Drudgery of Documentation...

We all live in an era where each of us have an ID to prove our existence and in a country like mine, at times we need more than two IDs to prove I am who I am!

I have grown up in a family that is very disciplined with their documents especially IDs like PAN card, election ID card, driving license etc etc. I admire my father for his organisational skills when it comes to filing the documents of the house - from domestic LPG bill to insurance bills to all our original IDs! Until I stayed with my parents, this whole business of documents never seemed a drudgery to me. This was until I met my husband and his family!! 😃

Lets fast forward to the village style of living because all this while I have been describing an urban family where the member gets an ID as soon as they are born and all the other IDs follow suit as and when they are legally eligible.

So now coming to the farming family I am now a part of. The first time we felt the need of IDs were when we decided to get our marriage certificate done. We needed quite a few documents to be submitted like our Aadhar card, another proof of ID, marriage invitation, temple receipt etc. My father had kept all these documents from my end ready since the day of my marriage. So to get my documents sorted took me less than 15 minutes. While my husband needed more than 15 days to sort his documents which were just his two IDs!!!

Majority of his life being a farmer has made my husband complacent when it comes to the urban way of maintaining documentation. He rarely needs his documents as he has never dreamt of traveling aboard, apply for any educational degree again, apply for a loan or maybe even apply for a marriage certificate😆!

Finally, we did receive our marriage certificate and my husband gave out a sigh of relief thinking this would be his last tryst with documents!!

He had the worst shock of his life when I asked him to apply for his passport so that we can visit my sister together. Rather I guess it was the worst shock of my life to see a person who literally spent more than 30 years of his lifetime with no IDs except for the Aadhar which he made recently. I remember so many situations in my life that I had to submit my documents at so many places. So how exactly did my husband survive all these years with no documents whatsoever!!???

This question has been bothering me immensely since the day I saw the 'mess' of documents my husband has - no originals, lost his school certificates, never applied for a PAN etc!!! So is it just us urbaners who have this burden of maintaining the documents as we are stuck in this vicious cycle of proving our identity all the time while these villagers lead this stree-free life of no documents with no urgency to prove their identity to anybody!!!

When the coin flips...

This blog has been long overdue from my end. These thoughts have been playing around in my head for so long now that I had to sit and pen them down even in between a busy tax audit season!!

Off late life has been throwing flipped versions of many situations. There was a period of time when I worked as an intern with a wildlife conservation NGO. I specifically worked on conducting surveys to know more about human-wildlife conflict issues in Karnataka. I have visited more than a thousand villages spread across Karnataka and have heard numerous stories from people who come across wildlife every day of their life. I was then an urban youth who had not seen much of agriculture and its harsh realities. So all my pity and sympathies were only with the wildlife bit of human-wildlife conflicts and all the anger for the human bit! Every time I heard stories about how a herd of elephant had rummaged through a paddy cultivation, I somehow ended up thinking only about the stress and anxiety the elephants would have been through when their migratory routes were cut off due to our developing cities and roads, their hunger during summer seasons, their stress at being chased away with fire crackers, gun shots etc. Not once would I ponder about issues like what would be the loss of the family, were they duly compensated, how did they survive that year of loss etc. I guess life has to come a full circle and now, being married to a farmer, I experienced this loss from the other side of the coin. Luckily or unluckily we do not have elephants around our village. So, my story involves domestic cattle 😉

During the initial period of my marriage, as a family we underwent immense financial struggles. I was not working and my husband had spent all his earnings from sale of tomatoes on our marriage. So we both literally started with empty pockets. I happened to come across white ragi seeds (ragi is generally black) and wanted to grow them on our patch of land. To minimise the cost, we decided to grow it on a small patch of land without any additional fertilisers. During a dry spell, the power line to run the water motor would be at 2.00AM and this meant my husband would wake up at 1.30AM, walk to our farm, turn on the motor, ensure the whole patch is watered and come back after 2-3 hours. This was during the core winter which meant he would be shivering by the time he came back. After a period of this intense hard-work, one morning when we both went for a walk to inspect our ragi plants, we were in for a very bad shock! Somebody's cow had come loose and grazed upon 25% of our ragi plants. When I sit and recollect that morning, I can still feel the rage and willingness to go fight with the owner of the cow and as well as yell at the cow!! 

