Hand harvesting traditional paddy of our village

In Traditional paddy farming, harvest is a big celebration particularly in Tamil culture. In Pre-colonial era i.e before British left India, majority of India's people dwelled in villages and their major occupation was agriculture. Whole village functioned as a community. When the harvest is over, the people carry paddy to a common place. Its called "kaalathu medu". There everyone from farmer, to carpernter, to farm labour to people who work on maintaining water bodies and other farm labourers of the village get their share of paddy. The exchanged paddy grains in the place of money. This was the barter system which they were practising for centuaries. No central banks. This was prevalent in our village until 2000s. Paddy grains were their currency. So, harvest marks of importance in India villages particularly in Tamil nadu. Whole village comes to celebration mode during this festival. In Tamil calender, Thai month(in mid January) is celebrated as New year which marks the paddy harvest season. People would clean their home. White wash it, as they prepare to welcome the harvest festival, Pongal. During Pongal, people would cook with the new rice they got from the harvest. This dish is called Pongal. Pongal is typically a dish made out of rice. This is an important festival even today in Tamil nadu. Cows were integral part of farming in olden day. Our ancestors did organic farming with the help of cow dung. So, Second day of festival, is celebrated as Cow Pongal. People give cow a good bath and treat them with respect and worship them thanking them for their help in farming. Cows gets their food i.e dried straw for their next year during the paddy harvest. During Pongal, Cows are celebrated by involving them in traditional cultural sports like traditional bull taming locally called Jallikattu. 

But, due to the influence of modern agriculture, this culture got erroded and machinary & chemical fertilizers has replaced cows & people who lived as a community. 

For paddy alone, India is a home to 2 lakh varieties of traditional paddy seeds. Many of them had medicinal properties. But, now, majority of these are extinct due to the industrial agriculture.The seed diversity and breeding knowledge of our traditional farmers was so vast, that every village in India breeded its own paddy varieities suited to its local geographic and climatic conditions.

So, we started to searched for the native paddy seeds of our villages for years. We found some indigenous paddies that were grown in our village for centuries but discountinued due to the influence of industrial agriculture. So, after we recovered some of our villages own indigenous paddy seeds, which were grown till 16th Century. We grew them organically like our ancestors. We created an open event where people would participate and harvest paddy in hand. We traveled to a remote village where a villager has been known to manufacturing blades used for harvest traditionally. Finally, we purchased those blades.

With the newly purchased traditional blades, with the traditional varieties of paddy that were grown in our village for centuries, we were a group of young people trying to get our hands dirty in farming. The environment was so magical. Many youngers who were used to urban culture found this experience very different from theirs.

Finally, after harvest, we collected the seeds in traditional way for the next season in the same manner our traditional farmers did. It was such an experience.