2 Bandra Girls Buy a Farm

It’s been a long and difficult 15 odd months. The mind-numbing lockdowns, the constant fear, the obsessive sanitizing, the paranoia, the misinformation, the tragedy of losing friends and family, the desperate efforts to keep loved ones safe, the scramble for vaccines. It really has been fairly tough.

But I have been luckier and more privileged than most. The dreadful virus did not touch me and mine, and we have (so far) remained safe. Yes, I know it’s far from over, and the third wave is rearing its ugly head, but we are all fully vaccinated and hopefully will carry on with the precautions we have got used to in the last 15 months and pray we stay well.

Through the never-ending lockdowns, I, like many others, spent my time at home; working, cooking, cleaning, eating, drinking, attempting daily workouts, reading, binge-watching on OTT platforms and tending to my balcony vegetable garden.

With constant attention and care, my vegetables thrived and blossomed, and during the harshest lockdown days, I often joked about setting up a tailgate vegetable sale in our building. I grew about 300 gms of Karela (bitter gourd) every week!!, loads of Spinach, Arugula, Bok Choy, Chawli Bhaji (Amaranth leaves), Basil, Chilli, Radish, Curry Leaves, Chives, Chikoo, Cucumber, the occasional burst of Tomatoes and a few Guavas. Not a bad harvest from teeny weeny balconies in a Bandra flat.

Then, in November 2020, Ms Bandra Rose, a friend and ex-colleague of Mr Stonethrower, called to say she was thinking of buying agricultural land to try her hand at organic farming. She asked if we knew anyone who would be willing to join her. Needless to say, I absolutely jumped at the opportunity.

A quick meeting, and she and I found we agreed on all things; we were sure we wanted the enterprise to be completely organic, we had an approximate budget, we had a vague idea of what we wanted to grow and we were certain we were going to stumble along the way. Despite that, we were raring to go.

Bandra Rose volunteered to contact brokers and scout around till she found something we could see together. All credit to her, she spent most of her weekends over 3 months visiting at least 35 plots of land around Maharashtra, often driving up to 350 km a day. Her hunt took her from Karjat to Pali and from Pawna to Pen. While some of the lands she saw were too expensive, others had no clear access (i.e., could be accessed only through another person’s land), and others were either too rocky, too remote or didn’t feel right. Then suddenly, on one scouting Saturday, she identified 2 plots of farmland 5 kilometres apart that fit all our parameters. Budget, size, access, distance and, as she said excitedly, a very positive vibe.

So, on the 31st of January 2021 off we went to see the land. The closest biggish town to this land is Kolad, known for its white-water rafting and other adventure sports. Also, according to Bandra Rose, Kolad has a rather large community of Bandra Catholics who have bought small farms and second homes in and around the town over the years.

Kolad is 130 km from Mumbai on NH (National Highway)-66 which runs from Panvel to the Kanyakumari (southern tip of India). The drive was fairly smooth, and we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the roads. We could see many roadworks in progress that we discovered were all a part of a project initiated in 2011 to make NH-66 a 4-lane highway. We figured if we did buy this farm, our travel time would eventually be much reduced.

Our first stop en route was at Prabhakar restaurant in Kolad for a spicy Missal Pav breakfast. This restaurant, according to Bandra Rose, is a popular hangout for all the resident Bandra Catholics. 10 minutes after Kolad, we took an unmarked right and began a slow 8 km drive on a fairly bad road which took the best part of 25 mins. Mr Stonethrower swore his low-slung sedan was never making this journey again!

Our destination was not marked on any map. We were off the grid, quite literally. Once there, we had to park alongside what appeared to be an open community hall in Mahagaon Adivasi village and walk the last 7 odd minutes on a rocky, rough unmotorable path. While walking, we passed two houses that were obviously not village homes. “Owned by Mumbai people”, muttered our broker as we reached a 6-acre expanse of densely overgrown, undeveloped land. Nobody had ever farmed here, nobody had ever planted anything, and nobody had ever tended to this land. Yet, as we pushed our way past mile-high weeds and undergrowth, we saw wild mango trees, the occasional cashew tree and a few wild Jamun trees. The land sloped down quite steeply and at the base was about an acre of flat land that the broker told us was perfect for paddy. The land had no electricity. No water source. And no construction.

Step back and confession here. Neither Bandra Rose nor I know anything about farming. We know nothing about agricultural land. We know nothing about types of soil. We know nothing about pretty much anything we were attempting to do. We were going to tread these waters completely blind, with a prayer in our hearts and a smile on our lips.

