“Is there rain in your village?” It was Karabhai Aal on the phone from Banaskantha district in North Gujarat. “There is none here.” That was in the last week of July this year. “If it rains, we will go home,” he had declared with half a hope.
That he was speaking to a non-farmer in very urban Pune city, 900 kilometers away, didn’t seem to matter to him, so great was his anxiety. Karabhai’s complete focus on the rains arises from the centrality of the monsoons to the survival game he and his family play out each year. Continue reading