Tales from the hinterland

It must have taken her quite a few notebooks. Lathika George filled them with notes, stories, and all that she learned on her journeys to the farms of India. The journeys didn’t begin with an idea to write a book about all that she found out. It was around a year back, when she got the contract from Penguin for Mother Earth, Sister Seed. Lathika dug out her little notebooks and went through the stories again — there have been so many, including the many interviews with farmers, she had to struggle to choose a few from them. But she was sure of one thing. This would not be another gloomy book with all the negativity that is often associated with farming and agriculture sector. This would be about the good farming done in India, about music, dance, tradition and new initiatives.

The idea for the journey came when as a landscape designer says Lathika, her clients wanted organic kitchen gardens. Following which she read up a lot and started implementing it in her own garden. But she realised that was only textbook knowledge. She wanted to find out what farmers did. She figured traditional farmers were sticking to old methods, not using chemicals. And new farmers too were going back to the old methods. That’s the focus of her book.

“I have been visiting farms for many years and I wanted to share the information I had gathered. More importantly, I wanted to take the reader along on my journeys. Sadly, the lives of Indian farmers is not a subject that is associated with a good read. Farming is often portrayed as a joyless venture — an occupation without a future. But this was not what I experienced. I am convinced more than ever that farming in India is vibrant and alive, and far from being hopeless. Besides traditional food producing communities, there are exciting new developments that combine technology and tradition and new definitions of a ‘good life’. I decided I had to write about my travels exactly as I had experienced,” says Lathika, who mostly stayed on the farms.

It was tough for her to decide the regions to visit, and of those she visited, which to write about. “I wanted to focus on different aspects of food production — fishing, herding, food gathering, age-old systems like family farming, methods of water management, farming calendars and the rituals and celebrations that are synonymous with the agrarian life. In the end, I chose the stories that had some of these aspects. I regret there was so much I could not include,” she says. She went to the Khasi Hills of Meghalaya, the Divar Island in Goa, Sunderbans in West Bengal and Mandapam in Tamil Nadu. She went to Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Himachal, and Gujarat. And later she went to her home state, Kerala.

Lathika is a Malayali who grew up in Mumbai. Like most non-resident Malayalis, she spent her summers in Kerala. This meant travelling to family homes, most of these in farming areas. “Each region – from the rice growing backwaters with a rich agrarian tradition, to the spice gardens that had drawn traders from around the world for centuries – had a wealth of stories. But after a visit to the homestead of Cheruvayil Raman, a Kurichya tribal farmer of Wayanad, I knew I had to write about this fascinating community that practices family farming — 200 members on average who live, work, eat and celebrate together. Their lives are a testament to sustainable farming and the significance of community life in agriculture. Importantly, traditional farming communities like the Kurichyas remind you that the future of the earth will always be safe in their hands.”

Bamboo forests in Coorg

Like Raman, she met many farmers across the country who would surprise her with what they had to say. When they spoke of the farmer suicides and agrarian distress in distant parts of the country, the farmers were empathetic. They wanted to help, wished they could somehow ‘bring them back to the fold’.

There were haunting stories. “The violence in the lives of honey collectors in Sunderbans and their daily battle with man-eating tigers.” 

There were touching stories too. When she was on a farm in the Chamba Valley in Himachal Pradesh, Lathika saw the farmers pacifying a cow called Laal, which had come into heat at the wrong time. They spoke calmly to the distressed cow, used medicinal herbs and washed her down with cool spring water. “As I watched bemused, I realised how different it would have been if Laal was in a commercial dairy where she would probably have been treated with strong drugs and unnatural suppressants.”

Lathika never subscribed to the commonly held theory that a farmer’s life is just one of drudgery and misery. She says, “I see more of that in urban areas. I was not entirely surprised, but pleased to discover that my travels affirmed what I have always believed — farming can be fulfilling in every way. I have met more truly happy people out there in farmlands than in any city or town. I discussed the matter of happiness with many of them and their aspirations for a better life. And they surprised me with their answers. While they wished they could earn more, get better prices for their produce, be better supported by their governments, most believed they had a good life and those that did not had already left for the cities.”