Holo za holo za…
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I.
“I will never get tired of this place.” I think as I watch the barley fields sway to the rhythm of the cool afternoon breeze. It is harvesting season in Spiti. Finally, the days we spent irrigating and picking weeds in the hot afternoon sun have paid off. The barley stalks are yellow and tall and so graceful. The sheer joy I get out of watching something grow because of my hard work. How can I ever reduce this joy to words?
In the background, I can see the huge mountain ranges and the narrow tributaries of the Pin river meandering through the vast expanse of land. I yearn to hear the flowing sound but I am too far. The sky is changing to hues of pink as the sun has already set down and the mountains with that backdrop are the embodiment of beauty itself. I quickly pull out my phone and try to capture it but alas! The deficiency of megapixels in my phone camera does injustice to the beauty that is dancing in front of my eyes.
The men and women are harvesting the barley stalks at an impressive speed. Very few portions of the field are left now and soon after the stalks will have dried up, the time would finally come to run around the ultag shouting “holo holo holo” at the top of my voice. The phase of spiti that I missed since 2010 because of my incompatible school reopenings after summer holidays. The few barley stalks left are still swaying or perhaps trembling, being aware of their fate of being grabbed by a fist, cut down with a sickle and being trampled mercilessly under the hard hooves of those animals it could see grazing a few feet away.
Being a novice in the harvesting work, I struggle to catch up with the speed of my village folks. My back hurts for I’ve stood in a bent position tying up the barley stalks into bundles for too long. But I don’t complain because if working for such a short duration in an entire year gives me difficulty, what about my parents and the other village folks, who do it throughout the summer months? I see that they too have troubles, they too get tired, but they endure it all. Such is the resilience of mountain people which makes me so proud. I hope to build such resilience because if my body can survive such hard work and challenges that come with living in a remote area with extremely low temperatures in winters, I feel I can survive anything that life throws at me.
I have noticed that I seem to paint a very positive picture of life in the mountains. But by doing that I don’t mean to romanticize the challenges of living in such harsh climatic conditions. There’s nothing fun about shovelling away snow for hours while your hands get numb or about pumping vigorously during snow blizzards to get a few cans of water. Or about being engaged in a monotonous task of picking weeds from the fields under the scorching heat of the summer sun, desperately waiting for that one blow of breeze which would cool your body at least for a short while. But I don’t complain and I would never run away from the dust, from the snow blizzards and all the other challenges that come with living in the mountains. I would never move to the cities to escape all of this because these are things which make me ‘me’. I have also felt that physically intensive life here tires my body but never my heart. No matter what kind of physical intensive work I engage in throughout the day, at the end of it all, I sleep with a content heart. I feel happy and satisfied. Because living among the mountains in an internet devoid area during my childhood has taught me to value and enjoy every moment of life.
The field is finally bald now, all its previous possessions lying in bundles scattered here and there. I help aapa to collect the bundles to make a khuru. Soon, all the barley stalks are carried to the ultag. I go up to the ultag and watch the prayer flags fluttering on top of my roof. Summer colours are slowly fading out. The fields are bare. The grasses have already been harvested. The field boundaries have been destroyed and the horses have been let in for their valuable dung and manure. Then suddenly I hear some thumping sound from behind and I jump forward in fright. Hah! It’s a beautiful black horse trying to make its way to better grasses. But my poor soul got frightened for one kick from it, and I would be soaring high into another world perhaps haha!
II.
“Ache Yangzom, holo holo korak hena diring?” I hear my little cousin rushing to my house shouting this at the top of his notorious house. His eyes glint with excitement as he enters the room. It’s been three days since the barley stalks have been basking under the sun in the ultag. It’s finally time for them to get crushed, get separated from their fellow stalks, turn into tsampa and jenbe and get into our stomachs. (well, a far-fetched imagination right?) Aama is preparing the morning thukpa. I take out my little bag of stones that I collected during my ventures into the jungles for collecting cow dung or for leisures. You might find it weird but I love collecting oddly shaped stones. Two of them look so much like a cut piece of bitter gourd and my cousin gave it to me when he knew about my weird obsession. To go to another level, I’ve also taken these stones along with me when I was joining college as a first year. They continue to take abode on the desk near my bed and may be perhaps having an existential crisis now for they have been detached from their fellows. All that is left for them to see is my room wall full of quotes and random ponderings and Kpop posters.
“Oti dua gyala chi demu thong rakpa?” Aama glances towards my stones while she collects bowls for having thukpa. Then I hear aapa and my uncle walking towards the house perhaps discussing how they would carry out the process of separating the barley grains from the dry stalks. They say that it would be easier to do the separation work for they have brought a thresher machine from a relative. Now we would not have to struggle catching the animals to be used for the repetitive trampling work. We would not have to depend on the wind to blow our chaff away while we lift the crushed pieces continuously and simultaneously for the heavier grains and the lighter chaff to settle in different places. My parents seem to be happy because it is a lot of relief for their body. However, I feel a little disappointed. I look at my cousin who is protesting against this decision. “Ngu taa rang bhalang gya zumdu don, holo holo korna la.” And he marches out the room saying this.
III.
Aapa is continuously putting barley stalks into the mouth of the thresher machine. Two people are passing him these stalks. My duty is to take out the filled tub of barley grains and empty it on the tarpal nearby. My cousin is wandering around the bare fields still wearing the look of disappointment. Where is the fun in listening to the awful din made by this machine? But the workload would be reduced by many hours. I am sure that in the evening, my parents would no longer be as tired as they would be if they did it the traditional way.
But there’s a different joy about shouting holo holo holo, picking up my tsar with the rhythm of the blowing wind and watching my grandfather use the sieve to separate the grains from the chaff. Sometimes I am caught between this web of tradition and modernity. I know that using these machines will make the lives easier and tire the bodies of me and my loved ones less. But it steals some joys away, you know. The loud din of the thresher machine steals the joy of working together. It steals the existence of holo holo holo away. And that makes me a tad bit sad but it’s okay. So far this technology lessens the manual labour and the physical strains that the village folks have to endure. So far it makes them happy.
