The way to the village

A new friend asked, "How far is your village from Chennai?".

The answer is hard. It depends on details.

It usually takes us eight hours. Door to door. Changing four buses, waiting at bus stops. Chittoor, Damalcheruvu ivathala gate, Damalcheruvu avathala gate, Kothapeta ...

Sometimes long waits. No bus at all. And yet everyone waits patiently. Content to wait. Knowing that life is about waiting. Essentially. Till finally one overcrowded shared auto tumbles along. And the eleven passengers readily squeeze to make space for two more. Tiring journey. But always interesting. In so many ways.

By car it would be just three hours. 190 km. Shorter, swifter.

Like answers in life itself.

What one can do depends on what one has. The facilities, the wherewithal.

And what one does in life. Or in exams. Can only be understood. If all those details are understood.

With wisdom. With understanding. With empathy.

Everything is subjective.

...
(Another day)

Got off the bus at Damalcheruvu. With a lot of luggage. It was a drizzling day. We were glad it was not pouring.

The rains has filled a depression and the way was blocked. The share autos were stopping at a diversion half km away.

We walked there with the luggage. In company with others in similar plight. Crossing a railway line , ducking the bars that were lowered.

The share auto was there. Under the peepal tree. But not willing to start till there were 14 passengers. It took an hour. Of patience.

Finally it's started. On its precarious overloaded journey.

The way to PaalaGuttaPalle, to all villages. Happens at a leisurely pace. Hurrying does not help ...

JodtuSpdoinly oh3lis,o S2refhu0su18d  · 

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One cannot drive in an AC car to a village, and write some articles on the village. No.

The path is different.

Take a bus, stand for hours in the rattletrap vehicle, wait for interminable hours for the next bus on the stone bench under the tree, sharing a frail shade with many others. See the men make way for you and stand in the sun themselves. See the warmth as people chat up, including you in conversations. See that caste sets no bars in a simple collective camaraderie. See how as you get into the auto as the 15th person, the people cramp up willingly for one more person. See how the woman offers you a murukku out of her two. And how you humbly take it, knowing that you have to, even as she gives what otherwise she would have given her child.

Walk the last many kilometers hungry under starlight. To the earmth of a small poor hamlet. And the village starts falling in place.

Make the village home. Surrender urban comforts and securities. And then the village will slowly revel itself.

There is no shorter path.

Kannan T

/See that caste sets no bars in a simple collective camaraderie. / Strongly disagree. Partly true in a bus, not otherwise. But yes, I still have that bruised fancy car (no AC though).

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  Aparna Krishnan

  there is vast interplay between the castes, based in a reaonable camaraderie. Anyway best discussed on the ground. Come - long pending.

  

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• Kannan T

  I am aware that you are talking from your experience. But as long as I sit with our boys near the temple platform under the tree, and not ON the platform, I will never see how it can be called as any sort of camaraderie or reasonable.

  

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  Aparna Krishnan

  There are many stories, and it is when one has immersed that one sees the whole. I am going to an Ashram started in a nearby village. The swami is a Reddy. Each person from our village goes there, prays, if fed respectfully like every other person. My village is SC. Eashwaramma my neighbour is devout and gets special welcome.

  When they do for transplanting, and its mealtime I see the farmer feeding the people with care, as is village tradition.

  The village well is free for all for swimming.

  Yes, 10 years ago in ceremonies in the caste village th SCs were given a seperate bench. They stopped going. There is wrong, there is right, there are processes of correction. One needs a perspective that comes from years of living.

eAougtustn Smgpg17otnrsm, orargtc2ef0dn19  · 

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As the bus moves down past the coastal plains to the Eastern Ghats, the ancient hills welcome. Hills of scrub vegetation and boulders. Older than time.

The way home.