Things precious new & old

A picture of four generations, a picture of a time, when a photographer had to show up with a huge camera and other paraphernalia, turning it into a mega-event. I saw this old family picture and found it to be too precious to be shared publicly. And yet, it is a story of a time that needs to be told. 

This picture was taken outside the ancestral home of my father in Loharan, Punjab during one of our visits to the village. These visits used to be short, but memorable. I remember Puaji - my father's aunt greeting us as we entered the village. She gave all of us the warmest and the tightest hugs ever, as she smiled her million-dollar smile. There always was buttermilk to drink, no matter what time of day or night it happened to be. She is standing in- between my parents in the picture. She was Puaji - Aunt of the entire village.

Then Off course there was Maaji - my great-grandmother sitting on the rope strung cot greeting us with her toothless smile. Although, her extra special smile was reserved for my father. She always looked content, even in pain. 

 Maaji was always positive, courageous and stoic - the backbone of the family, who held the family together, especially during difficult times. Trying to make ends meet with less or practically no money, ensuring, everyone's needs in the family were taken care of. In her younger days, other than working at home and the fields, she walked 20 miles, undeterred at 4 AM, once every month to take food supplies for my grandfather, who studied at a boarding school. At that time, there was no school in the village.

As I have heard, my Babaji, great-grandfather was a hardworking farmer, he went to the fields at  3 AM. He was known for being kind-hearted and extremely generous in the entire village. Anybody in need of help knew whom to turn to? He treated his bullocks with a lot affection; he fed them well and never whipped them, unlike some of the other farmers. No wonder his bullocks were the best in the village.

I look at the picture again, my brother looks content and happy, something to do with Babaji taking him to the fields full of sugarcane and the smell of the earth!  My father - Papa looks content and at peace with himself. After all he is home. My mother is wearing her nicest sari after all; she is the well educated, sophisticated daughter-in-law from the city.  I look unhappy, as I tug at my shoe strap. I had no friends to play with and the photographer was bugging me, by saying "Ready!" again and again - so said, my mother.

During our many other visits, I would follow Puaji around as she worked in the farm and in the house. I watched her preparing the feed for the buffaloes, feeding them, milking them, cleaning the house, doing laundry and the dishes, while the cooking, rather slow cooking happened on its own, in a little mud pot set on firewood, while she was doing other things. 

Cooking the rotis - flat wheat bread on the firewood stove was a spectacle for me, as I watched Puaji blow air through a pipe to keep the fire going.  I never saw her sleep or rest. My father had never seen her sleeping either. When he had lived there as a young boy, she had taken care of him as a mother would, so for a long time, he had thought her to be his mother.

My father's childhood was spent in the village with no electricity or running water. He had the best childhood ever, running the two miles to school and back, carrying the books, little slate and lunch on his head, be it a hot day in the middle of summer or a cold day in winter. He ran bare foot, sometimes using the takthee "little chalkboard" (used for writing homework)  as a footrest, for respite from the hot sand that practically burnt his foot. At times he stopped at a stream to drink water, he used the loose end of his turban to filter the water, as he could see little insects crawling in the water.

Papa left the village when he turned fifteen, for greener pastures to pursue his higher studies and later on a degree in Engineering. He no longer had to study in the dim light of a diya (oil lamp - made of clay), he no longer had to use the hand-pump to get water, he no longer had to clench his stomach that hurt almost all the time or look for respite from chronic earache, while studying. But, still to him, the village was his home. He kept coming back as often as he could, usually taking us along. 

Today no one lives there. The little house made of simple hand caked bricks collapsed recently. The villagers seem like strangers. When at some point everyone knew each other intimately. They were all related to each other by either blood or kinship.

 There was a bond that kept people together. Was it limited resources? Was it lack of money? Or lack of certainty over the harvest that depended heavily on rains? Or perhaps uncertainty of life? There were times when my great-grandfather had his crops burnt by thieves. One time, in the middle of the night, someone trying to steal his harvest beat him up and broke his arm, while he was sleeping in the fields. The next day, Babaji bandaged his broken arm and went back to sleep in the fields, yet again, to guard his crops. A good harvest was precious and all the wealth of a farmer.

Everything came from the harvest, if it was bountiful; it took care of the needs of the family. As for money? Who had it then? It was a scarcity but then as Papa said, we only needed to buy salt. Everything else was taken care of, well! sort of.