VILLAGE TOURISM

- Dhara Kothari

India may not have what it takes to be a well-developed tourist country. What we have is primarily a historical and religious tourism. Throwing in a couple of places in nature trekking. Many people have the tendency to compare India with the highly glamorized and expensive cities of the world. They fail to see the beautiful part of our peninsula. India is raw and needs to be explored as such. We have a majority of the people staying in villages, and hence it does not take a lot of creative observation to develop ‘village tourism’.

What is village tourism? Touring our interiors. Nature at it’s best. Seeing and being part of the village life, reverting back to basics. Imagine living in huts, eating food cooked on ‘bhatis’, roaming the green lush fields, tending cattle, listening to folk tales, and singing the village songs. Watching the sky filled with numerous stars while sleeping on charpoys, out in the open. For a few days it does sound fun, in fact adventurous. Why not live life the way our ancestors did? Did you know that there were few health problems faced by our grandfathers? Simply because they lived life free of pollution and tensions.

Village life even for a few days in a year can improve our physical, mental life to a great extends. The food we eat is fresh the air is clean. There is no strain in getting to work, going through the grind and getting back to alcohol drink to drain the accumulated stress. Cool! The village life would not be purely lazing around but working alongside with the families. Helping to milk the cow, collecting the fodder, preparing butter, assisting the farmer, etc. And at the end of the day, listening and sharing stories, singing and dancing around the camp fire. “I remember visiting my uncle in Gujarat as a kid, we would help around, climb trees and generally have fun,” reminisced Shweta Shah, a writer. Adding she advised “as a child it was all a picnic, but when I visited Gujarat again as an adult, I had a culture shock, which remained for days. Today after a few visits, I have started looking forward to eating hot food cooked over bhatis. So much that I don’t like the taste of ‘chapattis’ made on gas.”

People generally prefer living in private bungalows or guesthouses, in a village. Some don’t mind staying in a pucca house, as long as bathrooms are befitting. It is possible to create local houses with urban bathrooms. If such accommodations were to be offered, there could be a lot of takers. NGO’s, tourist bodies and district authorities could explore village tourism, as a means to bring in people and the money they could spend on local purchase such as art, handicrafts, etc. This would mean direct money to the poor villagers who could use it for betterment of their village. No more waiting for government trickle, that comes once in a while. Those association who are promoting the services can take 1/4th of the money charged for accommodation. 3/4th would go to the entire village to built schools, roads, etc. This way Indian money can be circulated within the country, rather than people spending it all abroad. The chief condition the association and the villagers will have is to decide on the kind of tourist to accept. No body will want anti-social persons to disrupt their simple world. Today the tourists who flock to villages are with only three purpose: Religious, setting up an industry or if the village is on a hill station. All this can change, only if people are serious enough to seek and follow the novel idea of village tourism. Till then I am definitely enjoying the traditional pure home cooked food. Slurp!