Cowherd/Cowhand (Jobs of the village)

From Sujata village, Bihar, India.

This is quite sudden, 

but have you ever seen a man

 herding cows or buffalos?

For the people living in developed countries like Japan, 

cowherd only remind old tales…

You never see them 

on the street or your neighborhood.

But here in Sujata village, 

you can see men 

who are accompanied by
cows or buffs anywhere.

One of their jobs is to lead 

cows or buffs to the asked field 

and make them eat only weed. 

They keep away cows from crops.

Cows and buffs are used as weeding machine here.

I saw one of them on the field 

next to the guest house, 

“SACHI HOME -Sujata Yoga Resort".

He watches buffs with a stick on his hand.

For the next crops, buffs are here for weeding.

But the field is surrounded by 

the mung bean field which are going to be harvested.

That’s why the cowherd is here 

not to make buffs eat mung bean.

When a buff tries to eat mung bean, 

he stops the buff with a stick and whistling sound.

When moving field to field, 

they handle cows and buffs 

not to got run over by a car.

In Sujata village, 

there still exist many jobs 

which closely reflect the daily lives 

and difficult to be seen in developed countries.

Seeing those jobs, 

I feel the power of the people 

whose lifestyle is rooted in their region’s

 natural environment, climate and history.

More than half of the villagers own a cow. 

They milk cow, make chai (milk tea) 

and enjoy within a family.

They harvest, thresh and mill wheat 

which are grown next to their houses. 

Chapati (Indian thin bread) is made
by the wheat flower.

They are living life feeling that everything is connected.

You can say it is inconvenient, taking time and tiring.

But I suppose this develops the village people’s 

unwavering confidence and self-esteem 

which I can find from them. 

From Meera