Some other things...

There are different events that take place in a village which can be used for promotional purposes. In the rural marketing class I spoke about the Durga Puja experience. However, the important thing is there are many other events that go unnoticed. I am going to write about a couple of such events.

The local football tournaments:

In many villages you would find some sport being held. In my village there is this annual football tournament. It is a big event because it brings in teams from a large number of neighbouring villages and with the team it brings in supporters from the respective villagers. As of now, no one has taken care of tapping this huge event. It should be noted that there might be similar tournaments like cricket or local sports.

The Cockfights:

Another good example can be the cockfights which is very popular in the villages. This even takes place on a weekly basis and starts somewhere around the month of "Sawan" according to the hindu calender and continues for months together. There is huge madness as people train their poultry cocks for months awaiting the main even.

In my next article, I will be writing about my experiences in a haat bazaar. (Hope that will be an add-on before the haat visit)

A rustic feel

Going again and again through RUM (Rural Marketing) classes, I have become kind of nostalgic.

I vividly remember the first time we moved to the village. Since, I and my siblings have been educated in boarding school, holidays were a treat. And running wildly in the rural empty lanes was something that we boasted of when we returned to school after vacations. I think I am going to do it again now.

My village is a quiet and small place 30 kms from Rourkela steel city. When we moved to this place, we did not have metaled roads and there were no vehicles that ever crossed the village, well except bicycles. We were the first and only family that owned bikes and car. We had moved from a town so bikes and cars were nothing new but it was real fun when people would come and peep in through the main gate and boundary wall to have a look at our old maruti car. My mom and dad love to host parties and soon we got to know most of the kids around.

It is an experience that I have always felt well worth sharing but very difficult to pen down. We would go to the stream, a couple of minutes walk from my house, and play water games for hours till our eyes would get red and burn like crazy. On top of that we would be scolded by mom for being out for so long, at times denied lunch, yet we never regretted one moment of it. Who cared for mom's cooked food then, we were seeing free guavas, mangoes, jackfruits, litchis, black berries, pomegranates... for the first time and we hogged on them. I don't know whether this concept of free fruits for all village kids (only you should not throw stones and get sick eating too much) exists everywhere or not, but in my village, it did and so we were town kids drowning ourselves in all the rustic delight.

We would spend that one month of summer holiday as if it would never come again. We would swim (that's another story that till now I have no sense of direction underwater :-)), climb trees and go hunting in the forest (well, I have never managed to aim properly with a catapult and we used to hunt only hares and a kind of bird, which are in plenty and breed profusely), we would run to the open fields to see the sunset in the evenings, go fishing and then in the evening, roast them in the bonfire in our lower garden where we grow corn and lentil in their seasons. We would spend some days collecting round pebbles for the catapult. And when we had nothing adventurous or different to do, we would play some village games. Since, my sister and I were the only girls in the big gang of boys we were favored more and we could break all the rules of the games and still remain not out till the end. I really miss all those fun filled days.

Well, that's for now. Stay tuned for more of my "Village life".