Inspection completed; we left the farm, trudged back to the car and drove in silence for the next 15 minutes. Truth be told, it wasn’t love at first sight for me. I didn’t look at the land and say, “wow, this is it”! I thought it was too remote; the last 8kms stretch was quite bad, the neighbouring Adivasi village looked unwelcoming, and the land itself was an overgrown mess of shrubs and undergrowth. However, the price definitely worked, the soil looked fertile, it was 2.5 hours from home, and the road (except for the last 8kms) was surprisingly good. And most importantly, it gave Bandra Rose a positive vibe!

So, a decision was taken, and we took our first steps in our journey to become farmers. A week later, at the broker’s house where we went to sign the MOU and pay a token amount, we were introduced to two people who, in due course, would play the roles of farm fiend and farm friend. However, we took scant notice of them at that stage as we were still feeling our way around, trying to memorize names, understand hierarchies, figure the dynamics between people, struggle with our Marathi and, of course, buy a farm!

MOU signed and token given, we began the legal work. Get our 7/12s in place (much more on this in later posts), search land records, verify seller ownership, contact a local lawyer, prepare the sale deed, etc. Bandra Rose shouldered this responsibility entirely while I drove our architect to the land to plan and design a small house, researched and bought a ‘farm car’ that was reasonably inexpensive and had a high ground clearance, scouted around for a farm consultant to help us with the planting and started looking for borewell contractors.

Many emails, many delays and many hilarious phone calls later, we had a sale deed ready only to be told the seller was out of the country, so we would have to wait another 15 days. Finally, on the appointed day, we set off for the Tala registration office. The night before the registration, we had a last-minute scare when the broker informed us that the registrar would not accept a sale deed in English and we should get it translated to Marathi overnight. Thankfully, our local lawyer dismissed this as absolute nonsense and assured us all would be well. En route to Tala, we went to Roha to meet our lawyer and sign the required documents. (Lovely town Roha, would like to revisit at leisure). A few bad roads and Google Maps induced misdirection later, we were at the registration office on the dot of noon as planned.

Then began the long wait. 1 pm, no sign of seller! 1.30 pm, no sign of seller! We were getting a bit restive, to say the least. At our insistence, the brokers called the seller and were (I believe) rudely told they were on their way. A point of interest here, the seller was the daughter of a retired government officer who had held a position of high power in this area. Hence the great ‘respect’ for them and the hesitation in ringing them.

To distract us perhaps, our broker mocked us for wearing masks and urged us to remove them, saying “Corona is only in the big cities where people lived in air-conditioned comfort 24/7.” He insisted there were no Covid-19 cases in rural Maharashtra as people worked hard, sweated, were exposed to several hours of sunlight every day and had better immunity than ‘city folk’. Needless to say, we kept our masks on right through. Also, needless to say, we were the only ones wearing masks! Please remember, this was March 2021. A full year after the first all-India lockdown and barely a month before the second wave wreaked havoc across rural Maharashtra.

By this time, it was 2.30 pm, and we were threatening to leave. After another terrified call, the brokers got into a panicked huddle and revealed that the government officer and his daughter had lost their way!!! If we weren’t so angry, this would have been hilarious. He was the man in charge of this area for several years, for God’s sake!!! We were two Bandra girls!! If we found our way, surely, he could too. After trying and failing to send Google Maps location pins to the driver (because you cannot expect the bossman to receive such nonsense), off went two car-loads of motley brokers and unknown others to find the lost souls and escort them to the registration office.

30 minutes later, our brokers returned without the bossman or his daughter! They were waiting in their car a few hundred yards away and wanted us to go there to ‘seal the deal’ (euphemism for ‘change the deal’, we guessed). No way, Jose; this was it, or we were leaving. After a brief Mexican stand-off, a car with curtained rear windows crept up to the registration office compound, and the daughter came up the stairs to sign the documents.

This should have been simple, but it wasn’t as she hadn’t carried her Aadhaar, she didn’t have her passport-sized photographs, and she needed to speak to her father before every signature. Many unknown bodies were pressed into action to get a digital download of her Aadhaar, take her photograph against a whitish door on the best mobile phone they could find, scramble for photocopy and printing machines, and heaven knows what else. An agonising 30 minutes later, all documents were signed, and we (reluctantly) exchanged the customary sweets and congratulations.

The curtained car hung around for a bit while unknown persons filled the trunk with offerings of fish, vegetables and other produce from the area and then hit a speedy retreat. We waited another 30 minutes till the documents were scanned and printed. Finally, at 4.30 pm, we had in our hands the registered sale deed.

So it was, on the 17th of March 2021, 2 Bandra girls bought a farm!