Revisiting the unvisited

These vacations which probably would be the last one in coming years has been the most constructive one, as far I am concerned. I learned how to cope with challenge, roamed around, wrote things, read a lot and definitely one of the best one was I visited the place I was born. I belong to a family in which my generation is the first one which has fully lived in cities and hence just like the rest of the urban population, I had become totally immune to what village life is what the problems are. Though things were often discussed at home about the rural life, and newspapers as well as magazines put in a lot of writing over it but still you don't get the real feel until you get there and experience it first hand. I had visited my village last year too but that was just for 2 days and you don't get to know anything in two days. I had been there for a longer period when I was 10 years old, now with my brain grown up along with me, I could see,experience and conclude things over everything that I saw and comparisons with city life is obvious.
First of all, to reach my village you need to walk for about 3 km from the nearest town, and guess what I didn't knew the path (something which didn't amuse anyone in my family). There were just three turns in the middle and I who had received precise instructions on phone still got lost and reached some other village. Then I decided to ask someone and prayed that the people here know the way to my village. I was lucky that the first person I asked knew the village, after telling the path, he asked me to whose house do i want to go in the village. When I told about my family I as astonished to know that he knew everyone in my family and above all did tell the passerby to whose house I belong too. I was just looking in bewilderment, just wondering what a strong human network operates in villages, where everyone in a village knows about people who are in villages farther than 2 km from their own. Here in cities, I don't think there would be people who knows even 20 other families completely apart from their own. Thankful to the courteous people I finally was on the right path. Once I was just a 1 km away i saw a cycle stopping in front of me and he asked me to ride behind him. I did and finally I reached my home. At home I came to know that the person who gave me a lift was distinctly related to me and is a brother, in fact most people in village are somehow your relatives. I was told that when he came to know that I had probably lost the way, he rushed to get me, again something that I wouldn't expected from such a distinct relative who had lived in a city like Delhi for long. As I told that since everyone in village is your relative, so whenever you see someone new, there would be touching of feet, either by him/her or by you all depending upon the age. The most difficult scenario is when you encounter someone of your age, you don't know whether you have to give the blessings or have to receive as you hardly know how you are actually related but you do know that you are related. So on an average you end up taking blessings from 20-30 people for first couple of days, depending upon how frequently you move out of your house, and well giving blessings to some 4-5 people.
The best part of you staying in village is the food. Everything that you eat of drink is freshly made and contains no chemicals. So vegetables are freshly plucked from the farm that puts limit on the choice of vegetables though but you can just smell the freshness, the spices are all freshly grounded, milk product is from the cow/Buffalo at your home which has been milked without any injections, even the ghee that you take is fresh and free from chemicals. During evening time you can always take a stroll at the place where fruit trees are planted and pluck some of them by either climbing or by showing your skills of sharp shooting (of stones). But one thing is for sure, you would end being obese if you stay there for long because even light jogging wouldn't suffice for the amount of food that you would intake on daily basis. So if you want to stay fit, eating such a food you need to adapt to the way of living the local people have which involves heavy physical work of working of fields starting as early as 5 am in season.
As I started meeting people, everybody already knew that I was an engineer. Everybody felt proud that someone as young as me from their village was an engineer. There were some informed people who asked me about my stream of engineering and of whole production and industrial, they could just catch production and feel that it is a great thing. Next thing always comes about job, the best thing about this enquiry related to job was that none of them asked my package rather were interested in knowing what the company does. This is another thing which was totally different in city. Here whenever I am probed over the placement, the order of questions are - have you been placed? then which company? package? work only few people uptill now have cared to ask. Coming back to the village scenario, it would have been much easier to answer the question about the package but what the company does, it was the most difficult thing to explain. Word "consultancy" is alien for everyone and moreover everything that you say would be viewed under the purview of word "production". I don't think I could satisfy many people over my work in the company but yes made the work a lot easier for future engineers of the place as from now on I don't think anyone would be so interested in knowing what the company does. Distinction of private or public would end everything. I think the post had already gone a bit too long, so I'll shut here but will type down the things as and when I feel like because a lot is left to be told