That moment I had a nostalgic rewind of all the surveys I had done and all the stories of losses I had heard to, for which I had not felt an ounce of sympathy for the farmer then! We had grown this ragi for self-consumption and not as a means of earning. When just such a crop loss could make me so angry and wild, would I be doing injustice when I read stories of farmers chasing elephants with firecrackers, tigers being poisoned and I curse the farmers for their intolerance. Since, I was able to find a job for myself, I could look after my family with no agricultural income. But, what about families that totally depend on agriculture for their survival and a herd of elephant just wipes out their entire annual source of income?

Every time when we lose a plant after looking after it with such hard work, I feel the same rage and anger. And these intense feelings make me reflect on how tolerant our ancestors have been for so long with the wildlife of the country. Maybe we have a thing or two to learn in terms of tolerance, acceptance and patience from all the agrarian folks who live by the forest edges and share their agricultural yield with the forest folks each year without a feeling of bitterness.

Life certainly gives you a flip every now and then to complete your perspective, does it not!?

The 'Devi's' Diaries...

Our village's temple is the residence of a Goddess called 'Sathneramma'. The period after Ugadi till the 'Mungaru' (monsoons) is the 'Jathre' (Village festival) season in all villages. Since, our village Jathre was around the corner, I happened to ask a few questions to my husband about the temple and the Devi. And his story left me so amused that I had to blog this story about the travelling Goddess especially when this is the era we see the wanderlust bug has bitten a lot of ladies in our country too!!!

So, going back a long long period ago, the Devi or as the villagers call her 'Amma' was the residing Goddess in a temple by the lake in a village called 'Sathigrahalli', quite a distance away from our village when we think of the distance by foot. Amma was the resident of the temple right next to the lake of the village and she was religiously worshipped by folks of the village and from the neighboring villages too. In this part of the state, the God/ Goddess talks with the villagers by possessing the body of a specific villager. Around 50 years back, in one such possessed session, Amma revealed that she has left that temple and has moved to a small shrine next to the lake of the village called 'Madenur' which happens to be our neighboring village. This shrine could be reached through a dried up lake and was on the outskirts of the village. When this story began to spread, folks started visiting this small shrine and felt the energy of Amma present there. This shrine was gradually built to a temple and the surrounding seven villages started worshipping Amma there and the Jathre used to happen revolving around that temple. Moving forward by 45 years, the fame of the temple had spread all across and Amma had gathered a lot worshipers. This meant a lot of donations followed and like always, money corrupted people. The temple management was not immune to money and they also got corrupted and started diverting the temple funds for their own personal uses and ignoring Amma and the temple welfare began.
But during the Jathre around the seven villages, Amma used to travel to all the seven villages and stay for two nights in every village. Amma was sincerely worshiped in our village and she was accorded a very high divine treatment when she stayed in our village for the two nights and sent back with huge sense of piety and devotion.
5 years back, when another session of possession took place in some neighboring village, Amma conveyed the message to a villager that angered by the mismanagement of the temple, she had moved to our village and she was currently staying in a spot next to our village lake. With a lot of devotion, my village folks went to the lake and were surprised to find a small white stone, which they claim was not present before, had blossomed overnight. Now, we have a temple around this stone and Amma has become even more famous after moving to our village. She commands worshippers from far and wide and she has made a name for herself as the"Lost objects Finder". Most of the people who worship her are the ones who would have lost some object and come to her seeking the object back. She seems to point to exactly where the object is through possessing one of the village folks.
If I had listened to this story a decade back, I would have rubbished it and got back to my work. But, now after traveling, exploring and experiencing varied cultures and beliefs, I tend to not dismiss any belief but rather just accept it as something I would not agree to but still exists.

When the Goddess of 2018 seems to travel so much, what is wrong in meek humans being so passionate about traveling. And like how we all have our genre of travel places, our 'Amma' seems to be the 'Lake liking' traveller as she always finds a lake to settle herself in! Doesn't she now?  

Attitude of "That is not a big deal"...

As I inch closer and closer to seeing the village life from deep inside, I see the much deeper differences in attitude towards life and the situations that it throws at us. As an urbaner I have always looked at certain situations as 'oh so difficult' or even before the situation arises, I would have prepared internally that if that happens, these many problems would arise. My brain would have undertaken a thousand permutation and combination of what if this happens, then what could possibly happen and how would I survive that situation. The labyrinth of an urbaner's brain!!! Gosh!!

