The Hindu Business Line : A day to remember

Years have passed since the day when this photograph was taken. It truly represents all the progress we have made thanks to the man with the plough.

"Any one who knows what the worth of family affection is among the lower classes, and who has seen the array of little portraits stuck over a labourer's fireplace... will perhaps feel with me that in counteracting the tendencies, social and industrial, which everyday are sapping the healthier family affections, the sixpenny photograph is doing more for the poor than all the philanthropists in the world..."

— Macmillan's Magazine (London), September 1871.

A few years ago, on Kanum Pongal day, my friend Karuna, who had recently bought a Tata Safari, was keen we go out on a photo outing. Kanum Pongal, coming soon after harvest festival of Pongal, is a day when the entire state of Tamil Nadu — particularly the rural areas sets out on a big picnic. The Marina beach in Chennai becomes `the place' to be for many villages near the city and so also some amusement centres on East Coast Road leading to Mahabalipuram. It is a day of celebration — it does not matter whether it is a bountiful harvest or a lean year. It is a day of merry making.

Karuna had had difficulty in reaching our house on the outskirts of the city, but he and our other friends Simon and Thamba were keen we go and take pictures of this colourful day of the Pongal season.

Driving along the East Coast Road we sensed our task was not going to be an easy one. It was a mass of people and on varieties of transport with the decorated bullock carts with boisterous children being the centre of attraction. We were caught between people going to the city and those who were heading towards the seaside recreational resorts in search of their own brand of entertainment. Those days the road was a far cry from the four-lane road of today and we were finding it difficult both to move forward or reverse and get back home.

We moved literally, inch by inch, amid the deafening noise of the yelling and shouting crowd, who pounded away on the vehicle with their wrists! Simon tried to take pictures through the closed windows but the moment they saw the camera, things got only worse. Simon hastily hid the camera, but Karuna kept his cool but it took us more than an hour to cover what was just a kilometre! Once we were past Golden Beach Resorts it was a bit easy, but chances of parking the car and getting down to take pictures were out of question. Tata Safari was not happy with the snail's pace we were driving, but it did not murmur and its air-conditioner kept us cool. Somewhere down the road, to the right, Karuna saw this tank bund road relatively calm. He managed to slip through the oncoming traffic and took that turn.

The road ahead was narrow and full of potholes — a stretch that connected us to the Old Mahabalipuram Road. There was silence in the car and a bit of disappointment too, for we had not been able to get any pictures.

There, after a while, we saw this village. Not many people to be seen; may be they were out celebrating. We parked under a banyan tree. And what a relief it was to get down and stretch our arms and legs! The rest of us complimented Karuna for his calm and careful driving. Little tired, we wondered if we could get some cool water to wash and freshen up. A few minutes later, we saw a few kids hesitantly walking towards us. They touched the car, looked admiringly at it and then came first question: "Where are you from?" Thamba said, "From Madras," and quickly asked if we could get some water to drink. As though it was a command the children ran and almost immediately we had a small pot full of water in front of us! The young, curious children were looking at us. The cameras were out and the faces of the children with many a question became a study.

One of them asks, "Do you want to eat something?" The question comes as a surprise. We are hungry and in one voice we ask, "What can we get?"

"Masala Vadai. A man and his wife make them next to the school."

That was tempting. Forgetting the photo aspect we ran to this little roadside eatery. The couple was all courtesy — typical of village folk. And there we were with our young friends enjoying the crisp vadais!

We spent an hour there and it was time to get back. The sun almost about to take an orange hue. We told ourselves we would come back to the village again, spend a whole day, and the photo essay would be "A day in a village".

We were back on the road, hoping that we would not encounter the impossible traffic once again. We had hardly gone some distance and there it was on the narrow tank bund — a bullock cart loaded with paddy hay leisurely moving ahead of us. We did not know what to do. There was no chance of overtaking on that narrow stretch.

Suddenly it occurred to me that this visual would convey so much that is our country — the vast majority of farmers, irrigation, farm produce, all of which is so much dependent on monsoon. And technology, whatever success it can talk about, still oriented with this barometer of efforts by a plough and cattle.

Requesting Karuna to stop the car, I got down and advised them to keep moving. I ran down the bund, parallel to the car and the cart — it was thick moist clay and in my pursuit I lost my chappals — but somewhere there I got the picture I wanted.

Time has passed. Today, we talk of the IT revolution, industrial growth, et al. But my mind goes back to the times when we stood before the US begging for a barrel of wheat. Then came an astonishing change — `The Green Revolution' by the farmers of Punjab, and then the `White Revolution' heralded by Gujarat. And today, we talk of surplus in food. But then did it all happen yesterday?

Yes, we have grown and thanks to the man with a plough. But then we have also tarnished his image by violence and destruction. A pity he has to bear the brunt. No, I do not want talk of politics or political leadership. I certainly do not want to associate a hard working, honest man with ugliness.

Back in the car, the sun was almost disappearing, but strangely the orange didn't have that tinge of red. The sky was a large stretch of blue with many a dash of colour. It was comforting... We were happy that Karuna took us out that day. Years have passed, but it's a day to remember!

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