Babys Cradle in the Courtyard Indian Village Rajasthan 2

by Sue Jacobi

Title

Babys Cradle in the Courtyard Indian Village Rajasthan 2

Artist

Sue Jacobi

Medium

Photograph - Fine Art Photography - Digital Art

Description

Babys Cradle in the Courtyard Indian Village Rajasthan 2.
I recently had the privilege of visiting and staying in several villages in Rajasthan, India. It was an amazing experience and a real eye-opener. This image is one from a series depicting village life scenes. The family and neighbors gather as usual in the front courtyard of the house. When there is a baby in the family, sleeping or otherwise, where else would s/he be, if not with the rest of them? In the courtyard, of course! His cradle, made of cloth on a wooden stand, quite simply belongs in the courtyard! And mommy has just sung him a lullaby and got him to sleep.
Typically the villagers used to live in huts made of mud, with thatched roofs. In recent times though, many of them have constructed concrete / bricks / cement houses on their land, replacing the mud huts. Usually there is a large area left free in the front (let�s call it the courtyard) and / or the back of the house (for housing cows, or a kitchen garden). I was very impressed by the clever way in which these folks have used their limited budgets to build the essential, and leave out the frills! For starters, there is no living room!!! Hey, who needs a living room when the climate is hot and dry almost the whole year, and one can squat on the ground or sit on rope cots in the front courtyard, in the shade offered by the house? A small TV is wall-mounted in one of the bedrooms, and the whole family can watch it squatting or sitting on the cot in the room. Right� Now as to the �house� itself � Usually it consists of 3 bedrooms, each of them leading directly off the front yard. Each of these rooms can be locked individually from the courtyard, just like one would lock the front door of our houses. Along one side wall of the compound, there is a brick shed that is constructed. It has brick walls on the 2 sides and the back, but the front side is left totally open to air, and has no walls or doors. Just a couple of pillars, to support the sheet roof on top. In the shed, there is one large deep �trunk� box, the size of a large freezer, made of metal, to hold miscellaneous storage. For example, bundles of clothing. This is kept locked with a padlock, when not being accessed. The rest of the shed is empty of furniture, except for one or two rope cots that keep getting moved between there and the courtyard, for sitting or sleeping purposes.
And the kitchen, you ask? Well, there isn�t one.
A family in the village may typically have two cooking stoves : the first one is an open stove called a chulha, constructed out of mud, along another side wall of the courtyard. Logs of firewood are used to build a fire in it, and the cooking takes place there in the open air. The smoke escapes into the air. Hot Indian bread called rotis, phulkas or chapatis are rolled out on a rolling board while the lady squats on the courtyard mud floor next to the choola. She then bakes them by placing them individually on a hot pan on the choola. She then skillfully turns them over, and they puff up, making them nice and soft. One hot phulka roti done! Dinner anyone? To accompany the rotis, she has already made a sabzi, a dish made of vegetables, and a dhal, a sort of delicious lentil soup. Fussy folks might add a spicy pickle and some natural yougurt to round off their meal.
The family owns a handful of cooking vessels, plates and glasses (none of them made of glass! They are all made of unbreakable, long lasting & hygienic stainless steel). Now these, after the meal is eaten, are washed up using water (a rare commodity) sparingly. This again is done manually, while squatting in the middle area of the conveniently sloping courtyard mud floor. It is a kind of hard mud, almost baked in. It doesn�t seem to flake or come away, it almost looks like a rough floor made of cement. As the courtyard is sloping, the washing-up water flows downwards, into a shallow ditch, and the courtyard remains dry. The washed vessels remain right there (placed upside down on a sheet for the sake of hygiene) in the courtyard until the next mealtime. As for drinks, the main liquid consumed is precious water. On an open shelf in the courtyard, a couple of large pots are kept, cleaned and filled with fresh drinking water daily. A small stainless steel is placed on the lid, inviting visitors and family members to help themselves to this thirst quencher. Other than water, the only other liquids that are popular, are a cup of sweet milky tea or chai, flavored with ginger and cardamom and consumed several times a day� And whisky or other hard liquor that are popular with many of the men folk, around dinner time.
In Rajasthan and North-West India, a dhani is the smallest conglomeration of huts. All families living in a Dhani are relatives of each other or at least are of the same caste. Most Indian villages are small; nearly 80 percent have fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, according to the Indian census 2001. Most are nucleated settlements, while others are more dispersed. It is in villages that India's most basic business � agriculture - takes place.
For a tourist visiting Rajasthan for the first time, it is actually difficult to find a village in the vast stretches of barren land. It is only when a herd of cattle is seen around that the tourist gets an inkling of a village nearby.
