My very special home stays. Part I

As I keep reading reviews about many homestays across our country, I cant help but fondly remember my stays in the homes of so many people I have come across, all as part of my job-life.

During my first ever job posting at a small block of Barhi in the Hazaribagh district, I had to spend 10 days with a family in a village called Mahuatanr.  They were middle aged couple, who stayed along with the extended family members. 

As I reached, they extended a warm welcome and gave me a place to keep my belongings.  For sleep, I used one of the ‘Khatiyaas’, placed in another room which I shared with a lady of the extended household.  Soon I was a part of the family.  The couple had a small plot of land and also worked as agriculture-labourers; the husband migrated to Kolkata during the Puja season to find wage-labour options and the lady was the Secretary of the Self Help Group which our organisation, PRADAN, had organised.  They also sold fertilizers, snacks and small goodies from one of the rooms in their house.

Soon I was not only a part of the household but the rest of the little village too.  They were so very warm and welcoming; I missed my room at Barhi no more.  My mornings would start with a warm smile from one of the neighborhood girls and a chat at the well with her.  A refreshing bath near the well, with all the ladies playfully pouring buckets of water on me was a joy again.

During the day time, I would spend my time moving around the village, meeting the family members, attending the Self Help Group meetings. During nights, the women and children gathered in the courtyard and in the light of a small oil lamp and the star lit sky, we chatted for hours.  I often shared my little knowledge about the cosmos, the stars, and constellations, showed the kids the Milky Way and told the women how we are moving around the sun and how to differentiate a planet from a star and how our universe is still expanding.  They seemed so very amazed at the universe; one of them asked me that I should tell them something new about it, every day!

This was a village where I experienced the ‘FIRSTS’ in my life, in many terms.  For the first time, I experienced estimating the time by the sun’s position, since the same day I arrived in the village, my watch had stopped working.  So I depended on the sun.  First time I realized how much the water means to them when some of the women helping me with my bath at the well shared, looking up at the sky, “I think it will rain today, we will have a bath”. 

It was for the first time I observed the wonderful community labour system called the ‘Pachaathi’.  There were 5 groups of households who did the agriculture labour in each others’ field, day by day, in turn.  The most important wage was the provision of a simple but full lunch for the entire family. 

I was lucky enough to be present on the first day when the village started the Rice Transplantation, although I avoided being present at the ceremonial ‘sacrificial’ ceremony of little chickens.

I joined the women in the transplantation and after some hitches, I picked up the art.  They sang through the transplantation taking break for lunch.  I had one of my best sleeps that night.

For the first time in my life (and till the present day, my only), I experienced the pain of being bitten by a scorpion!  And was cured by the local ‘wizard’.  And that day itself I walked about 5 kms in the hills along with the lady of the house to the Village Haat for shopping.

I watched with admiration how the woman, with whom I was visiting the Haat briskly walked back home along the rocky and hilly road, carrying a sack of 5 kilos potatoes on her head.

I was also made in charge of the little shop from where the family sold fertilizers.  So I learnt to differentiate between the fertilizers and used the huge balance…for the first time!

I was told that I glowed much more after I returned from that little, remote village.  More than a decade has passed; I have not visited them ever since I moved out of Barhi. My gracious hosts during the special ten days, my companions in many first experiences in life, may God bless you with long and healthy life.