If you are an urban professional who wants to work on farmland and likes to eat fresh, home-grown vegetables and cavort with goats and cows, then in your heart and soul, you are a farmer. In this day and age, where several Indian techies and corporate professionals are reportedly quitting high-paying jobs to becoming farmers, the question is, how difficult is it for city dwellers to live a farmer’s life?

Part memoir, part fiction, Yashodhara Lal’s fourth book, How I Became a Farmer’s Wife chronicles the struggles of a wife and mother of three children when her husband decides to give up his corporate job and venture into farming — a dream he has nurtured for a long time. It is a peek into a lifestyle where the ordeals are many and even the tiniest success is a cause for celebration. It is also an insight into the relationship dynamics of a couple who support and help each other chase their dream.

Dreams tend to remain dreams if one doesn’t have a plan and determination to make them come true. Considering that farming is a full-time job, each day brings duties that must be carried out for the farm to remain functional — let alone successful — and there are no days off. Lal’s husband Vijay Sharma, however, is resolute in going ahead with his passion.

The struggles of a wife and mother of three when her husband decides to give up his corporate job and venture into farming

How I Became a Farmer’s Wife is a sort of sequel to Lal’s debut novel, Just Married, Please Excuse, as it starts with the incident where Vijay decides to buy land to farm. Suffice to say that the plan doesn’t work out at the time, but after 12 years, three children and a change of city, the dream appears to be materialising. Vijay, once slump-shouldered and resigned to the daily grind of an office routine, finds new meaning in cows and freshly harvested gobi [cabbage] and mooli [radish]. His enthusiasm is bolstered by the idea — corroborating to his mantra of a healthy lifestyle — that he can eat parathas made from their own produce, washed down with fresh milk taken from their own animals.

Vijay’s wife Yashodhara, called Y in the novel, is not as enthusiastic. She has a million problems to deal with, such as a dreary boss, writing a new book and managing rambunctious children in a house that is nothing less than a zoo. Supporting her husband’s dream seems like a lot of hard work for an already overworked soul, so when Vijay shares the plans he has been obsessing over for more than a decade, she is understandably reluctant. She suggests Vijay make his best friend Achu a partner in the venture. She knows that Achu is the staid, steady type and so will shoot down Vijay’s “surreal” plans, but to her utter disappointment, Achu says yes.

Vijay rents land surrounding an ashram in Rewari, an hour’s drive from the Indian city of Gurgaon, to set up a dairy establishment. Although he and Achu have no expertise or the requisite skills, they believe their confidence will carry them through. “The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer,” is his belief — and probably the only thing that keeps him going despite one hurdle after another.

Our hero digs in and gives it his all: from attending to cows and crops, to adopting multiple dogs, to dealing with a shrewd landlady as well as rogue snakes. He hires two men, Amit and Sunil, to bring the milk to his home so that he can deliver it to customers in his apartment complex. When Amit and Sunil prove to be inept and slack, it falls to Vijay and Achu to drive to the farm early in the morning, collect the milk, and bring it back to the city. No wonder it takes him so long to establish his business, which he has named MilkWonder.

Y can only watch — sometimes amused, but mostly shocked — as Vijay runs practically on fumes. Confidence notwithstanding, it turns out farming is far from easy. Comprehending weather conditions, understanding crop rotations, learning to milk cows and dealing with rural eccentricity is more challenging than punching keyboards in air-conditioned cubicles. Topping it all are the unconventional characters encountered, such as the shady Babaji who runs the nearby ashram.

Y tries to keep a calm front at all times, but within her is chaos. As Lal writes, Y’s life has become something like a cup of tea with soggy bits of biscuit lumping at the bottom, destroying the pleasurable experience of drinking tea. Dealing with Vijay’s venture on the one hand, on the other she yearns for her daughter Peanut to be more expressive, she wants to laugh at her sons’ — Pickle and Papad — one-liners. All of this succeeds in making her go haywire. Vijay helpfully suggests that Y, already a Zumba instructor and guitarist, take up yoga. Surprisingly the suggestion works and some sanity is restored to her chaotic life.

Y comes to believe that farming is a learning experience not only for Vijay, but also for the entire family. Away from tablets and smartphones, weekly visits to the farm have been engaging experiences for the kids. Choosing nature over technology, they learn to be empathetic towards puppies and cows. Farming turns into an entertaining vocation for everybody and despite Y’s initial reservations, she soon discovers the similarities between tending to cows and to children, and her sympathy for Vijay translates into unconditional support for him as a farmer and acceptance of herself as a farmer’s wife.

It is a given that a fish-out-of-water story such as this would be peppered with amusing incidents, and with tongue-in-cheek humour, flair and purpose, Lal displays a fabulous knack for storytelling. Most urban folk who dream of an idyllic rural lifestyle might not actually go through with it, but the narrative is still relatable and the oddity of the situations that Lal sees and writes about makes the book an enjoyable read.

The reviewer is a freelance writer and blogger

How I Became a Farmer’s Wife
By Yashodhara Lal
HarperCollins, India
ISBN: 978-9352775859
319pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, December 23rd, 2018