Farmhouse Blues

These concrete walls are getting to me! And even more after reading about what someone I came to know recently is doing. He is a dairy farmer, having quit his urban, cushy but mind-numbing job to get his hands into milk and dung. From the time I was a little girl, I've been quite pastoral at heart. really! Long before I studied Marx, Keynes and subsequently futures, options, and leadership amongst other things collectively known as management, I wanted to have a farm with lots of mooing, cud-chewing bovine specimens. Speaking of bovines, I am reminded of an absolute gem from that oh-so-funny guy Ogden Nash. Nash said quite succinctly ,
'The cow is of the bovine ilk
One end is moo, the other milk.'

Anyway, dairy farming was one of my girlhood dreams. I think it was as a teenager that dairy farming started looking a little less sexy and my thoughts turned to floriculture and to growing medicinal herbs. You must know that in those days my life was pretty untouched by technology. Well, before you begin to guess my age based on this, let me tell you that I am not all that old. There were computers, even the odd mobile phone here and there. But I saw all of this only after getting to Bombay when I was seventeen or so. Until then , I had grown up in a small town called Jamshedpur which though an industrial city, still has a lot of rustic charm. Jamshedpur had and still has rivers, tribals, gulmohar and banyan trees, herds and herds of cows and buffaloes, houses with bougainvillea on garden walls growing like the untamed locks of sadhus, even the occasional herd of wild elephants straying into the less dense forests fringing the city.

So it was, that this low on tech and high on nature life was my life until Bombay and then Ahmedabad happened to me. For the next 7-8 years I was caught, quite regrettably, now I think, in the maelstrom of multi-storeyed buidlings, stinky and sweaty local trains, peer pressure to succeed, urban living with home delivery of anything and everything possible, and home production of virtually nothing, except for the occasional cup of tea. My farming thoughts were 'weeded' out by powerpoint presentations, meaningless sales conferences and meetings which were more about eatings! Then one day I decided that this had to end. So after dabbling in some random things, I moved on to small business, home business - a business of working with traditional Indian artists and selling what they produce. Much more soul in this work - both mine and of the artists who make stuff.

But no farm in sight yet! I havent yet realised my farming nirvana, though the idea has undergone several transformations. In its most current avatar, I dream of doing art tourism combined with farming. So basically the model would be to get people to come to the villages where the artists and craftsmen work and watch and learn these crafts. Now agriculture still happens to be the mainstay in most of rural India. So while the artists practise art, there are farms to be worked on in their villages. Maybe the art tourists would like to try their hand at a bit of farming. In any case, I would be able to live in the midst of all this - obviously we would have to build living quarters of moderate comfort for the tourists. So thats how it gets built- my little farmhouse! I can visualise myself growing vegetables in a small kitchen garden, smelling the proverbial roses and the dung manure too. A fish pond and a cow shed as well. And because now I have a wee bit of technology in me, a computer with internet where I can post away blogs telling you how much I am enjoying myself!