Thinking of people in India
03/06/24 01:20
When I was young my aunt and uncle went to India as agricultural ambassadors under a program jointly sponsored by the US Department of Agriculture and the US Department of State. The program took US farmers abroad to various countries to meet with farmers in their host country and share agricultural techniques. My aunt and uncle were dryland wheat farmers in Montana. Following World War II they surveyed and laid out all of their fields in strips, alternating the strips between production and lying fallow each year. The technique allowed the fallow strips to store moisture. The producing strips helped to prevent soil erosion due to wind. The practice, still used today, produces higher yields year after year compared to farming all of the land every year. Depending on the practice, it can require a fair amount of herbicide to control weeds and mechanical tilling of the fallow land for weed control consumes a lot of fuel. My first summer job away from home was working summer fallow on their farm for several weeks followed by helping with the harvest.
I was young enough that I don’t know how much of their agricultural trip focused on teaching their farming methods to farmers in India, but I certainly got the impression that their farm was more efficient than the ones they visited in India. Rural America was the “breadbasket of the world,” according to what I had been taught. The abundance of my uncle and aunt’s farm was evident to us. We hauled 30-gallon barrels of wheat from the farm each harvest. The wheat was stored at our place and ground into cereal and flour to last us throughout the year until the next harvest. Hard red winter wheat makes great bread flour and cracked wheat cereal was a staple in our family diet.
After visiting India, my aunt shared a lot of recipes for Indian food with our family. When we would visit she would demonstrate the sahris she had brought home with her, often wrapping up one of my sisters as a demonstration. They we would sit down to a meal that featured heaping bowls of cooked rice. I’m not sure I understood how techniques for wheat production in Montana translated to rice farming in India, but we would look at the color slides my uncle had taken on their trip and my father and he would discuss farming methods.
Later my aunt and uncle made other trips as a part of the farm exchange program, traveling to several Central and South American countries. We had bright colored knitted wool face masks that they brought home from a trip to Bolivia and Peru that we enjoyed wearing for outdoor play on cold winter days. I never mastered the technique of keeping my glasses from fogging up when wearing the face masks, but I managed to wear one when delivering newspapers in below zero temperatures.
To this day part of my image of India is colored by the photographs, meals, and stories that were a part of family gatherings after my aunt and uncle traveled to India. Later, when I was an adult their son, my cousin, made a different kind of pilgrimage to India, visiting some of the same places where they had traveled but focusing on getting to know and learning from the farm people he met on his trip. He told me about how he learned about discovering joy in simple everyday things and learning to live more simply, consuming less.
My image of India and its people is incomplete I am sure. What I do know is that it is a very populous country with significant poverty in some places. I also know that has invested heavily in education and produces many doctors and health care professionals who move to the United States to address our shortages of health care workers. India also has a growing tech sector with Indian workers providing much needed labor for the manufacturing and servicing of computer hardware and software. The distinct Indian accent is often heard when calling for tech support.
I really am, quite ignorant, however about the country, its cultures, and ways. Over the past few days, however, I have read several news articles about the dangerous heat wave that has swept over the country. More than 50 people have died in India over the past three days as a brutal heat spell continues to grip parts of the country. The country held a general election on Saturday with results set to be announced tomorrow. The general election is held every five years. This year the election has taken place during record-breaking high temperatures. India has been experiencing more frequent, more intense, and longer heat waves in recent years. The federal health ministry confirmed nearly 25,000 cases of heatstroke during March, April, and May. News reports suggest that the actual number could be much higher. Police officers, security guards, and sanitation staff were among the victims of the hot weather.
In Odisha district there have been reports of 99 suspected heal stroke deaths in the past 72 hours. Twenty cases have been confirmed according the the Special Relief Commissioner. There have also been heat-related deaths in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand.
Heat stroke is very dangerous when not quickly treated. The India Center for Disease Control says the mortality rate from heat stroke is between 40 and 64%.
One news source reported that the capital Delhi is nearly “unbearable” with temperatures rising above 50 degrees Celsius, which is 122 degrees Fahrenheit. More than 37 cities in India recorded temperatures over 45C in the past week with Delhi registering a record temperature of 52.3C (126.1F). Water supplies have been running short in the heat wave with supplies cut to some areas while tankers have transported water to other places. Strict water restrictions have been imposed with officials have been enforcing rules designed to prevent waste.
In India people are praying that the monsoon season will arrive soon. It could begin any day now.
