Jeep and went to the farm land. In the beginning they all decided to gather stones so that a temporary wall can be erected as shelter for the night stay. Joshi personally was involved in the physical work. In the evening they all ate their bhakaris together in the light of a lantern. Joshi was finding that entire experience highly exciting. For the first time since his return to India he had a feeling of doing something really worthwhile. After supper two of the nine persons went to their homes citing some difficulty. Two others left a little later promising that, ‘We shall now go the village and go house to house. Tomorrow morning at least two persons from each house will, hundred percent, come with us.’ Remaining five and Joshi himself somehow managed to spend that night by the side of the shelter wall, shivering in cold as the winds kept blowing through the mountains. In the morning Joshi and other five started work in all earnestness hoping that others would join them soon as promised. But till noon no one turned up. Then there came news that someone in the village had passed away and immediately the remaining five bhumiputra also hurried back to the village. Now on that collective farm only Joshi remained sweating his guts out! That show of apathy began to be a routine affair. One day Joshi asked everyone frankly, ‘What is your problem? Do you want to do farming or not? If not, tell me so and release me from this ordeal.’ After these candid words everyone seemed a little shaken. They began to patch-up by saying, ‘Please don’t leave. If you go, then everything will collapse. Let us somehow adjust and find a way.’ But by now Joshi knew there was not much substance in what they were pleading. He had spent about couple of thousand Rupees of his own so far in that experiment. It was obvious that they were wasted. Hands in Soil
Q
85
