A farmer's bride

In the billowing green paddy fields, my daughter was jumping with joy. I climbed up a coconut tree to pluck tender coconuts for her. She was eagerly waiting with her mother. When I got down, she pounced upon me. My wife was laughing. I saw her face, there was contentment and joy. Right then, it started raining. I took the sickle lying on the ground and carried my daughter on my shoulder held my wife’s beautiful hand…. 

This was my morning dream I was reminiscing as I walked through the dusty dirt road. The sky was displaying its fury post sunset.

‘I am a better than average looking guy. I have a B.Sc degree in agriculture. My mother has worked her fingers to bones to bring me up after my father’s death. Our land holdings are neither too great nor too meager. 

They are enough to lead a comfortable life. We may not have a lot of liquid cash flowing in all the time, but we grow our own food, we get milk products in the purest form. We own a beautiful ancestral home with all modern facilities. We lay emphasis on human values and we have a loving warm heart. What more does a girl need?’ A trundling bullock cart made me realize that I was lost in thoughts.

I walked past a leafless tamarind tree, the sky had turned grey. I reached home. My mother was busy heaping the cow dung. After freshening up, I stood next to her, cursing my fate. ‘She has to deal with all these chores in her old age. She doesn’t complain about her blurring vision or about her health which is on its last legs. She is not too old, but the decades of hard slog has taken a toll on her body’   I touched her head lovingly. She smiled.

‘Go and rest for a while. I will get coffee.’ she said.

I sat on a bench attached to the house. Staring at the unstained moon, the leaves from the Beech tree stirred a light breeze which was caressing my hair. Mother came out with coffee. Sat next to me and spoke;

Mother: Son, you work really hard.

Me: Learnt that from you mother.  

Mother: The marriage broker had come today.

Me: He said the same thing? Nowadays girls don’t want to make a life in villages…

Mother: (with a gloomy face) I had been to an orphanage today as well, to look for a bride.

Me: (My eyes lightened up because I felt girls in orphanages would not have  experienced relationships like us. They may value emotions of people like us.) And?

Mother: Girls there say that they want don’t want to live in villages. They want to get drenched in the colors of city life. They want to marry a software engineer. It seems some rich people from the city, who want house-wives, come to orphanages and pick them.

Me: (frustrated) I don’t understand these girls. They want to sit and eat what we grow here. At times, they even throw the food. We break our bones in growing it. All village girls want to go to city and all city girls want to go out of the country.

Mother: (identifying with my emotions) They don’t understand, though there is hardship, there is contentment. We know how much mortal effort goes behind every morsel. But don’t worry Son. It’s not that all girls are shallow. There will be someone who will love to live here with a man such as you.

Me: (resigning myself to hope) Hopefully.

This was a brief insight into a farmer life of an Indian village. 

Do let me know your opinions.