Having shifted to living in a village and married to a person who has been majorly in a village his entire life, I have seen an abysmal variation in the attitude of a villager. Their brains are not as complicated as ours and their attitude is more of 'we shall face it as it happens'. They are usually folks who do not sit and anticipate happenings in their heads. And no situation is grave for them. There are no parameters like easy, difficult and tough. They just do not have such measuring yards in their heads!!

Just to explain this theory better, let me share a life experience to you. In India we have a culture of a lady coming back to her mother's house for delivery and staying back for a certain period after delivery. In Kannada, we call this period 'Bananthana'. This period is very eventful and bustling for everyone in the house. Since, a mother and a new born are looked after carefully like a feather. There are certain rituals that are carried on everyday, like a oil massage for the baby followed by hot water bath given by two folks - that is one puts the baby on the legs and scrubs while the other pours hot water on the baby continuously. Post the baby, it is the new mother who is tended to. Even she is given hot water baths, best home-cooked foods and all possible rest. The whole household is running helter-skelter to make sure the new mother and baby are well rested and taken care of.

I have been a part of this process when my sister came home to deliver my nephew. This is that phase of life which bonds the family so tight that you share the welcoming of a new member and also, help a member to gear up for a new role as a parent. I have personally seen how hectic the events are even when we have non-stop water flowing in our taps, washing machine to wash the new born clothes, a maid to help us with all this and no other very urgent work than to take care of the mother-baby duo.

In the villages, the situation is just the same except that they do not have tap system at homes, the ladies need to collect water from the local community tap and carry utensils of water everytime. And post the water collecting duties, the household needs to look after their routine activities too - like milking the cow, dropping the milk to the local dairy which at times means a walk of a km or more to the collection point, tending to agricultural duties and the every day kitchen chores of cooking for the entire family. I was amazed when I heard my colleague who is a family of four plus the new born describe how they are growing radish, okra, maize on their 3 acre plot while tending to four of their cows, managing a day job and also having his sister and niece at home for her 'Bananthana'. And while he narrated all this, my face expression was like an exclamatory mark as to how do they manage so much of work and still have a smile on their faces to which his very nonchalant reply was it is a part of life, what can be done about it!?

I have seen this similar attitude with my in-laws too when we recently had a bad storm and many tiled roofs had been destroyed by the wind and rains. While I constantly kept grumbling about just one broken tile of our house and my brain was on hyper-tension mode, my mother-in-law whose house lost half her roof, was all calm and kept about her business of getting the roof repaired at the earliest before the rains and had no grumble or irritation on her face. And she has lived in that house her entire married life. She is least worried about the next day rains or the next year for the matter.

This whole scenario has put me in such deep contemplation about our attitudes and tendency to worry rather than face life as it comes. Whilst there might be a ton we can teach the villagers in terms of literacy, sanitation etc, we have more than a ton to learn in terms of how to lead life in a balanced way from them!

Baseline being - 'We are all scapegoats'...

For a country that takes everything religiously - from cricket to movies to whatsapp forwards, I would be no exception when I say a movie's after effects mull in my head for almost a week. And that would be stronger if I watched a movie just yesterday that pertains indirectly to politics and my state is due for elections in a month.

Politics has always been a subject of intrigue and interest for me, at least my state politics. I love eavesdropping on every discussion around me that involves politics and mainly I am eavesdropping on discussions between a group of men during my bus travels or around my farm or in my village.
Oh, we Indians love our politics, don't we!!??

While keeping this as the background, I watched a Kannada movie that portrayed how youngsters, especially young men, with a little crowd following in their local areas, are puppeteered by political big goons with power in their hands. These young local leaders have a considerable crowd following in their villages/towns and over run by passion and zeal sometimes lose out on thinking rationally or logically. When emotions run amok, our politicians beat the iron rod and bend them for their personal benefits without even considering the larger good.

These thoughts were echoing in my head the whole of today when I came across this news article of how our state politicians are using one sect of people, unluckily the one I was born into, to lessen the vote base of the opposite party. Their strategic move of removing this sect from Hinduism and giving a minority tag line worked wonders and gathered certain big sect leaders support for the party. Nonetheless the opposite party projected their main candidate from this sect as well, were now in quicksand having lost some guaranteed support to the strategic move of the ruling party.

