Once filled with centuries-old ravines, it has now been landscaped in a wild fashion, limited when the diesel budgeted for the tiny bulldozer ran out 15 years ago. At the back of the farm is a hump, too big for the bulldozer to handle and therefore left alone. On the hump is a chhatri, built experimentally. It has Rajput proportions, Grecian sandstone pillars and a dome that went awry and now looks like a small solar topee. The chhatri commands a view over miles of literally golden wheat ready for harvesting. In the morning in early April, it is a cool 15 degrees, and the chhatri has been taken over by a massive male peacock. He's obviously clever enough to know the chhatri's dome amplifies his peeyooo, to awe a half dozen pea hens scratching around. At the hour of six, tractors are already puttering around, marking the last few working days for the Gujjar male, before sowing starts in end October. Hereafter, it is all weddings, rum drinking and hookah smoking for six months, a period through which the women slog on and for which they 'must' be kept uneducated.
