Disappearing sights...

 A few sights from Kerala I'm beginning to forget....because I've so become used to urban life...


This may seemsimple to rural people...but nowadays I see these sights only on television.

A kaccha road, rather  an un-tarred, dusty village road....yes, that's a fast disappearing sight. Another remarkable thing about this dusty stretch is the lack of wall on either side. There are just linear mounds of earth which kind of roughly demarcates the path. If you look closely once more, you can see the brown, fallen leaves lining the sides. These days, we're so concerned about keeping our avenues neat and tidy that such a thing is unthinkable. Also, city dwllers like me will say, "What if there are snakes inside it?"

This is what I found at the end of the road...a sun-drenched field lying fallow. With theland prices going up...I guess it is fated to remain un-cultivated for the rest of its time, till some building comes up on it.

There was also this small culvert running along the field. There was only a trickle of water in this canal but the next day, after torrential rains in the night, it was flowing half full with a small but good current. This one reminds me so much of a small canal ('kaana' as we called it) behind our old house when we were children. After rains, it would be bursting at its seams with all the rain water from upstream (Yes, we knew its upstream part too....). If I remember correctly, we have even attempted fishing in it once or twice. There used to be small fish in it during the monsoons, and miraculously the fish used to seep into our well also, as the ground water levels in the well too goes up due to the percolation. That was a pretty sight...the well filling up so much to the brim that you can just dip a mug into it and scoop water!! The kaana was gradually hedged in as people owning plots on either side of it concreted the sides and reduced the width of the canal. Gradually, with increase in the number of houses, the canal also turned into a waste dump. People would come in their vehicles and quickly  fling their plastic covers with wastes into it. With the same changes happening upstream too, the water flowing through it gradually decreased, even during the monsoons it couldn't live upto its past glory....