Most people assume I’m a film programmer, critic and journalist, and they’re right. But in my non-filmi life, I’ve travelled extensively across India’s rural interiors, working in development communications for over two decades. Let me share a few updates on the rapidly changing rural India—apna gaon 2.0—I’ve seen in the last couple of years, that were a revelation to me. On the eastern outskirts of Mumbai, barely two hours from my home, I met a farmer couple, Maruti Babanrao Shinde and his wife Rajeshri. Hired to cultivate someone else’s farmland, they grew several vegetables—tomatoes, brinjal (eggplant), lady finger (okra), karela (bitter gourd), chillies and more.

I like how, at least in Maharashtra, women farmers wear a saree to work, then a man’s full sleeved shirt over the sari. It must be very hot slaving away in the sun like this, but, I guess the shirt keeps the pallu from getting entangled in plants, and dissuades slimeys from looking down one’s cleavage when working the earth. After chatting amiably with the couple, I said, “Okay, let’s meet tomorrow.” They said they were taking the next day off for their son’s sakharpuda (engagement; the charming Marathi phrase for it literally means ‘sugar packet’). Oho, it turned out that the farmers’ son had done computer graphics. How wonderful, I thought. Then I wondered, if all our farmers’ children abandon farming—especially when the powers that be are selling off farmers’ interests in favour of big industrialists—it is worth reflecting on who will put food on our tables.