Moving from U to V

What is the U and the V in the title!?

Moving from being a Urbaner to a Villager... In the alphabetic order, it is very simple and easy to jump from U to V. But my moving from U to V is an adventure of its own and has become my present life story! 😉

I had read and seen a lot of stories about folks who grew up in cities, quit their urban lives and buy land in some village and settle down there. These stories did not intrigue me much because of all the stories that I read, somewhere I felt the story was incomplete as they did not become a part of the village but rather maintained their ‘urban’ essence very much alive in them. After entering the world of alternatives and sustainability and reading Gandhiji’s Swaraj, I had this innate desire in me to be a part of a village. I was not aware that fate had already kept exactly that in store for me – I fell in love with a farmer! I got married and moved into his village – Hoovinahalli, Hassan.

It has been almost a month since I moved to the village as the daughter-in-law of this house. This is a small hamlet with hardly 50 houses and is quite interior. Compared to other villages that I have visited and worked in, this village has lesser city influence and still has the village spirit.

The House

I moved into a house that was built almost a hundred years back and has no recent luxuries. It was built in the era when family members had no private rooms and a house was meant to serve as a shelter and nothing more. The original structure is built completely with mud and has one hall, a very basic kitchen, a store-cum-pooja room and a bathroom. My father-in-law made his own additions to the house and we now have two tiny rooms and a toilet at the back. All the additions were built by mud bricks.  We have tiled roof and wooden planks below the tiles that serve as the attic as well. We have a small sitting area around the house which is used by all the villagers to come and chit chat by whenever they are passing our house. The concept of safety is very weak here and the house front door is hardly ever locked and can be unlatched by just squeezing your hand through the window next to the door. The windows in the front have no glass and the entire verandah is open to scrutiny by the village. The kitchen is built for squatting and cooking style. There is also a facility for firewood cooking too. This house has no concept of privacy and anything we speak in any corner can be heard across the entire structure! 

My next post will be about the villagers and their way of living!