Meanwhile here in the Pacific Northwest it is soggy outside as we sit under an atmospheric river. It has left me feeling a bit like I did when I was a child. Confronted with news of suffering in India I felt a need to share but did not know how to do so. I am as powerless to send our comfortable weather with ample rainfall to another part of the world as I was to send the abundance of wheat that we took for granted when we were growing up. I think, however, that my cousin got part of the solution right. I can help by consuming less of everything. Global climate change is in part the product of human greed and over consumption. Learning to live with less is a skill worth my attention and care.
I was young enough that I don’t know how much of their agricultural trip focused on teaching their farming methods to farmers in India, but I certainly got the impression that their farm was more efficient than the ones they visited in India. Rural America was the “breadbasket of the world,” according to what I had been taught. The abundance of my uncle and aunt’s farm was evident to us. We hauled 30-gallon barrels of wheat from the farm each harvest. The wheat was stored at our place and ground into cereal and flour to last us throughout the year until the next harvest. Hard red winter wheat makes great bread flour and cracked wheat cereal was a staple in our family diet.
After visiting India, my aunt shared a lot of recipes for Indian food with our family. When we would visit she would demonstrate the sahris she had brought home with her, often wrapping up one of my sisters as a demonstration. They we would sit down to a meal that featured heaping bowls of cooked rice. I’m not sure I understood how techniques for wheat production in Montana translated to rice farming in India, but we would look at the color slides my uncle had taken on their trip and my father and he would discuss farming methods.
Later my aunt and uncle made other trips as a part of the farm exchange program, traveling to several Central and South American countries. We had bright colored knitted wool face masks that they brought home from a trip to Bolivia and Peru that we enjoyed wearing for outdoor play on cold winter days. I never mastered the technique of keeping my glasses from fogging up when wearing the face masks, but I managed to wear one when delivering newspapers in below zero temperatures.
To this day part of my image of India is colored by the photographs, meals, and stories that were a part of family gatherings after my aunt and uncle traveled to India. Later, when I was an adult their son, my cousin, made a different kind of pilgrimage to India, visiting some of the same places where they had traveled but focusing on getting to know and learning from the farm people he met on his trip. He told me about how he learned about discovering joy in simple everyday things and learning to live more simply, consuming less.
My image of India and its people is incomplete I am sure. What I do know is that it is a very populous country with significant poverty in some places. I also know that has invested heavily in education and produces many doctors and health care professionals who move to the United States to address our shortages of health care workers. India also has a growing tech sector with Indian workers providing much needed labor for the manufacturing and servicing of computer hardware and software. The distinct Indian accent is often heard when calling for tech support.
I really am, quite ignorant, however about the country, its cultures, and ways. Over the past few days, however, I have read several news articles about the dangerous heat wave that has swept over the country. More than 50 people have died in India over the past three days as a brutal heat spell continues to grip parts of the country. The country held a general election on Saturday with results set to be announced tomorrow. The general election is held every five years. This year the election has taken place during record-breaking high temperatures. India has been experiencing more frequent, more intense, and longer heat waves in recent years. The federal health ministry confirmed nearly 25,000 cases of heatstroke during March, April, and May. News reports suggest that the actual number could be much higher. Police officers, security guards, and sanitation staff were among the victims of the hot weather.
In Odisha district there have been reports of 99 suspected heal stroke deaths in the past 72 hours. Twenty cases have been confirmed according the the Special Relief Commissioner. There have also been heat-related deaths in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand.
Heat stroke is very dangerous when not quickly treated. The India Center for Disease Control says the mortality rate from heat stroke is between 40 and 64%.
One news source reported that the capital Delhi is nearly “unbearable” with temperatures rising above 50 degrees Celsius, which is 122 degrees Fahrenheit. More than 37 cities in India recorded temperatures over 45C in the past week with Delhi registering a record temperature of 52.3C (126.1F). Water supplies have been running short in the heat wave with supplies cut to some areas while tankers have transported water to other places. Strict water restrictions have been imposed with officials have been enforcing rules designed to prevent waste.
In India people are praying that the monsoon season will arrive soon. It could begin any day now.
Meanwhile here in the Pacific Northwest it is soggy outside as we sit under an atmospheric river. It has left me feeling a bit like I did when I was a child. Confronted with news of suffering in India I felt a need to share but did not know how to do so. I am as powerless to send our comfortable weather with ample rainfall to another part of the world as I was to send the abundance of wheat that we took for granted when we were growing up. I think, however, that my cousin got part of the solution right. I can help by consuming less of everything. Global climate change is in part the product of human greed and over consumption. Learning to live with less is a skill worth my attention and care.
