There are many ways to reach this village. And you have to take all of them. Your car will desert you at the first streambed and you splash out to set off on a rough track. Drivers of passing bullock carts solicitously offer you a ride but remember carts don’t have shocks. Then a moped ride, a bicycle ride, a trek and a trudge and you reach your destination.
The destination is least bothered that it is so inaccessible. Mainly since it needs nothing from outside; it is a world in itself. Thirty families, about a hundred and eighty people, almost half of them children, dirt roads, indolent cattle, sturdy homes, a small temple, a tiny school, and a common granary. The village nestles in a valley, green-sheathed hills sheltering it from belligerent winds.
All the adults are land-owning famers, all the kids study in the school which has a 21-year-old girl teacher cycling in from ten km away everyday. The kids grow up and are sent to the social welfare hostel in the town where they finish schooling, they grow up a little more, get married and come back home to start working on their crops.
This village is Ravan Palli – the village of Ravan – in the Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh. The village is amidst hills on the Andhra-Maharashtra border and, by default, all villagers speak at least three languages. Why Ravan? “Ravan was a king. An administrator and he ran his kingdom well. He was a great devotee too, so why not?” Bheem Rao counters. “In any case, it has been named generations ago,” his sister Suman adds.
Ravana Palli never communicated with the rest of the world. Not for any transactions, at least. They didn’t need to. They grew their own food, married within their clans and continued with the pattern for generations together. They run their own bio-diesel generator for a couple of hours in the evening until after dinner with each household sporting two bulbs. Their techniques, technology, traditions and traits were all their own. Even after the world decided to poke its nose into the village life.
Something else came to be common to the farmers of Ravana Palli. Organic farming of cotton! The farmers grow their own food and alongside grow cotton that goes directly to branded T-shirt makers of the US. They are all covered under an initiative which not just encourages them to practise organic farming but facilitates for sale at a better price.
And, yet, life has not changed in any way for the denizens of Ravan Palli. There is still no road, still no electricity supply, still no transport, no phones and no gadgets. No external governance, no bosses. They live happily ever after.
Life without technology, gizmos, phones and pen drives. Life without multiplexes, without pubs, laptops. No internet, no chat, no downloads. No eating out, no entertainment, no targets, no projects. Time does not stop here, it is just a kind of timelessness. Just a circle of survival. And of procreation. And of natural fruition. Is this what Gandhiji had called Gram Swaraj?
The village ambience is bright. In spite of the silence that reverberates in wind, the blobs of dirt that softly suck in your feet as you walk, cow dung, clouds hovering over the looming hills, there is colour in the air. The adults look content. The kids are perky. Visitors are treated with polite stoicism, as if the inevitability of their exit is well known. And there is self-reliance to a stunning level. What are we missing here?
The destination is least bothered that it is so inaccessible. Mainly since it needs nothing from outside; it is a world in itself. Thirty families, about a hundred and eighty people, almost half of them children, dirt roads, indolent cattle, sturdy homes, a small temple, a tiny school, and a common granary. The village nestles in a valley, green-sheathed hills sheltering it from belligerent winds.
All the adults are land-owning famers, all the kids study in the school which has a 21-year-old girl teacher cycling in from ten km away everyday. The kids grow up and are sent to the social welfare hostel in the town where they finish schooling, they grow up a little more, get married and come back home to start working on their crops.
This village is Ravan Palli – the village of Ravan – in the Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh. The village is amidst hills on the Andhra-Maharashtra border and, by default, all villagers speak at least three languages. Why Ravan? “Ravan was a king. An administrator and he ran his kingdom well. He was a great devotee too, so why not?” Bheem Rao counters. “In any case, it has been named generations ago,” his sister Suman adds.
Ravana Palli never communicated with the rest of the world. Not for any transactions, at least. They didn’t need to. They grew their own food, married within their clans and continued with the pattern for generations together. They run their own bio-diesel generator for a couple of hours in the evening until after dinner with each household sporting two bulbs. Their techniques, technology, traditions and traits were all their own. Even after the world decided to poke its nose into the village life.
Something else came to be common to the farmers of Ravana Palli. Organic farming of cotton! The farmers grow their own food and alongside grow cotton that goes directly to branded T-shirt makers of the US. They are all covered under an initiative which not just encourages them to practise organic farming but facilitates for sale at a better price.
And, yet, life has not changed in any way for the denizens of Ravan Palli. There is still no road, still no electricity supply, still no transport, no phones and no gadgets. No external governance, no bosses. They live happily ever after.
Life without technology, gizmos, phones and pen drives. Life without multiplexes, without pubs, laptops. No internet, no chat, no downloads. No eating out, no entertainment, no targets, no projects. Time does not stop here, it is just a kind of timelessness. Just a circle of survival. And of procreation. And of natural fruition. Is this what Gandhiji had called Gram Swaraj?
The village ambience is bright. In spite of the silence that reverberates in wind, the blobs of dirt that softly suck in your feet as you walk, cow dung, clouds hovering over the looming hills, there is colour in the air. The adults look content. The kids are perky. Visitors are treated with polite stoicism, as if the inevitability of their exit is well known. And there is self-reliance to a stunning level. What are we missing here?
4 comments:
Hope you had a good diwali...in company. Think again about 'nameless and faceless'. Don't you have it on ur YM?
And, it is my pleasure to prove you right. Enjoy your money. Watch your health too. So much contempt for someone 'nameless and faceless' is dangerous for your own heart. Howmuchever cushioned it is. :)
Sounds idyllic.I would love to visit this place.Wonder how many days I would last there.
Life Exclusive, more like.
You mean Life Reclusive.
Post a Comment