Changing colours amid the bloom
Come April and I cannot wait to get back to my tiny village in the mountains after a seven-month, soul-destroying hiatus in the wasteland that is Delhi. Purani Koti (PK) is 16 km from the concretised and car-swamped purgatory of Shimla. I have built a cottage there and have tried to atone for my large bureaucratic footprint of 35 years by planting, over the years, about 200 trees on my land, of which 180 or so have survived, a much better rate than that of the forest department! They include oak, deodar, chinar and horse chestnut; the most prolific, however, are the weeping willows, which belie their name by looking luxuriantly happy for most of the year.
I like to be there by March-end and personally experience how man, animal and nature all welcome the arrival of spring. During the four months of winter when we can receive as much as 2 feet of snow, PK goes into hibernation. Most outside activities cease, construction of houses and hotels is thankfully suspended, all birdlife, except the tiny tits and bulbuls, disappears. All “outsiders”, including “domiciled” ones like me, head back to the metros, leaving to Geetika the onus of keeping our flag flying in these freezing times!
Geetika has so fallen in love with this place that she braves it out through much of the winter with her three labradors. She runs a charming homestay, but I have a sneaking feeling that that is just an excuse to stay away from Gurgaon! How can one blame her?
The willows and wild rhododendrons are the first to start leafing and flowering, followed by the rock begonias, hydrangeas, geraniums and nasturtiums: my garden explodes with a new colour every day. The roses, as befits their exalted status, make me wait another month before flashing their blood-red visiting cards. Among the fruit trees, the apricot blossoms stain the landscape a soft pink by the end of March; a few weeks later, the apple and ‘nashpati’ flowers, too, will add their lilac and white hues to nature’s palette.
On cue, the butterflies, bees and bumblebees miraculously reappear, though sadly not in the numbers of 15 years ago when I first arrived here. They flit frantically from flower to flower as if renewing friendships of the previous year. There used to be dragonflies earlier but they have now gone.
The tiny songbirds, barbets and Himalayan magpies, with their extravagant tails, will be here soon, followed by the incredibly green parrots whose non-stop chattering is the avian equivalent of our social media. The elusive jungle fowl and khaleej pheasant can be spotted again at dawn and dusk in our dense forests of deodar, blue pine and oak, furiously rummaging around in the leaf litter as if looking for something left behind in the summer.
After seven months of living in a neon-reflecting grey shroud, I can see the sun and the stars again, greeting the morning orb with a prayer and wonder in my heart: is this the same sun that one dreads in Delhi? The night sky is like a star-sequinned bosom pressing down on my upturned face — silent, comforting and all-embracing. The only occasional sound is that of a jackal complaining plaintively of his lot in life or the learned hoot of a barn owl. It’s Eden without the serpent.
The whole village comes to life again: kids in smart new uniforms hop their way to school, labourers from Nepal and Bihar return to jobs in construction and orchards, even the PWD workers survey the potholes while smoking beedis wondering whether it’s worth the effort of filling them up. (It’s not!). The farmers are back in their now sun-drenched fields, sowing the potatoes, peas and cauliflowers that will see them through the year; the orchardists complete the last of the sprays on apple trees, praying to Shali Mata, the local deity, to spare them the hailstorms that can wipe out a year’s earnings in a matter of minutes.
But the rhythms of Eden are changing. Spring arrives a few days early every year, confusing the plants, birds and insects. Villagers are shifting from vegetables to stone fruits and spur variety of apples: these involve less labour, recurring costs and risks; the returns are also higher. There is less water for irrigation each year: vegetables require regular watering, fruit trees do not. The whole economy of the village is changing, which by itself is not a bad thing, for everything must adapt to survive.
There is, however, one major discordant note: the unwelcome conversion of rich, productive agriculture lands into plots for building of ugly “villas”, hotels and holiday homes for well-heeled outsiders looking for second and third homes. They contribute little to the rural economy; they rarely spend more than a couple of weeks a year in them. But they despoil the green environment, strain the limited infrastructure of power, water, roads; dump their garbage and plastics in the forests and foul the little streams. Fruit trees are felled and whole orchards razed to make way for these pestilential structures. Grazing fields have been built over, to the point where villagers have stopped rearing cattle because there is no grazing available. So, now, milk, butter, ghee and even manure are brought in from outside in plastic bags.
The policymakers have devastated the towns in their quest for quick bucks from a tourism model that is unsustainable; they should not repeat this mistake in rural areas like Purani Koti. Promote only homestays and B+Bs: these do not involve diversion of precious farm land or orchards, do not strain infrastructure yet provide profitable livelihood options for the villagers.
This is, of course, wishful thinking; it will not happen in my lifetime. I don’t think my little Eden will retain its natural splendour much longer. I only hope that I’ve shuffled off this mortal coil when the serpents take over.
— The writer is a former IAS officer
