Eastern Cowboy

"Eastern Cowboy".. My colleague remarked, he was glancing over my screen while I was googling for "Western Horse back riding lessons".
I asked him "So any places I can use to fulfill this desire?".
He said "Lots of them in the outskirts of the city. But winter may be the wrong time to pursue something like that".
Who cares its winter or summer? I feel like doing it and I want to do it.
I have always been passionate about horses, not a surprise since my favorite movies are historical movies with passionate men on horses, weilding their swords, fighting for what they believed in.. (not that I am blood thirsty or anything)

Come to think about it, in a way I was always a cowboy. For the most part of my younger days I grew up with my maternal grandparents at their house - access to a better school, relief to my parents who were struggling with the recent failure in my father's business. My maternal grandparents had this house in the middle of acres of agricultural land - paddy fields, coconut trees, aracnut trees, mango trees, jackfruit trees, cashew trees, guava trees,.. and lots and lots of them. Four generations living in the same big house which was older than my grandfather himself. My maternal great grand parents were still alive and in good condition, my grandparents who were still young if you were to draw parallel to western standards (my grandfather looked so young and handsome, he could get a dozen girlfriends in Canada), my mother's brother and sister were also staying in the same house and then me - the only kid in the family and centre of attention.. It was lovely.. And boy wasn't I something?, my aunt was a sprinter and it took all her talents to catch me and get me bathed every evening.. I had a special relationship with my great grandfather, but more on that later..

The long strip of coconut plantations were ideal for playing, and I would often get lots of kids to play with me, neighbors' kids and kids of those who used to labor in our farms.. If nobody else, I had the baby cows to play with. There were about 5-6 cows and 1-2 calves at any point.. I would have stacks of hay preserved from the past harvest season to jump into and swirl around..my grandmother would yell at me warning me against snakes, it really didn't bother me.. its a different thing that I would feel itchy all over my body during the night and my grandmother would patiently apply local herb medicine on my body..

Calves are great to play with. A calf will start running few minutes after it is born. And the next few days it will be running most of the time. It was fun chasing it across the plantation, trying to catch it, wrestling with it, sometimes I would press my head against its head and challenge it for a head to head match, and it would most willingly comply..

Weekends, I was either playing or climbing trees.. Have you ever climbed a mango tree, plucked a ripe mango and eaten it while you are still on top of the tree? It is an incredible feeling, for that matter guavas or even cashew fruit..

Every month the coconut pluckers would come to pluck coconuts, and that was a big activity for 2 days, I would tag along making sure that I don't miss a minute, I would even have lunch with them - drinking rice soup and mango pickle using the folded leaf of a jackfruit tree.. oh that was so tasty after all that hardwork (agreed i never used to do any real work, but it was still physically demanding to shadow them at every point). They used to treat me like a little prince, often cutting me a ripe coconut full of sweet coconut water - my stomach used to be so full..

Summer was mostly the fruit season - we would have so much of mango, jackfruit, pineapple, that too so many varieties, we would have so much left even after giving to the neighbors and the cows and the squirrels and the birds that we would have to bury the left out pieces.. I think I only ate mangoes and jackfruit during the season. Summer was also the fishing season, there were ponds in the land which would be connected by small streams throughout the year. The streams will dry up during the summer and fishing in those ponds would start. My uncle and his cousins would come over on a weekend, they had a special technique of passing electricity into the pound, the fish will get paralysed for a few minutes, they would then cutoff the supply and jump in and collect as many fish as they can. The fish never dies and we would keep it for days in huge pots until its turn came to be cooked. There is this associated story about my cousin, he was holding back his pee for a long time and interestingly thought the pound would be a good place to relieve the pressure.. except that it had a live wire.. ofcourse the charge was very minimal and he survived with no long lasting damage(He now has a kid to prove that, you know what I mean?:D It was panicky initially, but as soon as we found out he was ok, every body were laughing their lungs off..

Harvest season was almost like a festival. Machines were not used as much. Morning of the first day of harvest season we would have about 10 - 15 people coming in who will basically pluck the paddy plants and organize them into small stacks. My great grandfather and grandfather would be around supervising and guess what, me too.. I always used to pretend that I am doing something very important.. A few days of plucking, we will have the courtyard full of stacks of plants, the grains still on them. Then they will start separating the grains from the plants using their foot, I was there every step of the way.. Once that's done a group will move to dry the stem so that they could get stacks and stacks of hay (for feeding the cows). Another group will start boiling the grain (Have you heard of boiled Kerala rice, you won't find it anywhere in North India, it is a special process of boiling before the shell is separated from the rice grain)..

Immediately after the harvest season is Onam, Kerala's most colorful festival. 10 days of festivities and holidays.. The place would be the most beautiful with lots of flowers blossoming all over.. My great grandfather always made it a point that we celebrate every Onam and I get the maximum out of every bit of celebration..

Once Onam is done, there is this man who came with a large herd of ducks and unleash them into the paddy field so that all those left over grains and worms could be eaten.. Then comes one of my favorite parts - my grandfather didn't favor tractors too much, probably because he had a regular person who would come in and plough the fields with his pair of bulls, he was old and I think he was doing this for my great grand father even before grandfather was born. I would be allowed to shadow him as well, I would jump into the mud and follow him as he ploughed the large fields..

Then came the cowdung treatment, we didn't use as many fertilizers, it was primarily dried cowdung that was used as a fertilizer - for some reason I preferred to watch :)

And then the sowing season and the planting season.. I didn't miss any of those, why would I? I was like a prince among those people and I always got what I wanted (well most of the time..)
Sometimes I do miss those days.. Last time I was there, I had a few visitors, the same people who once labored in my great grandpa's fields, they had become old.. It is customary for you to give away some money to each of them, and as I handed over the few bills they looked at me with gratitude, thanked me, some touched my hand with affection, some told me stories about my childhood and how they had to comply with my demands and I could see that the gratitude in their eyes changed to affection and love, some complained about their life and complained how the younger generation is not interested in cultivation and the old way of life.. There is practically no cultivation in those areas now, but how can I complain? I didn't stay back either.

Many of them are since dead, most will not make it to the next harvest season, but if they make it I am sure they will come to meet their little prince every time I am there..

Peace..