Village vignettes - The oil seller

The local oil seller who comes every Wednesday to the village. With kanuga oil for the lamps, and castor oil for the heads of infants, and coconut oil for the hair, and groundnut oil for cooking. He also takes neem seeds and kanuga seeds that the people collect, and gives neem and kanuga oil in exchange.

The regularity builds up relationships and he's a everyone's friend. He gives on credit to Eashwaramma knowing it is unsure when she can pay up.

The other Wednesday when he left oil for her with a neighbour saying that she had asked for it and he would collect money later from her when she could pay, she was touched.

It is all these human relationships that secure a village even as the economy stumbles.

Aparna Krishnan There is warmth and humanness in a village. That overwhelmes even the poverty.

Like · Reply · 3 · 6 hrs

Afsan Chowdhury I sometimes talk a walk through your village even though I am not there. Best wishes Aparna Krishnan

Unlike · Reply · 1 · 5 hrs

Aparna Krishnan I believe that all villages are like this - essentially humane and rooted.

Like · Reply · 1 · 5 hrs

Afsan Chowdhury Aparna Krishnan When I first began to work in the villages, my return to urban life be culturally shocking. Nobody asked me who I was and what I was doing ? It was a period of high Leftist militancy yet the villages never refused hospitality. I once drifted for weeks through villages and didn't have to spend any money for food even once Te special pleasure was to walk into a village and not knowing who would offer me a bed for the night though certain that I would be.

Unlike · Reply · 1 · 5 hrs

Aparna Krishnan Cities are moribund places. Only the urbans think they are 'developed' and 'advanced'.