Of Living on a Farm

Three years ago we decided to live on our farm at Lohegaon near Pune for a few months, while our home in the city was getting ready. Could we live on the farm – could kids go to school from there and will it be safe? Are you crazy? Don’t try to get this rustic – its OK in the movies and to stay for a weekend, but for longer – forget it! Advice, admonitions and opinions came pouring in from friends and family. We ended up living there for just over a year and learnt so much that’s worth sharing –

Waking up to dynamic mornings
As we settled down, and started waking up to those dynamic mornings, hearing different birds, the squirrels and absence of the doorbell ringing every 15 minutes, it was evident that it was going to be different! We needed to get used to natural sights and sounds and learn to appreciate the sound of silence! Each morning would be different, hearing a different set of birds depending on the time we woke up at.
As we started getting used to the new sounds, the sounds of man’s greatest and meanest machines – the Boeings and the Sukhois made us feel at home. At least it wasn’t the mundane sounds made by man – honking cars, two-wheelers, washing machines and mixer-grinders. Thank God for big monstrous mercies! We would wonder if we saw the same birds the day before – our daughter pulling out her Salim Ali book on Indian birds, trying to get the ornithologists term for the birds that we saw each morning.

Conveniences & Supplies
Where do we get our regular grocery supplies – the most frequently asked question was soon answered by some disciplined planning of weekly supplies. The small errands to call the grocer for the fresh coriander and mint leaves became unnecessary, all of it available in the kitchen garden a few steps away from the house. Fresh milk from the nearby gotha, the newspaper being delivered at the front door and the kids being picked up and dropped at our doorstep by a private van, made it easier than living in the city. I must admit that it helped that the farm is just behind Pune airport right next to a prominent Sukhoi squadron base of the Indian Air Force.

Gol Market – and the one shop wonders
The air-force base close by helped with a few more conveniences – complete with national integration of supplies from across the country – at the local Gol Market – the ubiquitous markets found in most defence colonies around India. The Gol Market has one shop for each commodity and service we required – one florist, one sweet meat shop, one grocer, a barber and a newspaper shop that - come Sundays had newspapers in at least 15 languages available for the people from all over India posted at the air force base to feel at home!

Feline Parenting
The farm had a sample of a few domesticated animals – one dog, a cow, a cat and a turtle and some fish in the well! Our cat, Mani soon got pregnant after the visit of a boka (male) cat from the neighbourhood. Our caretaker announcing that we will soon have a bunch of kittens to give us company. The cat soon became fiercely protective of the young ones in its belly, not allowing us to touch her any more. She soon disappeared and we found her up on the shelves of our store room with a litter of 4 kittens. Looking for her and the kittens the next day - they were missing and we found them in another corner of the house on a higher shelf and a few other places in two weeks until she settled with her kittens in a closed store-room. In about 3 weeks the suckling kittens began to play with each other and the mother protecting them nearby. After about a month, we found Mani, the mother of the newly born kittens relaxing and stretching out on a cushion on the chair in our verandah! A few of the kittens came along trying to get close to their mother – who gently pushed and shooed them away, getting them to learn to face the world. Her fierce protection of her kittens lasted one full month by which time she had taught them to hunt for mice and other food and then shooed them away to face the world on their own! In these days of human helicopter parenting, it’s something to learn - how we could be bringing up our children limiting our fiercely protective care to the human equivalent of the one month!

Cats & Dogs
Mani, our cat – relieved of her motherly duties was back playing with the dog Chikoo. Teasing him, running with him and angering him to end up in a hot chase where Mani landed up on the top of a 20 feet light pole with Chikoo trying to figure out how he could get up on the pole or bring her down from from her machan like perch – the helpless tiger waiting for Mani (a relative of the tiger species) at the base of the pole for more than half a day. The next day they were at it again running and teasing each other!

Learning about the Rains
Schools teach us all about the South West Monsoons – or do they? The rains began and the first burst of pre-monsoon showers with thunder and lightning helped accumulate some water in the bunded tank that we had cleaned up a month earlier. As I wondered whether the tank would fill up in the next rains our caretaker explained to me the 15 day periods during the rains – each governed by a nakshatra as he explained what he had known for many years and learnt in his vernacular school many years ago. Each nakshatra and its rains have its own characteristics – some have heavy rains and water flowing in from a distance – the type that can be bunded for storage but not good for the crops, some nakshatras the trickle yet percolating type – good for the crops as the water gets to their roots. The season ends with rains coming from the East, preceded by thunder and lightning – a reference to the receding monsoons that recede from East to West while most of the rains uptil then come in from the West.
This traditional and scientific knowledge seems to be lost on us now, where neither we nor our kids are ever taught about the season that is the lifeline of our (yet) agrarian country!

