Flooding

I have traveled in motorcycles and scooters in various part of India but traveling in Punjab gives it a different feel all together. As the fresh air hits your face and the green fields pass by, the images take you into a peaceful mindset when compared to Delhi and Mumbai where everyone seems to be in hurry, and has an errand to run. One will not find more colour in India than in Punjab with men and women in bright attire placed among the green and yellow fields.



The camaraderie exhibited by the interaction of these individuals is something to behold with the rustic Punjabi that loudly booms with a slap on the back; and this is just hello! As for me I looked young and natty. My body is slim and trim with my hair callow and boyish. Well it does not take long to figure out that I had lost weight and looked a bit different. There are always invitations to dinner and proclamations that I should eat more for by Punjabi standards I need to be bigger. This of course was said in the most polite and happiest way even making me smile as I explained that I am of a slim built.

I talked to farmers about the flood that had just hit Punjab and what happened to their crops. All throughout the state 38,000 have been affected with 26 lives lost and one lakh acres of standing crop damaged. Mine was one of the 306 villages in 9 districts that were damaged by flash floods following the heavy rains. As I listened to the farmers I saw that there was pride in their faces, but they were also tired, sad, and worried. I realized from my own history of growing up in a farm that all farmers everywhere are just as tired, worried, proud, and sad for all they have is the soil they turn and the crops that they harvest with the earth as the only resource. Many times there is nothing more than this earth that provides heartbreak and joy.

As I looked at the food in front of me later that night I remembered an old line from somewhere, that the grain of rice on your table does not tell the grim tale of the toil that grew it.