Sunday in the village

This was the village road until two years ago

Sunday is the best day in the village not because it is a holiday for me as for others too but because the village road becomes desolate. It doesn’t look like a village at all on weekdays because of the heavy traffic on the road. Sunday is a holiday for the road too, mercifully.

I have walked on this road for years and years during my childhood. There were hardly any vehicles those days except a rare, rickety bus and a few bicycles. People walked kilometres in those days, most of them barefoot, with the sky above their head and small dreams at the feet. Hardly anyone walks these days and the dreams have gone abroad.

 

The village river has not changed much except for increased pollution

When I decided to leave Delhi and opted for a rural life, many well-wishers advised me against it. “You won’t survive there more than a year,” one told me with the certainly of a prophet. “You give me a year!” I retorted. “I give myself only half of that.” Now I’m completing four years in the village. Life lies beyond our predictions.

And I enjoy the cool Sundays. It’s so quiet all around. Except the crow that visits frequently with a hungry caw. It perches on the bough of the rubber tree beside the waste pit and looks around stealthily before making a dive for something it espies in the pit. Interspersing the crow’s caws are occasional sounds of other birds that hardly appear before my eyes. Their sounds are soothing. Their beauty remains hidden. Good things often lie beyond our eyes.

 

Kittu loves Sundays

Kittu, my cat, wants a little petting on Sundays. He is also busy on other days; he has to visit the neighbourhood and meet his friends. Sometimes he returns home with scratches on his face: the inevitable price of socialising. He lets me clean him but won’t listen to my counsel to avoid too much of society. A cat is safest at home but a cat is not created to stay without mates, he tells me. Fine, go ahead and mate, but why do you bring to me the scores? I ask. He blinks at me and then goes to sleep on a cosy chair next to me.

 

Kittu's niche

“The soul of India sleeps in its villages.” Didn’t the Father of the Nation say that? No, my collective unconscious corrects, “The soul of India lives in its villages.” The narrow village road of barely two years ago is today a state highway. The soul is really alive. A bit too much alive, I think. But I appreciate the development. I too don’t walk these days, you see.

The road today: development
It's the same road in the 1st photo above