Dhanis are ancillaries to the village. Those who want to live in proximity to their fields make their huts in the field and are able to take care of their crop in a better way. The crop when ready is a valuable asset and needs to be properly guarded from stray animals and enemies.
A dhani(also known as a boothra) is a complex socio-economic unit. According to the Revenue Act, in India this is smallest viable unit. A cluster of a few houses is known as �Dhani� in Rajasthan. Indian villages are definitely simple. A cluster of mud-plastered walls shaded by a few trees, set among a stretch of green fields, men sitting under some old tree smoking bidis or beedis with fellow villagers of their own age group, ladies with veiled faces moving towards the central well to fetch water, cattle making many types of noises, children playing typical village games like gilli-danda and satoliya�all present an image of eternally peaceful bliss and harmony.
Indian city dwellers often refer nostalgically to their native village and how they miss that life but soon are taken back by absurdly hectic city life. City artists portray colorfully garbed village women gracefully carrying water pots on their heads, and writers describe isolated rural settlements unsullied by the complexities of modern urban civilization. Poets including Indian National Poet Maithili Sharan Gupta have written poems in praise of village life. Social scientists of the past wrote of Indian villages as virtually self-sufficient communities with few ties to the outside world.
Since all marriages are done in the same or nearby village, villagers in India manifest a deep loyalty to their village, identifying themselves to strangers as residents of a particular village, harking back to family residence in the village that typically extends into the distant past. A family rooted in a particular village does not easily move to another, and even people who have lived in a city for a generation or two refer to their ancestral village as "our village." Even business communities who have moved to far-off places for business activities like traders from Rajasthan in Kolkata, Chennai and Assam make it a point to visit their native village for performing social ceremonies.
No matter how strong the bond of the villagers is, their unity is challenged by a lot of conflicts, rivalries, and factionalism. Disputes, strategic contests and even violence occur. Most villages of India include prosperous, powerful people, who are fed and serviced through the labors of the lower-class people.
The village dwelling unit, popularly known as a hut, is usually circular in shape. Its simplest hamlets, the most basic form of civilisation with a way of life that has probably remained unchanged since centuries, consist of a collection of huts that are circular, and have thatched roofs. The walls are covered with a plaster of clay, cow dung, and hay, making a termite-free (antiseptic) facade that blends in with the sand of the countryside around it. It is thatched with grass and hay. Sometimes clay moulded Kelu are also used. Boundaries for houses and land holdings, called baras, are made of the dry branches of a nettle-like shrub, the long, sharp thorns a deterrent for straying cattle. The huts so made are technically hygienic and give the feeling of air conditioning. In summers they remain cool and in winters it remain warm. If a dhani looks bleak, it is hardly surprising: the resources for building these homes, which are the most eco-friendly living unit, are made with what is available at hand, and in Rajasthan, and particularly so in its western desert regions, this can mean precious little. A village that is even a little larger may have pucca houses, or larger living units, usually belonging to the village Zamindar (landlord) family. Consisting of courtyards, and a large Nora or cattle enclosure, attached to one side or at the entrance, these are made of a mixture of sun-baked clay bricks covered with a plaster of lime.
Indian villagers share use of common village facilities - the village pond (known in India as a tank), grazing grounds, temples and shrines, cremation grounds, schools, sitting spaces under large shade trees, wells, and wastelands. Every village has a pond where cattle and children bathe and play. It is a romantic place where youngsters get a chance to steal a glimpse of their beloved. Outside the village or in the center, a temple is must in every village. In eastern part of India there are more than one ponds & ponds are often reserved separately on the basis of gender.
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Context: baby, cradle, patio, courtyard, mom, family, friends, neighbors, kitchen, chulha, stove, roti, chapatti, phulka, dhal, sabzi, bhaji, curry, veggie, vegetables, drinking water, pots, living room, bedroom, TV, house, home, kitchen, hut, mud, shed, village, rural, Indian village, village life, village scene, Rajasthan, Rajasthani village, farmer, landlord, shepherd, cow, cattle, india, rajasthani, dhoti, lehenga, travel photography, exotic, travel art, sue jacobi, agriculture, man, people, portrait, countryside, road, roadside, street, sidewalk, farm, farmhouse, traditional, sun, sunny, hot, warm, heat, summer, indians, indian, rural culture, culture, persons, clothes, attire, style, exotic, tropical, tourist, tourism, travel, colorful costume, colorful attire, attire, wardrobe, hindu, hindu culture, lush, shrubs, greenery, green, arid, desert.

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March 15th, 2015

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