Free from School

d gain some experience in farming. RUSTIC Farm holds a special attraction for me because I was born when my parents lived on this farm and we stayed there till I was three y

85 RUSTIC Farm was sold to the present owners Shyam and Ujwala Achrekar. I had intended to stay with them for a month and learn about farming first-hand. Unfortunately due to some personal difficulties th

ocks for the purpose. It so happened that Guru was doing some masonry work at our house and I was chatting with him about my sabbatical when he casually asked me whether I would like to come plough

at the same time. One needs to put the right amount of pressure on the handle as the plough should neither be too deep nor too shallow in the soil. Also one has to constantly keep one's eye on the bullocks t

ast begin to recognise my voice. Although I went ploughing with Guru for several days in a row, he never let me plough on my own because getting the right balance was still ve

wooden piece shaped like a broad fork across the field. This I was allowed to do on my own and I enjoyed it thorou

the time in-between ploughing. On some days when we were ploughing it used to rain heavily and I enjoyed working in the rain

hem-because naturally, they recognised me, since I am from the same village. One lady, in fact, thought I was playing truant. She told me

d Guru plough about half a dozen fields and even now when the rainy s