Land of the Free

Narayanpur is the land of the free. Or was . Everything here is so full of nature , full of potential, of future possibilities, full of rich historically informed culture and practices. But it is hard to reach here. It is like an island. You get down at Raipur airport and ask the taxi waalas to get you to narayanpur for whatever amount and at least half of them would refuse saying it’s the andar waala rasta. I don’t pay much heed to what they say . No one should. But some do. Anyway, to try to document the land of the free. People here are really still free. In each and every sense of the word.

From being free to being aware of the fact that soon they won’t be, one should admire their self-awareness, which literature says is a sign of people of the highest order: kings, aristocrats, lords- as and when different periods of historical formations dominated. They are so chill in every aspect of life. Exception is the parts where urbanization has brought in different interpretations and influences on the meaning of self and society. Where individual development is preferred over communitarian values and existence itself, and self preservation and profit as the logic supersede every other naive value-based notion or norm.

They take work as work, and life as life. One should learn work -life balance from them. Since it is actually disconnected even today in term of roads and mobile networks, the two things which today get defined as connectivity, are missing. One has the freedom to respond however one pleases, to the falsified urgency created by modern jobs, as explained by David Greaber, in his book Bullshit Jobs : A Theory.

There is some sort of normalcy in the urban centre of Narayanpur, but that too differs from other regular town centres you would have in your areas. Since the staff is from nearby villages, and it was affected by left wing extremism until very recently, as in 1-2 years ago, absence, delays, postponements are a normal thing. Part and parcel of everyday life. Defiance as well. People have their own sympathies. Move away from the town and the scent of freedom is felt even further.

The people here are truly blessed with the potential of the condition of being free. They work as per their need and capacity. To sustain themselves. Agricultural fields once or twice a year, mahua during its season, per the rules of the forest. They work, get drunk, fight and fall asleep. Sometimes on the roads. Under the stars. And a million fireflies. A rivulet flows nearby.

They have their organic food for consumption, while the pesticide grown food is sold. They have their own herbs, hens and the forest produce with which they live happily. The hens. They are so cute when they move around freely, treading everywhere, be it the Gram Sabha centre stage, or the mats laid out with food. Their chicks follow their mother around constantly chirping, looking for a worm there, freaking out and hiding behind the mother the next moment. The cows and their calves are also a pleasant site to watch. I have now started to see them as sentient beings for the first time in life, full of emotion as well as the capacity to understand their surroundings. Calves hide behind their mother at the slightest inconvenience and are groomed by their mothers with love. They can be caught standing under shades during rain and next to a burning log during winters.

I see urbanization in the urbanized center of Narayanpur where broiler hens exist. They are always caged in not-so-appropriate-sized-cages, wounded and scar laden features which are the result of neglect and efficiency, antibiotics and hormones that make them bigger and stay free from diseases. The cows here are free as well. The calves get to drink their mother’s milk. Even though they are bound by humans in some way, they live their lives in freedom and only sudden death comes as a moment of surprise.

The spaces occupied by the villages and then their homes is truly spectacular. It fulfills the needs of a complex social being like a human. There is enough space within their boundary to move around freely, light a fire and lie on a cot next to it, let the hens and their chicks move around freely, store wood and grains under a separate shelter, a tulsi plant somewhere in the corner which they worship. Compare this to the modern living conditions sold off as a luxurious 2 bhk flat where everything is cramped within 750 sq feet and even lesser in cities like Mumbai and paying crores for it. They were never designed to provide the needs of us, like community and private space, movement, keeping plants or pets. We somehow make it work but that wasn’t the original thought. That was to build a shinier and even tighter place to live, than the last such scheme that earned the builders money.

The people are starting to see and feel the chain. The urban centre is a maze already, for the boundless complex transactions that give capital its worth. The villages show a sign of resistance. They named the tree around which the fireflies flew and I was amazed. The next generation would surely not know it. But for today, they did tell me.

It was called Arjun.