the shepherds

I wanted to find a community, where people were in the same as well as in the who formed the curious corners in my mind. I tried going to the villages like Sargasan and Kudasan. What I found out was there weren’t communities which i could plot in the scale.
Then I tried venturing in the market and identified the ‘lohar’ i.e. the people working with iron to make various tools required in the farm and labour work. I met one mr. Jakabhai in Dholakua and I met Mrs. Sitaben in Sector 2. I was interested. Their work profile was similar. After being around for an hour i realised that they are individual families and they did not really have trading ties.Even worse was the fact that they were die-hard competitors and did’nt at all care for each others trade. So i had to omit them from my list.
Then I tried meeting the ‘Golawallahs’. I spoke to three of them. 1 .in 16 sector. Near the Atm s . He informed me that they stayed in 24 sector. They had similar machinery. They had a similar market. They are a community who are in much sync with each other for better trade. There are places where they stand together for sale allowing each other the share of the customer share. But they all don’t live in 24 sector. Only two families did. The others stayed elsewhere, some in sector 2 and 3. In this quest of finding the right community, I was deeply thinking looking out of the hostel balcony I suddenly saw the sheep in the field nearby. And it came to my mind to go and meet them. Then I did get a chance when I saw Arjunbhai leading a flock of sheep. I asked him whether I could accompany him to his home to know more about the people there. He was amused but fine with it.
The shepherds (Nomads)
I went to Arjun Bhai the next day morning. He introduced me to his brothers who were staying there. It is a huge field in front of NID Gandhinagar. This farm / field belongs to someone from Ahmedabad. And they apparently pay him some amount (which he did not disclose, it made me not believe in him) These people have cycle of around 2-3 weeks in one place. They come with their flocks and settle in a place for some time. Their staple food was ‘rotli’ made of wheat and bajra. And a vegetable with it. They were mostly vegetarian people.
With 300 sheep to rear, any of the shepherds is engaged the whole day. The sheep are coloured with ‘gulal’ to mark the ownership. The main source of income would be 1. Milk, 2.The wool.
They also gather income from the farmers. The farmers employ them with their sheep so as to have readymade natural manure in their farms. They are also employed at times to clear the weeds in the farms. But otherwise the shepherds prefer the leftover lands or lands with no visible owners.
One major thing that I faced was the language. I took it as a challenge and tried to learn the language from the people themselves, trying to understand what they were saying on my own. I wanted to follow them, the way these people are. It was fun.
I finalised the Shepherd community as a community I was going to work with.