THE PLEASURES OF A FARMER’S LIFE; Essay

THE PLEASURES OF A FARMER’S LIFE

The pleasures of a farmer are unlike those experienced and enjoyed by the urban rich. They are simple people. Their pleasures too are derived from very insignificant things. Their small home, their fields, the sober .simple wife, the yield from the field, their cattle, the dog that moves behind the bullock cart are what provide pleasure to the farmer even today. As Thomas Gray recalls their life he mentions the children who ‘run to lisp their sire’s return’ from the field. These children wrapped in dust ‘climb his knees the envied kiss to share’. While the ‘busy housewife ply her evening care’. These are the homely pleasures of a farmer’s life.

The farmer does not derive pleasure form the movies or parks or five star hotels or the swimming tanks. Nature is all around him. He enjoys nature in its nakedness. He enjoys according to Gray

The breezy call of incense — breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw, built shed,

The cocks shrill clarion, or the echoing horn

He enjoys fresh breeze of the morning hour that the polluted atmosphere of city can never provide. His bullocks and cows are his best friends—mute creatures who neither complain nor criticize.

He is away from the corrupt world. National or international problems are away from his ambit. He may sometimes enjoy Mahabharata or Ramayana at the Panchayat, TV But his greatest sources of pleasure are his simple uncouth friends with whom he would sit near the temple or the village pond or under the neem tree or in the Panchayat room to gossip on local issues. All his pleasures are indigenous, local. The jokes too are familiar rural jokes. The wit and humor too is limited to local themes.

Sometimes the farmer rejoices in giving or sharing a party on a marriage occasion or celebration of a festival. It is the day when the whole family will be dressed in new clothes and will enjoy the occasion totally absorbed in the fun and frolic that it provides. It is rather the day of climax in pleasure in a farmer’s life, next of course to the day when he reaps a rich harvest.