Some of dying traditions of Indian villages’ culture —

As much as the modern technology and innovations have taken grip of the Arcadian life as much to that effect it has marred the long,old traditions of the rural culture in India. Some traditions which had been extant for centuries are fading away and are at the verge of extinction. Although, there are so many traditions in this endangered list. But I am going to mention about a few. These traditions were the harbinger of harmony, cooperation and were observed without discrimination in the social system.

Prior to going ahead on the topic, some description of my old timed village’s ambiance here I need to describe as a paradigm of rural culture of that time. Here I am focusing about the period of time 1970-80 of last century when cluster of villages existing everywhere. just you cross the city boundary line and village began to surfaced up. Till that time, these traditions were so common in observance. To say, my own village was was a medium size territory and other villages in the vicinity too were of the same measurement less or more. The same customs and traditions too were observed widely across.

In the name of local shops in the village, two shops were there. One shop had its location at the mid of the village and another situated on the border line of the village. In this second shop, customers from the neighboring village too happened to visit for purchasing  ( term shopping is not being used here on intention,) the grocery items. Now look into the description of shops.  First shop located at the mid of village belonged to a Baniya ( a business class community in India.) This shop keeper had settled here in this remote village since his poor financial background didn’t permit him to run any kind of the business in the city.

This man had settled here in an old shattered building that once belonged to his some kin. Half of the building was like a debris or rather a shattered heap of old bricks. The rest of the part contained three rooms in a row and a small verandah at the front. It was a dwelling just to get by. In the front side verandah with its rough earthen floor, the shop keeper had fixed a hand made bench with no back support. The unhewn legs of bench dug deep into the earthen floor and a rough, hard wooden plank nailed upon. Behind the verandah a dingy room with insufficient supply of the day light where he ran the shop.

The dingy shop contained the daily provisions like dal (pulses), spices, edible items of that time. Only needful items and certainly some note books, pencils, erasers and reed’s pens, slates and  tablets of blue and red hue used by primary school’s students. The another border side shop too was run by two Punjabi lads, both siblings. The parents were these lads were once refugee migrant from Pakistan and they used to stay in city to earn bread and butter with other children. These boys had come to this village to explore the future in grocery shop with meager finance.

They just had erected a makeshift wooden kiosk that served as a shop in day time and as dwelling at the night. The amazing out come of hard work of both the shopkeepers proved noteworthy in the long future. The son and grand children of the first Baniya shopkeeper today are running a huge hardware and paint items showroom in the same location. Likely to that sons of both of Punjabi brothers own a big mart of marble stones and accessorizes and flourishing by day and night.

if I am to talk about the old other denizens of the village, they all are creeping on as usual with minimal growth rate. They simply either doing some jobs or built new fashioned houses at the old and same place. Some of them too are running their small shops since demography has changed vastly now. Reason is,  whatever prosperity apparently seems to come to old denizens, that is because of rapid Urbanization. They almost sold their arable land to property dealers. The old village exist by virtue of its old name registered in the government records only otherwise it’s populated by new migrants.

Now again back to the main topic.In that old period of time, entire population of the village was dependent on agriculture as a main occupation. Some of denizens were small land holding farmers and some medium lands holding farmers,. Rest of people used to work as daily laborers in the fields of those small and medium land holder farmers. But a unique pattern ever existed. Despite of disparity in background, no disparity was in observance. A harmony and cooperation ever existed amid denizens. There was a harmonious tradition that in some social function, entire population was to be invited and participated as well.

I keenly recall, there was no whole wheat stone mill or rice mill machine in the village. At a distance of about three km a whole wheat stone mill and rice mill machine was ran by some one. Since no electric facility had been inducted in the area hence these were run by diesel engines. At some remote places, water mill existed but it were rare. Now come to another tradition why for I have mentioned some thing about stone mill and rice mill. This tradition were observed frequently. If a family sent its whole wheat to stone mill for grinding and due to overwork there or fault in the machine, it was not grinded in time then back at the home the meal preparation could be paralyzed.

To solve this problem, an old tradition was widely observed. The needful happened to borrow a potful or bowlful wheat flour from the neighbor and he too supplied that happily. No sooner the grinded wheat floor came back from the stone mill, he at once would return that. The same patterned was observed with other commodities like rice and edible oil etc. In certain occasions, if wheat stone mill was overloaded or at halt, even miller was to give some prepared grinded flour from his own stock in advance to needful and adjusted it back from the original weight when grinding was over next day.

At that period of time, no item of green grocery was purchased from the city. Every kind of seasonal vegetables abundantly grown in fields or at least in the back yard of every house. Never any green grocery cart vendor was witnessed in the village. Here also a tradition was entertained. If in a house yard pumpkins are abundantly grown but bottle gourd is lacking, in that case, the matron of the house was in habit to visit the neighboring house rich in bottle gourd with a pumpkin in hand there.

It was an unproclaimed indication that neighbor with pumpkin needs a bottle gourd. And she was gifted a bottle gourd without saying a word. The same pattern occurred with other green grocery items. Even on various occasions, if a neighboring woman visited someone’s house for chatting purposes, she too was gifted the grown vegetables by the lady of the house. As just told, in that period of time no green grocery cart vendor visited the villages, just contrast to it, oxen carts loaded with vegetables were sent to big vegetable mart in the city for sale.

Behind these tradition, there prevailed a “sentiment,” no one in the village should go to bed “empty stomach” because of lack of food provisions. Likewise, sugarcane crop were grown in vast area. Any person could pluck the cane freely from any field and relish it. Similarly, fruits when ripen on the tree could be demanded from the owner and he felt it his pleasure to offer that.

An another significant custom was observed by shopkeepers in shape of “roongaa.” In this custom, shopkeeper happened to offer a fistful of roasted grams or pea nuts or other edibles to purchaser as a gift. Specifically, children were allured by this “bonus” and were given to frequent visit to the same shop at the next time purchasing. It was an old form of present day’s “buy one get one free” scheme. Even the adult customers were benefited by this tradition of roongaa. In case, if adult customer fond of smoking, he was gifted a Bidi ( indigenous Indian leafy cigarette,) or some cheap branded cigarette .

At the time of jaggery preparation season, various cane crushers happened to install by outsider’s entrepreneurs. Any dweller of the village was allowed to drink full stomach sugarcane juice free of cost. If hot,fresh jaggery was ready, he could take enough to eat there only. In the social functions, every one participated and assisted his desired help. No any caterer’s service were hired at that time. Only village’s senior expert elders were to prepare the dainties.

Now at present, firstly the concept of village has vanished. Fast Urbanization has soiled every thing. My this small Himalayan foot hill city has expanded in wide and length so grotesquely that no village is left in its original shape. Construction is mushrooming up every where. To say if somewhere, any misshapen village exist as a remnant, the egotistic attitude of “show off” has infested people. this attitude is altogether “anti” to that old traditional,sweet ambiance of harmony and cordiality. Every old tradition has almost died and rest too will soon or later. Penned by — Vinay Pharasi —–