When Life Gives You Lemons

Adventures from a remote Goan village.

Earlier this year, I moved to a remote village in Goa. By remote, I mean really remote. It is in the interiors, an hour’s drive from the coast, and even within Goa most people aren’t familiar with the area. My mother and I are the only non-local people living here, and most of our neighbours wonder why anyone would move from Delhi to this remote nook in the middle of nowhere. The village is in the outskirts of a forest on slightly hilly terrain, has fresh air, and blue skies. I sleep and wake up to the cacophony of insects, birds, and frogs making their presence felt, and there are more trees than people for as far as I can see.

© Ila Reddy

I have travelled extensively in rural India, lived in a small town in Uttar Pradesh, stayed at rural homestays, and yet nothing quite prepares you for the challenges you face when you move into your own place in an Indian village where you don’t know anyone. Despite popular perceptions of what a Goan village must be like, the place I am at is nothing like what you may have experienced in more connected parts of Goa, especially in the North. It is a typical Indian village for all practical purposes, just with a better standard of living than a village in UP or Bihar. 

Our daily challenges these days include sourcing technicians like a plumber, carpenter, electrician, well-cleaner, or gardener, having just moved in, with lots of repairs and fixes to be done. Being a remote area, most skilled people from the village work in the nearest big town, so finding someone when you need them is hard. When you eventually source a contact, good luck getting through their phone! It will be unreachable, busy, they won’t pick up, you will keep trying because of lack of options. When you magically get through their phone, good luck convincing them to come to your village – a good 20-minute drive from the nearest market. When they finally visit, good luck getting them to finish the work within the estimated timeline – because for every material they need that they forgot to bring with them, the work is extended by a day or two (sometimes more). Life is s l o w and nothing you say or do will make them move faster. Thankfully, my mother has been with me to help me manage all of this while I’m caught up with professional work during the day, and it has still been chaotic to say the least.

The icing on the cake was a particularly severe thunderstorm the night before we left for Delhi to vote. The compound wall of our home got struck by lightning, leading to a short circuit and many damages. We have been busy with repairs, complaints to the Electricity department to fix our damaged meter, and now know what precautions to take the next time there’s a storm. But as is evident, everything about living here over the last four months has been a steep learning curve. From trying to find someone to install a lightning arrestor in a village where nobody has one, to locating the nearest mill that can extract cold-pressed coconut oil and turmeric from our homegrown yield, to finding a well-cleaner before the water-level rises – this has been an eventful quarter trying to problem-solve issues we didn’t know we needed or have thought about before.

When life gives you lemons

‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’ is an overused proverbial phrase that suggests that sour lemons (read circumstances) can be turned into lemonade (something positive and useful). At this point, I’m grateful for even just the lemons. For a city-bred person like me, to grow my own veggies (and eat them too) has been a dream. I don’t know a thing about farming or gardening – pretty much every hard-to-kill plant I have tried to grow in our tiny balcony in Delhi has eventually died a brutal death – but I’m learning. To see flowers bloom, trees bear fruit, or even grow a few inches after rain, is so rewarding, even though a lot of this year’s harvest is due to someone else’s labour. Coconuts, turmeric, chiku, pineapple, lemons, jackfruit, brinjal, amaranth, lemongrass, black pepper, star fruit… harvesting them and then sorting the good from the bad, figuring out what to make with them, and noting down lessons for next year is what these past few months have been about. No doubt there are many challenges, but the journey has been interesting and joyous.

© Ila Reddy

Going rural isn’t necessarily a sensible retirement plan

I’ve dreamt of moving to a village for a long time. I imagined giving up my big city life and living amidst trees, breathing fresh air, eating food grown in my backyard, and living a slow, peaceful life. At first I didn’t have the money, and later, I couldn’t find a place that made practical sense, keeping in mind my specific needs. So I focused on saving, investing, and building a remote career while dreaming of a different life. I figured I would sooner or later find a place and ‘retire’ there (by retire I mean live a slower life, have more control over my time, and have adequate savings to sustain basic needs). I’m not there yet, and this move happened unexpectedly, but it certainly busted the myth that this life is for when you’re older, or a nice retirement plan. 

