Hardwork

13/04/2018

Pulgaon

‘Mehnat’ is the Hindi word for hardwork. He punctuated his enthusiastic conversation with mehnat all through this little tour of his dairy farm, fodder fields, feed storage and the growing cheese business that was seeded with four thousand rupees. In his words, this is ‘original’ work, built through hardwork.

It has been an amazing evening with a man who has grown confident in his ability to raise an enterprise and turn around family’s fortune. Each of his high yielding variety of cows cost over seventy thousand rupees. With a disarming humility adds that who would have thought I could earn what I earn today. ‘See me in two years time’, he adds as he discusses plans of expansion.

Not far from his house is a farm where he grows corn for cows. On a part of it, a crop of spring onions is coming up. He uproots a bundle of bulbs for me to carry home. A bag of freshly harvested corn has already been delivered. His prosperity and soaring spirit is gripping.

As the cows are milked by his sons, he gets a shower and dresses up in a crisp ‘safari suit’ and leather shoes. One cant help admire the next moment when he reaches out to a can of milk to walk down and deliver it to a customer himself.

Prosperity in its most admirable and inspiring form, I begin to think. He ends with the same word, mehnat, hardwork and that it is all his hardwork. We stand together sharing his pride as the cheese is set for early morning delivery.