Dad telling stories about his village and his cousins who live there today. They have turned their life around from being paupers and hand to mouth existence in the late eighties/early nineties to minting money off their agricultural lands with bumper crops each year today. Part of the reason why my dad’s part of the family immigrated to Maharashtra and then Gujarat was precisely because even though they owned lots of acreage it was all arid and growing anything was a difficult exercise. Then in the late eighties, the government undertook multi year project of building canals and smaller dams around Krishna and Tungabhadra river tributaries. My uncle was one of the main civil engineers associated with the project, and as a part of survey work he had come across lands that belonged to my grandma that she had no idea she owned (well, nobody did until they found out her dad had written off land to her!). By the time legalese around it was over, my grandma had lost more than 95% of her lands to her brothers who had hoodwinked her in false documents, probably out jealousy, or just plain malaise. After all they were all paupers with lands and nothing to grow but they were smart enough to know you never give up land, and my grandma didnt live there. Their bets paid off – 30 years down the line, their sons & daughters now occupy some of the most fertile land in the area. Thanks to those canals that the government built during those times (& my uncle), the lands truly became fertile from dry arid soil they were. Today the families are minting money by exporting their crop all over India.
I keep thinking back to those visits to the village and meeting all those folks sometimes. I have no reason to visit them, and as bad as I feel about what happened to grandma, I also feel happy they were at least able to do good with what they had. But most of all I think about my uncle and trips we made to their home when young. I dont know if he realizes the monumental impact of the work he did (& as did countless others). India today was built on shoulders of people like them.