Village vignettes - Firewood and integrity

 One cooks with firewood, and the ash is used for cleaning the pots, and the is also added to the dung heap to mature into manure. The water drawn from the well is used frugally for washing the pots, and the wash water flows to the plants.

That which we get through our own labour, firewood from the deadwood in the forest, or water drawn from the well, is what is used sparingly and honestly.

Diesel and electricity kills this integrity.

 

 

Ramanan Jagannathan - I agree on the frugality part , but that is a frugality imposed by the difficulty in acquiring the resources. But there is also a high degree of romanticism in this post that forgets the difficulty and breathing difficulties women folk undergo by using fire wood . Not to mention all the time that can be used more productively
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Aparna Krishnan - I have spent 20 years cooking on this very stove. I would not exchange it for gas cooking. The urban needs to have the commitment and courage to live both worlds before extolling the virtues of his urban comforts. Comforts that are drawn off petroleum and blood incidentally. Yes, there are certianly many difficulties the rural poor face, starting with poverty and disappearing livlihoods. Let that be addressed by each and every bleeding heart.