Sunday, 18 May 2014

sone ki chidiya

Post harvest the farms were being ploughed. The atmosphere had a mild smell of fresh earth. The landscape was changing with each passing day as the golden crop laden feilds were turns chocolate brown, as if some child fond of chocolate was spreading it over the huge canvas. A few days back the golden landscape shone up under the bright skies and had a aroma of success, an aroma of happiness, an aroma of the planned marriages. Thats why probably when the raiders invaded India, would have never seen the vast lands of Punjab and the Ganga valley shinning golden yellow at the harvest, and called it “sone ki chidhiya". Prior to the industrialisation and the information revolution, it was all agrarian economy. Richness was measured in terms of land holdings, the crop produce and battles were fought to secure more cultivable land or take home the produce. About seventy percent of India lives in the villages and on agriculture. Each village has its history, its tradition, a dialect and its variation of cultivation, matured over the centuries. With the sun just about to rise, the farmers were in the fields in preparations for the next crop after a rewarding harvest.
 A good harvest brought in rations for the season, new dresses, new vehicles, sweets and plentiful of construction material for the new houses and shops. The new generation with new thoughts, new aspirations, wishes to upgrade from the old house into a “kothi” and may be construct or buy a house or a shop, which can be rented out to meet the ever growing needs. Few years back there wasn't any cement shop in the village but as of now in 2014, hundred plus shops have already cropped up along the new road within a span of a kilometre and construction is the most thriving business.  90 % of them have their shutters down. Earlier the drive on the small village track was through the fields was refreshing and one could inhale the freshness of the farms. Now with each passing day, some cultivable land gets killed with steel and cement and the driver has to  roll up the windows, preferably tune in to loud music to drown the painful voices of the mother earth. Some of the farms would have born thousands of years back, cultivated with sweat and labour to feed the uncountable generations. How difficult it would have been then without any implements to carve out cultivable fields. How easily the efforts and toil of our ancestors gets buried deep under the weight of steel and concrete. With each passing day we are pouring cement into our farms and much more is in the store as 30 of the 100 plus shops store cement.
But any way, we should be happy to move into a big independent house, fix up an ac to remain cool, own some shops or property to fund our lifestyle, hunt some white collar jobs and be part of the development. And the best part of it, that we will be safe from invasions or from raiders as why should some one be interested in cement ki chidiya.



3 comments:

  1. thanx Nitu, hope we understand it before its too late. and to rub salt to the injuries I saw another truck of cement being emptied in the village, an hour after I wrote it.

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  2. Hmmm deep thought. It's sad.

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