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| Sunday, 09 April 2006 |
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Bringing the harvest home by Aditha Dissanayake I am a daily paid worker today, on a farm called 'Teal Forest' in Serukelle, Chilaw. My wages are Rs. 250.00 per day, with lunch and two cups of plain tea. I will be cutting the maha season's paddy, gathering it and piling it for winnowing with six others on an acre of paddy land in the dry zone, in time for the New Year.
The Manager of Teal Forest, is not that keen to hire me. He does not believe my educational qualifications, and experience earning a living with the weapon of mass description, will be of any use on his paddyfields. But when Malkanthi sends word through her sister saying her husband Kiri Chooti requires her help today because one of the cows are in labour, he has no choice other than to allow me to fill the vacancy. 'Tck' says Ariyawathi giving a disapproving look at my attire. Here is someone who does not believe in the comfort and convenience of a faded denim and a cotton shirt. Removing the piece of cloth tied round her head she gives it to me asking me to tie it round my waist. I oblige her for a few minutes but give up when the cloth begins to slip down my knees every five minutes and the others begin to laugh saying, 'Onna, onna, onna, aiy watuna' (there it comes down again). My colleagues don't mind teaching me how to cut the paddy. 'Hold a bunch of paddy like this, in your left hand" says Jeevan, who had skipped school today to join his elder brother Nilantha and his father, Sunil, to help with the harvesting. "Take the knife into your right hand, and with one clean sweep cut the stems". It seems easy when you watch, but try it for yourself and you realize how difficult it is to hold the paddy in one hand and make 'one clean sweep' with the knife. 'One shot, non stop" Nilantha tells me the manthra of the paddy harvesters. Standing knee deep in mud, bending double to reach the paddy, everyone works in dead silence. Except for the srrrrrs, srrrrrrs sound made by the knives and the occasional call of a peacock, there is no other sound around us. "Aren't there songs to sing when you harvest the paddy?" I finally break the silence wondering whether it is taboo to talk on the paddyfield and that this could be why everyone is silent. 'Yes, there are goyam kavi, but I don't know any of 'em' confesses Nilantha, who is surely a modern farm-hand with a waterproof watch round his wrist and a camera phone in his pocket. 'Umba papol malak vaage goyam kapana kale hamuwoo...' begins Jeevan, but stops in mid- sentence when he sees the Manager walking towards us to joins us and finish one "liyadda" while talking with Sunil, about giving a dane at the temple with the newly harvested rice. After the mid-morning break for plain tea, the work continues till lunch, the ambula, is served under the shade of a murunga tree. The meal has the traditional curries prepared during the harvesting season - pumpkin curry, dried fish and cabbage leaves.While the men continue cutting the paddy, the women gather the bundles to form a mountain of paddy. This is called 'kola karanawa'. 'Things were different in the past', says Ariyawathi. 'When I was a lass, the paddy was gathered into a Kamatha and no woman was allowed to step into it'. Today a machine which the villagers call the "Agrimat" does all the work from separating the grains to winnowing, while the final phase of milling the rice too is done at a rice mill in the town. Work comes to a stop at dusk with a dip in the village tank, and another steaming cup of plain tea. Pocketing my hard earned wages I wonder if I should return the next day for another day's work but realize I better not. Like how everyone keeps telling me, if you are a street sweeper, be the best street sweeper in the world... and I know I will never make it on the paddy fields of Chilaw. |
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