The Wooden Stool Seller

6 am – dark overcast skies, lashing rain all the way to Mangalore airport, rain on the tarmac…….hoping that the flights are not delayed! 

 2 pm Bombay – Bright and sunny! Hot dusty and noisy!

 I clean the house, rustle up a meal and catch up with my emails. Before I know I, it is almost 6 pm , I need to go to the market and get some fresh veggies. Just half an hour I promise myself, pick up some cloth bags and lock the house and step out. 

 The heat, the noise, the dust and the bustle that is Bombay, envelops me in a familiar warmth. The banana vendor, the other fruit vendor and the vegetable vendor call out to me “Bhabhi – Sitaphal leke jao” (Do take the Custard apples), “Bhabhi – aaj palak achcha hai –“ (The Spinach is fresh) (Bhabhi is the term for elder sister-in-law and is a respectful way to call out) I signal to them that I’ll pick up the stuff on my way back and continue walking ahead. 

 Suddenly I spot the Wooden Stool seller – or rather I spot the inverted bunch of stools moving at a very brisk pace in the opposite direction. He is walking beyond the line of cabs parked next to the pavement and the fencing prevents me from reaching out to him. I retrace my steps trying to keep him in sight and finally break into a run to find a gap in the fencing where I can step out and intercept him. He seems startled – he was probably done for the day and was walking back to his home. I told him I wanted to buy a couple of stools. He told me the price rather warily and did not seem keen on lowering the pile down. I asked him whether he would walk upto my home to deliver the stools as there was no way that I could carry 2 of them all the way back and up the stairs.

 When he realized that I was serious about buying them, he lowered the whole pile down – what an amazing way he had stacked them all up! I selected 2 of them and agreed to the price that he asked for. He stacked them back together, lifted the whole pile with ease and I led the way home. In the foyer of the building he lowered his stack of stools again and picking the 2 that I had selected walked up the stairs and dropped them off. I paid him and he went off. 

 Why am I writing about this? What moved me to write this? 

 The fact that in today’s age of Amazon home deliveries, Pepper Fry furniture and Ikea furniture, this type of Stool -seller is a vanishing tribe. As far back as I can remember I always have had these wooden stools at home. All my school and college days, it was my simple wooden stool at my study table that saw me thru my study days! When we moved to the farm, we had brought one of the extra-tall wooden stools here and I missed having it in Bombay. It was the perfect height for getting things down from the attic, cleaning the ceiling fan and of course just sitting by the window as well. 

 I was seeing a stool seller after ages and had to get a tall stool again! And a low one to keep the laptop on when you felt like sitting on the floor and working.

 Hand-crafting the stools, hauling them onto their head and then walking around the city the whole day long hoping to sell their wares! 

 That’s how they make a living! 

 Presenting here a Painting by an artist friend Amit Romani 

(Title: Migrant Labour I Medium: Watercolor on acid free paper In private collection ) 

 Do check out more of his paintings on his website https://www.amitromani.com/

Hay from Haveri

 

The number of small land holders who have given up rice cultivation in our area is  increasing  at an alarming pace.    No longer do I have my farm hand or maid asking me –“So and so…. Has a stack of hay to sell – do you want to buy it?”  This would be followed by a description:

·         Which Rice variety (Red rice is a shorter plant and the other white variety has much longer hay),

·        What type of bundle (kaat as it is locally called) – the  roughly tied bundle that has just been  tied for threshing OR a Post threshing tightly tied bundle meant for piling hay in a compact manner

·        How many bundles

·        And finally the rate per bundle – have watched this grow from Rs3.50  all the way to 10 or 12 over the past few years.

So the small land holders would have about  800 to  1000  kaats, meaning a reasonable earning of about 8k to 10k from the sale of the hay.  

Ready for sale - any takers?

We would buy from several farmers and sometimes have interesting  trips to their farm to collect  the hay.

 So like I mentioned, the decline of Rice cultivation has led to a severe shortage of hay in this region.  The stock of hay which I had purchased at the start of the season was close to getting finished with no fresh stock in sight.

A sight rarely seen in the village these days - everyone gathering to help harvest and thresh each others rice fields.  

So this morning I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call from one of the locals –‘A truck with hay has arrived in the village – do you want some hay?’

Sure! I said.

I left my half eaten breakfast aside and went out to move the car out of the drive way.  If they were willing to stack the hay in the attic of the cow shed, it would be lesser distance to cover on each trip. 

I was about to go back to my breakfast when the truck arrived.   It was not a very large one, two men inside the cabin and 2 riding atop the high pile of hay at the back.

I asked to see the size of the kaat and the rate – it  seemed very expensive.  Nothing less than 70 Rs each!  The size was definitely much larger than the local kaats yet the price did seem exorbitant.  I checked with the other people who had purchased it just before they reached here and found that they had paid the same amount but purchased only 50 kaats.

I decided to do the same – 50 kaats would help tide over the immediate need  and maybe I could get some at a reasonable rate from the interior villages.   The men looked disappointed when I said that I found it expensive and I would take only  50. One of them tried to convince me to take 100.  We have come from very far, the cost of  fuel itself is so much, we are not really making much money -  he said.  And they were in a hurry, so they would only pile it up in the driveway and not stack it up in the attic.

