An evening well spent

 Yesterday evening I decided to take different route for my evening walk. I walked down a precipitous path deep into what is called a gadhera or gardh where a seasonal stream gurgles happily this time of the year. The landscape here is very different. Its quieter, the fields are broader and usually they are more lush because they are irrigated. I loved the multi-cropping on the fields. They were mostly filled with patta-gobhi ( cabbage) or maize. Some fields also had rajma or kidney beans and the local black soya bean which is known as bhat. There were some amaranth with their red flowing locks, vines of lauki (gourd) and kakri (cucumber) interspersed with some small stands of cannabis. A paste made of roasted cannabis seeds is used as a local spice or condiment. When we worked in these hills nearly 3 decades ago, we had also learnt that the cannabis stalks provided an excellent hemp like fibre as well. It was used to make ropes, sacking and also used it to make soles for their footwear.

As I walked along the fields with the small river keeping me company I chatted with the women and men working in the fields. Most knew who I was but one old lady whose house was directly under ours didn’t know, so I pointed to our house up against the sky and she shook her head in acknowledgement.

The one grain I was looking for and missed was madua, or finger millet, which was grown widely earlier. Only one of the households had a very small patch which I had missed because it didn’t yet have its distinctive stalks shaped like upturned or curled fingers. ‘It’s very hard work’ they said. ‘The patta-gobi has driven the madua away’, said another.

I have a soft spot for madua because many moons ago I had conducted my first formal study on this tiny grain. Illiterate women had taught me how to identify varieties by the shape, size, and colour of the grains. They knew which variety to grow on which aspect and slope of their fields based on the micro-habitat. They had informal mechanisms to share seeds to maintain the germplasm. It was my very first academic paper which I presented at my first visit to India International Centre in Delhi. Later, I was invited to present this study at an international conference at Harare, (Zimbabwe) in what would have been my first trip abroad. Unfortunately, the trip was aborted, and I have yet to visit the city. My interest around women’s role in agriculture was soon derailed. But I digress.

Growing madua is back breaking work, but it was also an occasion for common celebrations. When the seed was sown or the grain harvested, it had to be done all at once. The villagers had a ‘palta’ or give and take system and neighbouring women would work in each other’s fields while a man would be invited to sing and play the ‘hudka’ (a small drum). In between were rounds of weeding, and all of it would be done by women. Today all the fields that would have madua are occupied by cabbage. Madua is a coarse grain and the flour lacks finesse. The thicker harder madua ki roti has lost to the finer ‘phulka’ made gehu (wheat) atta. The replacement crop cabbage also brings in the much needed moolah as it is a cash crop.

Agriculture in the hills earlier only used farmyard manure. I wanted to know whether this had changed. I asked one man who was clearing a patch of rotting makka stems whether they used ‘ghar ka khad’ (farmyard manure) or ‘dukan ka khad’ (chemical fertiliser) for their cabbage. ‘We use ghar ka khad’ he said, and I felt a mild sense of satisfaction. ‘What about keet nashak (insecticides)?’ I asked. ‘We have to use chemical insecticides’ he said. ‘Just two times. We don’t put too much dawa (insecticide). ‘Cabbage is easily attacked by pests.’ I felt a little deflated on hearing this.

Like many others I hold that organic farming is superior to modern farming. But at the same time, I am conflicted. I know that the ‘green revolution’ with its attendant ills was essential to making India a food sufficient country. Having dabbled in traditional agriculture I had learnt how modern mechanised agriculture had alienated women from the land and their vast knowledge of traditional agriculture. Madua ka atta is no longer available in the village homes but is becoming popular in supermarkets of Delhi and other big cities. I wondered whether madua could be grown as a cash crop here. But wouldn’t that make women’s workload even harder? Can poor people afford to eat the food that they grow?

With these thoughts going through my head, I started climbing up the hill through a patch of oak forest. When I reached the road, two children, a girl of about 8 years and boys couple of years younger greeted me, big smiles on their faces. I asked them their names and they told me they were Tannu and Bittu. Pointing towards a big sack of atta lying a few feet away she asked me ‘Will you lift it and put it here?’. It was a sack of atta which a jeep had brought from the market up the road and dropped off a few feet into the road. She wanted me to lift it and bring it to the side. I tried lifting it – it was heavy, and I didn’t want to risk my back. ‘I can’t lift it’, I said. ‘No problem, let me help you’, said this little three foot something thin as stick girl. She reached out to lift one end and asked me to lift the other end. Taken aback at her alacrity, I said ‘Wait, let me roll it over’. Girding my loins, I shifted my weight and gave a heave to roll the sack. With two rolls the sack was off the metalled surface, and she was happy. ‘Do you know who I am?’ I asked surprised at her confidence. ‘Uncle’, she said, ‘you live in the house near the school’. Bidding the brother and sister goodbye, I started walking back home.

It was an evening well spent!