The monsoon has finally arrived here in Bengal. As Kaleidoscope travels more and more intensively through the length and breadth of Junglemahal, it's clearer that forest and people have many more stories to tell than perhaps Kaleidoscope could ever write down. Not every story is verbatim.
Seedbed is ready for transplant, and this is one of the busiest times for the people in Junglemahal. The furniture shop owner, the electric contractors or, for that matter, the white-collar professionals are now busy with their gumboots. Its time to spend time in tilling the soil and sowing the paddy. For the next three months, it would be a long wait for the land to hold the crop - like a long gestation.
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| Women returning home after the days work in the crop field is over |
Meanwhile, there are plastic-wrapped bodies coming and going to the field with a small container in hand. What does it hold? Panta bhat - the water-soaked rice of the previous night - a piece of onion and perhaps a whole chilli for lunch for the women.
What about the kids? Would they continue to wrap their bodies? Perhaps Kaleidoscope could never know but for now, he could capture something beautiful here.
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| Village girls returning from the school |
Kaleidoscope knows, perhaps his workplace is the last refuge to many of them - to delay what is called life - marriage, kids and cycles.