Where have you’ll come from? I asked.

Haveri.  Was the answer.

 Haveri!  Hay all the way from Haveri!  That is over 200 kms away – almost a 5 hour journey.  And here were these 4 men with their weather beaten faces, probably having driven through the night to have reached Chitrapur so early in the morning,  going  from farm to farm selling the hay.

I counted the kaats as they piled them  swiftly in the drive way, and when they reached 50, I said “Go ahead, make it hundred” 

“Aivat ondu, Aivat yerdu…….” Briskly the pile grew.

At 100 they all paused and wiped the sweat streaming down their faces and asked for water to drink. 

As they drank the water, one of them perched on top of the pile asked “Will you not take another 50…?” .  I did not have that much cash with me – oh no problem Google pay will do he said.  (I am still amazed by the reach of Cashless transactions!)

“Will you discount it if I do so ?” I asked jokingly.   “Oh no amma……we have to bear so many expenses “ he lamented

I thought to myself – a meal for 4 at an upmarket restaurant in Mumbai  would  probably cost  the same as what I need to spend on the hay.  4 well fed people  in the Airconditioned ambience of a nice restuarant and 4 tired looking men  having purchased the hay from probably several small struggling farmers in distant Haveri, travelling so far to make a living.  4 satiated people who would forget what they had eaten at the meal in a few days. And a huge bovine family who would gratefully munch on this hay at least  till Rice harvest time.

Go Ahead, I’ll take another 50 I said. And was rewarded with a vigorous head nod and an extra kaat at the end of the counting. 

The whole procedure took about 30 minutes and off they went busy getting the directions of the next farm on the phone.

So now I have Hay from Haveri for the cows.  I wonder whether it tastes any different from the hay from Chitrapur.  If my cows tell me I will surely let you all know!

 

Life Express’22

 

A whole calendar  year  just whizzed past and I feel like a solitary being on a dimly lit railway station watching the bogeys of Life Express’22 thunder past.  Did I miss the train…..was I supposed to be on it……well I will try and catch the next one for sure…….but a whole fortnight has already slipped past and I can barely hold on to the handle bar………….

Trying to catch my breath and wedge my foot firmer on the foothold,  let me reflect on the year gone by…..

 

January had me with an armload of pups,

All black and cuddly.

Fat and waddly,

Endless meals of eggnog and ragi porridge

Broth with chicken all creamy and rich

Methi-chicken biscuits for the new mum

Lest she have a problem with lactation for the young ones

Tch tch tch tch tch tch……tch

And they all race behind me out into the yard,

Meals done , poop and pee

A  robust game and they are ready to sleep

Six times a day this routine

Saw me all thru January

Right into feb,,,,when to their new homes they went!

Feb saw the arrival of a new hen

The previous one met a sad end

When I forgot to close the cage door one night

The mongoose seemed to have got her…. Such a sorry plight

March spun me around on work

Was the rest all leisure girrrl?

A trip to Varanasi had me all charged up,

But an  online tender process caught me in a vice like grip.

Oh… I missed all the fun things with the group on this trip.

April brought a kind of a lull,

almost akin to one before a storm

The wave of work never abated,

Keeping at bay despairing thoughts, I accepted.

May brought fresh agony

The memories - last year’s,

Tore thru and brought fresh tears

June had me in the pits

A close friends’ grief over

An estranged daughter

Had me shed more tears with her

July spun me on work trips again

Chennai and Patiala helped me escape the rain

But then it had its vengeance in August

Floods never seen before – a cloud burst

Boundary walls washed away

Collapse of the partially built bridge over the holle

Closed all access roads and had me house bound

A brave attempt to cross the holle with the 4 wheel drive

Had me struggling to get out, what a relief to get back on safe ground!

September brought some respite from the rain

But then 2 new calves saw me extra busy again

Huge cauldrons of gruel, spiced with ginger

Sweetend with jaggery, flavoured with pepper

A load of methi for the new mums too

Oh watch them slurp it up

Hopefully there will be enough milk, for some months to come!

October brought a sad event,

With the passing away of a great soul

My dear father-in-law

Just short of a century by 2

A life well lived,

Discipline, honesty and integrity

We learnt from him and much more!

November had me travelling again,

A solo trip to soothe my soul

The mountains offered a solace

With just their shadows and silence!

All too soon it is December,

The last bogey on Life Express ‘22

A long pending trip to Vellore,

When holiday rush have all websites saying – Tickets? No more!

Booked a cab and drove across

And got a taste of Bangalore traffic woes

Nice road is not so Nice any more!

The last day of the year brought a rush of memories

Barbecues with the family,

Dad’s home, resounding with laughter,

Siblings and cousins all together

Those merry days have passed away,

Learn to enjoy your solitude

Says the vast silent sky

Learn to enjoy the silence

Says the thundering Life Express’22 just gone by.

 

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Dear Readers, Thank you for all your likes and comments......I would really appreciate if  I could know who has posted the comments as most of the time I can only see it as Anonymous