The other side of life

If there is one state of India that I have explored the most - it has to be Maharastra. From Maharashtra-Gujarat border to Maharashtra-Andra Pradesh border - I have visited almost all the districts. I have lived in big cities, small villages, towns, farms, huts; slept on floor, terrace, under the sky, among the hills. It has always been a different experience, and with each place, the feeling of coming close to visiting the whole of state you live in is great.

A month or so back, I made two short trips to small villages of Maharashtra called Lonore, Varoshi and Parkhande. These are small villages where there are plenty of agricultural plots, and I had gone there for an official visit. Some legal work which involves site visit and inspection. I will not go into the legal part, but the places were beautiful.

The image above is the plot that I visited in Lonore. This is how a typical piece of land looks like in most of the places in this season.

The lady is growing vegetables in the backyard. They use some for home and sell the remaining in the market.

The typical kacchi sadak that takes you to those plots.

The hand pump. Rustic memories. Soul of a village. It carries so many stories for so many of us. There was one hand pump right behind my school in Umbergaon. I have seen a few in other parts of Maharashtra, but none in Mumbai. Since it reminds me of my childhood, it will always remain special. This was at Varoshi.

That's Pinha in yellow and Mangli in white and pink. Met them at the site. Since the time I clicked them, they were roaming around me with the curious expressions on their face and hopes that I would click more pics. And I did. Each time I showed them the clicked picture, their eyes would lit. Since it was a work visit, I couldn't click much as I was talking to the local people too.

This is where those kids stay. Their grandfather gave me a lot of information.

And that was it - two visits in those places. I am not a professional photographer, so the clicks will neither be edited nor be nice. They are random and work related in most of the cases. Still they manage to remind me of what I want to remember. Fair enough!