Himachal Pradesh, May 11 Tabo: Tabo fields (Nikon)
Director: Anushka Meenakshi, Iswar Srikumar; Cinematographer: Anushka Meenakshi, Iswar Srikumar
Duration: 01:01:54; Aspect Ratio: 1.778:1; Hue: 59.688; Saturation: 0.006; Lightness: 0.475; Volume: 0.094; Cuts per Minute: 12.405
Summary: Because
there is little to do in the winter months, the summer is quite precious here
in Spiti and everyone is quite literally out making hay while the sun shines.
Since the days are pretty long in the summer, this means most people are
working for nearly 12-14 hours in a day. What grows here is mostly green peas, plenty
of barley (called tsampa here), which is the staple food, and some vegetables –
but this is mostly only in greenhouses and not on the fields. Apples, apricots
and a few other fruits have started growing in the last few decades because
changing weather patterns have made the valley warmer than it used to be.
When
we were up in the caves above Tabo, we saw people working in the fields below,
and it was quite mesmerising to watch. On one tiny field there were about
fifteen people working, all in perfect rhythm with each other, and we could
hear the faint strains of some tunes. So when we asked about it, we heard about
yet another of the wonderful systems of Spiti. Everyone works on everyone
else’s farm. That way nobody has to work alone and when people grow old they
can still farm. And these are not poor farmers who are unable to afford labour
or tractors. They are all people who earn and live and eat well. They do it for
the pride of the work and because they have loads of fun working and singing
together.
They
were sowing barley when we went. They farm all the fields in rotation, and in
the one afternoon we were there they completed work on two fields, each about a
quarter of an acre in size. The whole process is like a beautifully
choreographed piece. First a couple of people scatter the seeds across the
field, then a few men run the ploughs in large semi circles, each of which is
pulled by a pair of yak or cows, and the remaining 10 or so people, mostly
women, but also a couple of men, follow the line of the plough in twos and
threes, flattening the field and breaking up the large lumps of soil and rock
with shovels. And for each part of the process there is a song. The men running
the ploughs sing to the cows and yaks to calm them down and make them move, and
you can see quite clearly that the ones who sing a lot don’t need to use the
whip so much to make the cattle move. The women digging the soil sing a song
that’s sort of like a rounder, that roughly translates (although the original must
be much more eloquent) “forgive us for all our sins because we’re simple people
and we don’t know what we do, and please don’t let our sins mix into the soil
and let us have a good crop”. Simple and straightforward. What is really lovely
is the way that the song helps them keep rhythm while they dig so that they
don’t knock each other’s feet with the spades. When the people who are digging
are done and waiting for the plough to run its next round they collapse onto
the soil to take a quick break, but even these few minutes are filled with
laughter and flirtation. One of the women said to me, we laugh a lot here,
which is why our eyes are so small and our faces so wrinkled.
After
twenty minutes or so of watching Anushka was very tempted to try her hand at it..
The tradition is that when a woman first joins in to help on the field, she is
offered flowers as a token of thanks. So she received a beautiful blue iris to put
into her hair.
Anushka:
“It takes a little while to get used to the right-up-left-up digging rhythm but
that really is only the beginning of the complex movement that happens. The
feet of all those who are digging in a single line also do a coordinated
back-front step dance which I tried to imitate, but I found myself nearly
whacking the feet of the woman next to me so I decided to concentrate on just
the digging! Since I have practically no strength in my arms I had to use my
entire body weight to do any decent digging, so instead of the graceful and
effortless side to side swing that the others were doing, I was hopping up and
down and puffing and panting, which earned me the name ‘maindak’ or frog.
The
other thing that the women do when someone joins in to work on the field is
that they sing into the soil the name of the person working. So for a few
moments, there was a whole line of women singing ‘Anushka Anushka’ while they
were digging.
And
after all of that I lasted about three or four rounds – it must have been
twenty minutes or half hour at the most, which felt like eons – before giving
up and collapsing onto the side of the field and going back to the much more
doable work of taking photos and recording songs.”
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Tabo fields and monastery top angle
Tabo, Himachal Pradesh
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Tabo fields and monastery top angle
Anushka walking to the fields
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Ploughing soil with the yak
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Yak walking
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women digging in rhythm, faint song, laughter, women sit down, anushka explains
a woman arrives to join the group
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yak ploughing, women digging in BG
group of women digging in unison, a woman joins in
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women resting, yak ploughing
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women resting, talk, laughter
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landscape, pan to farmers resting
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yak pulling the plough
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yak pulling the plough
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men and women, large group digging
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men and women, large group digging
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men and women, large group digging
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landscape, pan to full group digging
group digging while Anushka watches
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Large group forms to dig together, yak ploughing, lots of song, yak puller singing
Group digging
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Yak puller, singing
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Women dig and rest, yak puller singing
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Women digging, yak puller singing, large group formations
Group digging, yak puller singing
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Long shot of entire farm with group digging and yak puller in distance
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yak almost knock over the camera man
group digs, flower in foreground, mountain in background
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CU yak puller singing
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CU yak puller singing
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Yak puller singing, women break for water, Anushka shooting
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Time lapse of entire farm at work, moving to everyone breaking to eat
Eggs tea and puri being served and eaten, laughter, conversations
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Eggs tea and puri being served and eaten, laughter, conversations
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Eggs tea and puri being served and eaten, laughter, conversations
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Yak resting and chewing
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LS, Group eating
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LS of group eating with shovels in the foreground
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Yak resting
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Small group digging
Anushka is given a flower, talking to women, yak ploughing
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Top angle, Group eating and laughter
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Two men talking, get up to work again
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LS of the entire group digging together
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sparrows eating grain, pan to pond
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Still pond, birds flying across
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Still pond, birds flying across
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Still pond, birds flying across
group of three women digging
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pan from one set of three women digging to another
group is digging, single woman continues, laughter, they leave to another venue
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Iswar, Anushka shadow shot
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shadow shot, walking through the streets, reaching the second farm
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Single man throwing barley seeds, others wait, talk, laughter
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Single man throwing barley seeds, others wait, talk, laughter
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Single man throwing barley seeds, others wait, talk, laughter
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Single man throwing barley seeds, others wait, talk, laughter
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Single man throwing barley seeds, others wait, talk, laughter
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Single man throwing barley seeds, others wait, talk, laughter
Group of women, Anushka talking
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Group of women, Anushka talking
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Yak ploughing, woman deweeding
Group of women digging
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Group of women digging
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CU of ploughing and digging
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Yak, the pair arrive
Group digging
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