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!?
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!?
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