Welcome back to This is India! I always have funny/weird stories about India to share with friends or family when I talk to them. This is just meant to be an honest portrayal about my life in India through short anecdotes. I also share here what I’ve been up to online outside Hippie in Heels.
What I was up to other than here:
- I’m at my parents in Ohio! Since I was in Malaysia, then India, then Ohio within 4 days, my jetlag was pretty bad. I have been to see my cute lil grandma in Southern Ohio & went to Lake Erie for a couple days with my mom. To get there you have to drive through the country: fields, old trains going by, amish riding past in buggies… gorgeous! My dad has abandoned us to go fishing with my brother, uncle, and cousin! (jk about the abandoning, obvi!)
- I got a new mac book pro! This means I’m going to be blogging even better. JK it means I can watch Game of Thrones on a retina display ;)
Now your story,
When my parents came to visit Goa, we took a road trip to Hampi. The drive there is windy and long (about 8 hours) and I absolutely hate it! My mom gets car sick and we were in a small Swift so it wasn’t the most enjoyable ride.
When passing through a small town near Hospet we saw a lot of farmers. There’s something they do which is very “only in India” and that is putting their grains in the road and allowing cars to run over them. Why not let the big cars going by do all the hard work for them?
As each car passes they throw more and more onto the road. It’s bumpy when you go over, but no big deal and you’ll never see a driver complain. I guess they like helping. Either way, to a foreigner this is very funny. You would never see this back home and actually if a farmer did this a person wouldn’t run over it. They would yell at the farmer that it’s not their road and they need to keep it clear so it doesn’t cause an accident or cause damage to their car.
I wish I had a picture of this, but never stopped to take one. Maybe you have one you’d like to share and I’ll add it to the article. Have you noticed this in India?
This is India!
Did you enjoy this post? Let me know in the comments or by sharing it with the social media links! I’d love to keep giving you travel tricks & tips so feel free to subscribe by e-mail in the big purple box below. Don’t forget you can follow me on facebook, twitter, instagram & bloglovin‘.
feature image: donkeys
How random! I think it’s awesome that your parents are so open to visiting you in India. My parents wouldn’t even entertain the idea of visiting me in Indonesia. I’m working really hard to convince them to visit me when I move to Cambodia. I think I’m making some progress but still. Anyway, it’s nice your parents are down for a little adventure :)
Well, it definitely took some time and I can’t say it was top of their list, but they wanted to see me and get to know Ben. They’ve told me it’s a one time thing! But you should try to convince yours about Cambodia, would be so cool! You can tell them “but rachel’s parents went to India…” like we all did as kids haha
Maybe it is a way of harvesting specially for those who do not have machines to do the job work. I guess. What an idea. Not bad?
Yes, it seems to be
Even I haven’t heard or seen this kind of thing ,although there are lots and lots of rice fields in Punjab .I think India is as bizzare for Indians as it is for the Westerners. By the way absolutely loved your posts on North India and Amritsar.
I’m surprised you haven’t seen it! I’ve seen it mostly in Goa and Karnataka.
They also do that in the Philippines. Rice is laid out in the road to dry and vehicles run over the kernals, which are then sifted to separate the chaff from the grain
That’s cool! I’ve never heard of that. I went to Kerala as a kid with my parents but I didn’t see any of that.
It’s very clever!
Yes, I have seen this a lot in the 80s and 90s decade. This is a cheap (actually free) way of threshing the grain. Normal way is to take a bunch of cereal plant and beat it down on a hard surface. Farmers who either do not have the manpower or machine power to do this employ this technique. The vehicles move over the laid out grains which threshes it effectively to loosen the husk from the grain. Rest is simply winnowing the stuff. But its good that you noticed it as we never even give it a second thought.
It’s a good example of Indian’s figuring things out, as they seem to always do!