One day I heard two of my office
colleagues Ravi and Venkat talking about some rice and dal buying deal. One of
them was discussing buying it from another one. Out of my curiosity, I
intervened in their conversation and enquired about what was that deal all
about?
There I came to know that Ravi wanted to
buy some good amount of rice bags from Venkat. Upon asking further I found Venkat
belonged to the farmer’s family. He had a piece of land something about two
acres where they were growing rice, dal and grams etc. His family was growing
food for themselves in farms in their village and the surplus was sold to earn
some cash. Considering this as a fair amount of deal in terms of quality and
price, Ravi and other folks were buying grains to last for a year.
Knowing about the price and nevertheless
the fact it was direct from the fields, I was interested in the deal too. I
asked Venkat to get some kilos of the cranes for me and he happily agreed. At
the end he had a good amount of stock lying at his home to sell. Next day I got
my delivery and picked up it directly from the office.
Since that day we cooked that rice quite
frequently and for heavenly sake the taste was awesome. It smelled much better
than the rice which we used to buy from our regular grocery shop and that even
at higher price. My wife liked it even more than I did.
A few days later, when having lunch in
office canteen, I asked Venkat how much profit they used to earn from their
stock yielded from fields. To my surprise, when I calculated it was hardly any profit
after investing the amount for seeds, water, pesticides and other necessary
incurred capital. If that nominal profit was adjusted for the labor and the man
hours invested, practically there was no profit thereafter. Whatever they
invested they just got the food out of those fields.
This was shocking. I asked him why his
family is still into this farming business and why not they do some other chores
to earn some profit. The response I got was ‘farmers are like that only. No
matter what it is, they will still do their farming occupation. At least it is
capable enough to fill their stomach if they don’t have any other source of
income. That is how farmers are living in the village bro.’
This was remarkable. Hats off to farmers
who are doing their jobs so diligently and feeding the stomach of the the non-farmers
category people like us. Somewhere deep down in my heart, I felt I had paid too
less for that rice I purchased from him. Being quite meticulous Venkat had also
sold his stock on the government price not even a rupee extra than that. For
that quality and taste of Rice what we got, the price was really nominal. I
fell too thankful to him and his hard working farmer family.
Later someday, over a break for a cup of
tea, I had an opportunity to ask more about his family and his village. Venkat used
to live in his village itself by the time he was studying in school. Venkat
said, it was alone his father only who was growing all that grains in his village.
Occasionally Venkat used to visit his village since last many years. The
lifestyle and the routine of his father were strict like any other farmer in
the country. He wakes up at 4:00 AM feeds two cattle. After milking the buffaloes takes his breakfast and then leaves to work in the fields for the whole day.
Evening is the time for early dinner. His
father is among the people who follow early to bed and early to rise culture. The
story of his family is none different than millions of farmers in our country but
the amount of patience and hard work that demands for their job is definitely
different than other crores of people living in the cities living a non farmer’s
life.
“So which life did you like most. That
life in the villages or this city life?” I asked Venkat.
I got my answer. Which one best
reasonably resembles your choice? Rather to say your wish. I’ll leave this up
to your discretion.
