer course and is working in a factory as a production assistant.
When I came to the village in 2004, I was the only one with a four-wheeler. Now, the village has quite a few vehicles. Dina was the first to get a Maruti Swift, followed by Jairam, Hari, Subash, Vikas and Baban’s son Jayesh. All the people who got the vehicles are doing some business other than agriculture.
I realized that with such low land holdings, the income generated from the land would not suffice for them. The families were also growing and they had to look for an alternative source of income to survive.
The Man Who Hates Banks
Damu is the brother of Lahu and Sridhar Kaka, my nearest neighbours in the village. He was an extremely hot-tempered man and used to get into fights with almost everyone in the village. Some thirty-odd years ago, Lahu and Damu had a huge argument over some family matter and in a fit of anger Lahu Kaka hit him on the head with a stout stick. A bleeding Damu was rushed to the hospital. After his recovery in the hospital he vowed never to return to the village and left for a small fishing village—Kharekuran.
He worked on the fishing boats there, never once coming back to the village. Suddenly in 2013, the villagers saw an old balding man with a huge white beard, a stout stick in hand and a small plastic bag enter the village. He went straight to Mohan’s house and sat on the porch. Everyone gathered around and someone shouted, ‘It’s Damu. Damu is back!’ The young angry man who had left the village had finally returned a bald old man.
Damu returned to his land which is a few metres from our gate. He did not speak to anyone in the village and when I tried to strike up a conversation he just nodded. He got bricks from the nearest kiln, paid in cash for it and built his house all by himself. It was just one room with a couple of asbestos on top for a roof. A small wooden plank was the door.
I passed by his house every day, but he never uttered a word. He got up in the morning and left to do odd jobs for people in the nearby village. He did not work for anyone in the village. I once asked if he would like to help at the farm as I needed an additional pair of hands. He looked at me and said, ‘You have Baban.’
Damu always carried a stick with him. He also had a small bundle wrapped in plastic that he kept under his armpit. He was never seen without it. Even when he went to the river to bathe the bundle would always be with him. There was much speculation on what exactly it contained. It was someone in the village who revealed that it was his life savings, hard cash that he carried on him. It was rumoured that it was around a lakh.
Damu would get up in the morning, go to the river and leave for work by 7.30 a.m. He only returned for lunch at noon, which he made himself after coming back. He left for work again at 2 p.m. After his day’s work was done he would collect his daily wages of Rs 150 and head for Dhamatne, the next village 3 kilometres away. There he would have a couple of glasses of toddy before walking back home. On the way he would pick up some chicken or eggs or a couple of vegetables for his evening meal. He cooked his dinner and went to sleep. This schedule was common knowledge and he always adhered to it.
I met some of the elders in the village one day and broached the subject of Damu. I told them that now that it was common knowledge that Damu carried cash with him, he was at risk. He stayed far from the village in a hut with only a plank for a door. He was a sitting duck. What if they harmed him before taking his money? They said, ‘We have asked him many times to open a bank account, but he does not listen.’
I met Damu that evening and asked him if he needed any help to open a bank account. He just nodded his head. I said, ‘Kaka, I can take you by car to the bank and help you fill the forms.’ He replied, ‘They will never give you the money.’ At first I could not get the point. I asked, ‘Who will not give you?’ He said, ‘The bank.’ It was the end of our conversation. I spent the next ten minutes explaining the risk of staying alone with so much money which is common knowledge in the village. My monologue was just met with silence.
The next day, I went back to him and said, ‘Kaka, if you don’t like banks we can open an account in the post office. There is one at Tawa.’ He replied, ‘They are the same.’ I just gave up.
A year later our fears came true. One afternoon, we heard some shouts from near the gate and Baban and I went to check. We saw Damu running up and down screaming, ‘Chor! Chor! (Thief! Thief!).’ Damu had come home in the afternoon as usual, entered the house and hung up his precious plastic bundle on a nail near the door. He then proceeded to cook his meal. He claimed to have stepped out of the house for just a minute to get some wood from the heap next to the house. He only realized he had been robbed when he went to pick up the bundle before leaving for work at 2. It was obvious that someone had been watching his routine and had sneaked in at the opportune moment to steal the bundle.
We went down to the river armed with sticks and a while later found the plastic bag in the bushes. It was empty except for his election card. There was nothing around. I asked how much was in the bag. He muttered, ‘Rs 70,000.’ I tried to convince Damu to accompany me to the police station to lodge a complaint. He would not agree and asked us to go away. We quietly left to let him mourn his loss alone.
Many people from the village went to console him and some even tried to give him money. They all told him to lodge a complaint but he refused to listen to anyone.
A few months later I spotted Damu
on the road with his stick. As I drove past him I noticed the plastic bundle had returned under his armpit though it was much smaller and thinner than the earlier one. It was obvious that the theft had not changed his hatred for the banks.
The Demon of Demonetization
One of the main differences between the city and the village is the complete lack of banking activities in the village. Everything and everybody dealt in cash. They all had bank accounts but no one used them unless they wished to deposit some large sum which anyway was not normal. Each time they received money, be it the loan from the society or some compensation from the government or their pension, they would all rush to the bank and withdraw it, keeping only the minimum required to maintain the account. A few kids who worked in big companies flashed their debit cards and spoke at length on how they could withdraw money from a machine while everyone listened to them in awe.
I had suggested to Baban that I would transfer his salary to his bank account each month so he got it even if I was not around or did not have the cash to pay him. The nearest ATM is in Boisar and sometimes it runs out of money. He was not comfortable with the suggestion and refused it. He said, ‘I will have to go to the bank each time I need money and besides the expense of going to Kasa, I will also be wasting a day waiting in the serpentine queues.’ So it is cash payment that he preferred even if it came a few days late.
When the demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes was announced there was panic in the village. A few elders who could not understand what was happening felt that they had lost all their money. It took a while to explain to them that it was not true and they would get their money exchanged.