Watching plants grow
The kitchen garden with @ 20 types of herbs – sweet and normal mint, Italian and Thai Basil, Camphor Tulsi, Jaipatri/Cinnamon, Kachai, Turmeric lovingly planted – were in shock for a week, then stabilized and started growing. As they grew in different ways, it was a pleasure observing them as they grew slowly but surely and were then on their own. Patience, individual care and then wonderment - at how they all grew, giving us our herbs in the kitchen. Some of the ignored potted plants around the verandah grew by themselves without us noticing how they were doing, until we saw them one fine day flowering in full glory screaming – I can do it too, all by myself! We did our bit by putting together a list of native trees that we bought from a nursery run by Ketaki & Manasi – two eco-conscious entrepreneurs who run Oikos – they have grown beautifully without much care over 3 years; we still struggle with the names of these trees - and our guests were not impressed!

Seeing the seasons change
As the rains come pouring everything is green – for a few months; everything grows including the weeds. It’s impossible to remove the weeds, unless we used a de-weeding chemical. Do we need to use it is the question that we ponder on! We decide that it’s best done after the rains recede, taking care to de-weed just a small part of the garden. Come October, the sun shines in full glory, some of the trees bloom, in this mini-spring referred to by city folk as October Heat! The winters are cool, the green starts to brown and then yellow, some of the trees are in bloom, some have leaves that have turned white and some red. The Kate Savar (Silk Cotton tree, Bombax malabaricum), sheds it leaves, the tree is in full bloom with pink flowers, hardly any leaves remaining and then the flowers and the leaves are all gone. As we get closer to March, the well is almost dry, the Indian Laburnum is in full bloom with its brilliant yellow flowers and the Gulmohar and the Jacaranda the African imports are in full bloom too. The leaves start sprouting again in the heat of the summer, waiting for the pre-monsoons and then the rains that turn everything green again and - when the tank and the well will be full again! We are done with watching one full cycle of the seasons wondering if it’s the British who taught us to hate our “hot” summers ignoring everything that is in bloom during Vasant Rutu that had our poets write about in the days gone by.

Dealing with the dust!
Having travelled frequently to the sanitized, asphalted and cemented environs of Europe and America and living in gated communities in Bangalore and Pune where dust is at a premium – where you need to go to the ‘wilderness’ to find it – dealing with it on the farm next to dusty roads and a brick kiln – was quite a task. As the trucks passed the farm, clouds of dust seemed to settle on everything in the house. Getting the house cleaned every day was more than a chore! The dust got worse in summer, reminding us of the ‘dusty Indian plains’ often described by the British and that made them ‘go dullaly” – in Deolali, near Nasik, just @ 200 kms from our farm!

Satellite TV and the Dialup Connection to the Internet!
When we moved to the farm, we thought we could do without an Internet connection or Cable TV. We soon started missing both and work demanded that I needed an Internet connection – I could get one courtesy Reliance NetConnect, even though it was as slow as the erstwhile Dial-up connection operating at the lower KB range. TV connection was courtesy – the other wireless wonder – Satellite TV from Tata Sky. These two modern technologies helped us be in touch with the material world and could one day help people move to live on farms!

Inviting people home to the farm
Our friends and relatives came visiting once in a while. Most of them were curious to see the farm and see us living there! The usual questions – where are the lawns, the manicured trees and flowering plants – expecting a resort! Some questions about mosquitoes, dust, snakes and the dog that was not tied up! Some suggested we convert it into a proper resort, manicured and maintained, with the ACs, how it could be used for corporate get-aways to the manicured lawns and AC rooms. Some were interested in the trees and the kitchen garden trying to recognize what they were. They wanted more fruit trees that would yield an income. Those who were more inclined wanted to know which paddy was being grown and how it’s harvested! All were relieved that they did not have to drink well; hard-water and that we had some bottles of mineral water handy. “Fence it up and keep the villagers and snakes away” said many.

No more say the kids
Our 10th floor house in the city was now ready, with a small garden and a lawn to go with it and a functional farm next to our building. The kids were relieved that they were back in the city, but missed their long bus ride to school! They sometimes missed the openness of the farm but vowed not to visit the farm for at least a year! We did not go back to the farm much for two years; we are visiting more often now in the last few weeks, getting it back in shape – for guests who were expected to come from the big cities! Our caretaker - Jadhav, is happy that we visit him again and spend time on the farm. This year we are looking forward to spending the Diwali week at the farm; the kids sure that it won’t be for more than a week!