If you want to live off-grid, or in a remote village like me, find a way to do it when you’re younger rather than older. Daily life in a village is far more physically-taxing than city life, especially if you don’t have help, or have never done it before. It involves skills you probably don’t have and need to learn from scratch, often without a teacher. There is no Uber to call if you need to get to a hospital, no local taxi stand or autos nearby, or a doctor on call. Hell, even if there are any, good luck getting BSNL network to work. 

Age is just a number and this is not to say older people cannot live this life – some might even thrive at it. All I’m suggesting is that postponing dreams of living in a remote area may not always be wise, as it’s easier to embark on these adventures at the peak of your health rather than when you have limitations. Life here is a different kind of hustle – slower for sure, but still physically and mentally taxing, especially in the beginning when you’re trying to find your ground. But like the perks of big city life, the slow rural life has its own moments that make it all worth it. 

© Ila Reddy

Oh do you have time
        to linger
                for just a little while
                        out of your busy

and very important day
        for the goldfinches
                that have gathered
                        in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
        to see who can sing
                the highest note,
                        or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
        or the most tender?
                Their strong, blunt beaks
                        drink the air

as they strive
        melodiously
                not for your sake
                        and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
        but for sheer delight and gratitude—
                believe us, they say,
                        it is a serious thing

just to be alive
        on this fresh morning
                in the broken world.
                        I beg of you,

do not walk by
        without pausing
                to attend to this
                        rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

– Mary Oliver

A masterclass in patience

One of my primary concerns about making the move to a remote place was unstable internet connectivity, as my professional work depends on this. I don’t have the skills to earn a living in a rural area, unless I work with a grassroot nonprofit like I did many years ago (which would hinder any dreams of financial independence in the near future). So continuing to nurture a remote career while doing work I believe in and can sustain is of utmost importance.

As insinuated earlier, the only phone network that works here is BSNL. Most of the time there’s poor signal, but it’s better than nothing. I’ve found two local internet service providers whose service has ensured I don’t get fired from work, but there have been days when the internet has conked off for hours without prior notice because of servers being down or a strong wind displacing the wires. When this happens, I am cut off from the rest of the world (the virtual one at least). I just have to wait it out, catch up on household errands, or rest.

Learning to co-exist

Like most Indian villages, everyone knows everyone here, and there’s no concept of privacy. And I don’t just mean with respect to humans. Geckos and frogs come out in the monsoons and move in and out of the house (and especially the bathroom). Langurs visit daily to devour fruits, throw leftovers wherever they like, play in the garden like they own the place, and you can do nothing about it except watch. Insects of all shapes, sizes, and colours venture into the house if you don’t shut the door by 5 pm. Roosters crow at all hours of the day but more loudly and frequently when you’re on Zoom calls, especially the very minute you are trying to communicate something important to your colleagues. 

But no complaints. 

I also see fireflies every night, sometimes right outside my bedroom window. The moon shines bright and the stars twinkle on clear nights. I wake up to birdsong. It is magical. 

Every day is a reminder that we (humans) own nothing. Not even the plants we plant with our own hands, or the animals we feed and take care of. We share this world with so many creatures, visible and invisible, and we must learn to live in gratitude; co-exist with grace.

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

– Margaret Atwood

Why choose such a remote place to live, you might wonder? There are many rural and semi-rural areas in India that aren’t as cut-off, have easier access to amenities, and at the very least, offer better phone and internet connectivity. With more and more people choosing to move out of big cities, such places are fast-becoming unaffordable and crowded. More importantly, the chance to move to this village tucked away in a lesser-known part of Goa came my way serendipitously, and I chose to run with it. It’s too early to say if it was the right decision, but for now, I am content.

© Ila Reddy

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