But in all these strategies and counter strategies who exactly is gaining and losing!!?? The general public is certainly losing. A sect that was founded by a person who wanted to wipe away the caste system and emphasise that God is on our body always and our work and character determines if He is pleased or not. Such a sect is now divided on lines of minority or not!!

The anger in me is seething on how utter scapegoats we tend to be and by whom - most of our leaders would not have studied even half of the educational degrees our State majority population has and they end up making fools of us.

For all those fellow Kannadigas who are going to vote next month, its my sincere request to you all that at least this time let us be wise and not select a fool for our leader based on something as regardless sect and caste!!

The so called 'Career' break..

The word 'CAREER' itself gets me on my nerves end and the past eight years I have been getting a dose of this word on a daily basis!!

So what exactly is this career? I have never seemed to get a grasp of its meaning or pertinence. At times I get so muddled in my head about this word that I start thinking that career means life and life means career. Or rather the society around me puts this muddled up definition in to my already muddled head😃

When I cleared my professional exams quite early in life, I thought my career's growth spike would never dip and I was on a career roller coaster ride. Good money, no obligations, complete freedom - what more could a person in their early twenties ask for!!?? But only when the basic materialistic needs are fulfilled that your mind and soul crave for the soul soothers and my soul was no different. Very early in my 'career' I decided to take a "Career Break"!

When I took this decision, was when all hell broke lose in my inner circle of folks. All kinds of suggestions and advises poured in as to why this break would ruin my career or maybe success was getting into me. Those advises and suggestions came from people who meant my well-being and were looking out for me.

Cutting the story short, at present I have come back to being a professional after almost 4 years of leaving my last professional job and after many job changes before that. My resume is an utter puzzle of numerous job changes with gap years in between.

But I can say this with a personal guarantee that getting back to the profession was not very easy but it was not impossible either. After a trying period of 4 months, I can easily say that I am quite okay and comfortable being back in the profession I first decided to quit around 7 years back.

And for all the years that I took a 'career' gap, I have undergone such amazing personally rewarding journeys that those gap year experiences has made me a much matured, more balanced and sensible human being who is in a better position to be called a 'Professional' now. I have realized one basic truth - every professional has its own requisite skill sets but the underlying foundation for all careers are innate human values - sensibility, maturity of mind, inner balance and ability to differentiate between your needs and wants!

For all those individuals who want to explore themselves but have been putting it on hold because of the fear of a 'career break', I implore you to get over the fear and begin that self-exploration journey, so as to come back to your career, if need be, with stronger human values which itself will ensure that your career gets rocketed faster due to your gap years rather than plummet due to them.

HAPPY CAREER BREAK!!!

The 'What Ifs' of an urbaner!

My journey of transforming into a villager has been a tumultuous one so far... a huge pothole here, a small bump there and at times a complete roadblock!! 

I tried being a villager, a farmer, a housewife for sometime but the educated urbaner inside me screamed and fought for some rush and urban touch all the while. And consequently I gave into my urban calling and found a day job in the town nearby that would let my urban soul breathe for five days a week. There were days while I was working in Bangalore when I would scream to get out of the mad rush, traffic and all the noise; now my being craved for a little of all that. Also, the whole insecurity of what if I transformed into a household lady who would just do the chores and retire for the day kept haunting me day and night. I needed to feel the security of earning my own money, having my own independence and being in some kind of an urban job!

Hence, I have been busy with all these confusions and then with my urban job. Also, we have started constructing our house on the farm and that has kept us even more busy and away from blogging. 

The first thought that I got while we started the construction was what would be the water source for the house in the farm. And when I realised that it would our own borewell, the scariest 'what if' set into me - what if someday the borewell dries up, how would we survive on that isolated piece of land, away from the village as well as any city. Then the rational person in me started answering this what if by giving logical reasoning that even our village at present is being supplied water from a common borewell. Also, Mysore was also getting its waters from the river nearby. And both these had equal chances of running dry anytime! So, how different was my scenario on the farm? Just a thought that if in the village or Mysore, someone else other than me would crack their head about an alternate water source while in the farm it has to be my husband or me who will have to worry about an alternate water source.

Basically, while I lived in Mysore or the village, I was not worried about the water source drying up as it was someone else's job! And this is just how all of us in the cities live - oblivious to all the sources we are using.

Phew... the urbaner and their 'what ifs'!!