As of 2001 more that 70% of Indians resided in rural areas. They are, however usually ignored. When foreigners think of India they think of Bollywood, the Taj Mahal, and big bustling Bombay. Very rarely will a foreigner’s mind venture into rural India and even more rarely will their bodies venture that far. When I was introduced to a small town near Aurangabad, of 450 people, they were told that there exists another country far away that is called Australia and that there guest has come from there to meet them. In this post I just want to describe how most Indian’s live, it may change the way you view this country.
Every morning the family wakes up with the sunrise. They have a calendar so that they know when to celebrate culturally significant days but most of the time they don’t know what the day or date is because it’s irrelevant. All houses are built with a small front porch, so after waking up the women sweep the porch clean and then spread cow dung along the floor. When it dries they put on a pot of tea. Meanwhile they take their set of brightly colored powders and draw a colorful design on the street outside the front door. This design is called a rangoli, and a woman of every house draws a different one every day in the morning. They can often all be seen doing it at the same time. Once the tea is ready the family will sit and have their morning cup on the front porch and then the men will head off to the farms to work. The women sometimes head off with the men or they stay back to do some cooking and join the men later. In any case they make sure that lunch is cooked and ready before the men come back. In the village where I went, Pofrla, there is a school and every child goes to school six days a week. However, this facility is not available everywhere.
They usually have baths in the morning before work but in the winter months an afternoon bath is preferred. The method is simple. You jump in a well, or if you’re a kid, or if you’re scared you get thrown into a well by someone bigger. There are usually several wells in each town, at least one for each landowner and each one is at least 7 meters in diameter so their big enough for more than one family at the same time.
The morning poo presents with an interesting problem. The government of India has tried to build a toilet in every village. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but when it does it means that there is one toilet for 450 people. I was told that in many villages the morning dump is traditionally done on the street outside your front door, not far from the rangoli. The rangoli, by the way is meant to welcome guests, what is the poo supposed to do? But thankfully in Pofrla there’s a hill close by so all the men and some of the women climb the hill and do their business n a secluded spot.
Work is hard. There are no machines to help out on the farm so all the work has to be done by hand or by bullock. When I visited it was winter and I was having trouble tolerating the heat. I find it difficult to imagine what summer must be like.
In Pofrla the main crop is cotton, but all the vegetables used for cooking are also grown. The village is almost completely self-sufficient, what little income they get from selling their cotton is saved and later spent on clothes or technology or healthcare. There is one TV in the village. It has two channels, one of which most villages will not understand because it’s in Hindi. Each farm has its own farm and the size of the farm often reflects the financial position of the family. However, anyone from within the town can take the vegetables from another’s farm, and when the cotton is to be sold it is all heaped together and sold as one lot. Everything important is shared, and ownership although individual in theory almost becomes collective as a result of sharing.
However, despite the apparent abundance of vegetables, their diet is poor. It usually consists of dhal, rice and bread, with some chilies for taste. As a result a very large proportion of the women are anemic and many of the children are malnourished. Note that this is a consequence of their lack of education and not of their poverty.
When the men come home in the evening dinner is waiting for them and the whole family eats together. Following dinner, the women wash up and then there is free time. The family often sits and talks, and people venture into each other’s porches to shoot the breeze. They compare their gains from the harvest, they talk about cotton prices, they gossip about new marriages or births and they talk politics. Every Indian no matter how poor or how divorced from a big city seems interested in politics. It is the antithesis of the apathetic public of most western countries.
Electricity exists but only flows for about 12 hours a day, and it comes and goes at will. If there are electric lights they may stay up and tell stories, if there aren’t then its bed time. They wake up the next morning to do it all again.
Their life is simple. Its hard work but at the same time with such a tight knit community I reckon it would be fun as well. The villagers told me that even when they go to the next village they feel uncomfortable, they are away from their families and friends and everyone they know and suddenly their strong and warm safety net does not exist. Bu at the same time, for a youth, the whole town can be explored in half an hour, there is not much new to learn, and if you don’t like farming, well… you have to be a farmer anyway.
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