(Sept 2001: Printed in memory of Padma, who wrote this wonderful article for 'Evergreen', and tragically died last month.)

I was born and bred in a city, where the mornings were heralded by traffic noises and the t-r-r-ring of the bell on the milkman's bicycle. So what am I doing now, waking to the squabble of the cuckoos who've come to eat mulberries from the tree that arches over my bedroom, and the raucous crowing of the big red rooster in the chicken house? It's not a surprise to me now, as these are the noises I've woken to for the last fifteen years, but sometimes a visitor reminds me how much I have to be grateful for. Not that I really need to be told.

When I visit a city these days, a lot of things shock me - the noise and smoke that the traffic creates; how fast everyone's moving; how close the houses are to each other; the number of people who have to share a very limited space - though with the isolation of the farm, I sometimes think I would enjoy having a friendly neighbour or two to drop in on in the evenings. The key word, of course, is "friendly". My annual holidays take me to stay with family members in different cities in India. My parents know most of the neighbours in their little colony in Coimbatore City, but in my sister's locality in Trichur city, the walls of each large bungalow are high and one is spared the sight of neighbours in general. Which is just as well - whenever I'm changing my clothes and rush to pull the curtains, I gratefully remember all those high walls.

We can't afford many walls on the farm, only the house and the animal sheds have walls. Outside, we build fences, many of which regularly encounter accidents. The fence that borders our farm is partly of barbed wire (now overgrown with greenery) and partly of thorny sisal plants, cactus and milkweed. Every monsoon, we plant new reinforcements at the more porous points, and every year in the dry season the villagers' cattle manage to find a spot where they can break in and make a quick snack of our lovingly grown baby corn or French beans. Outside, everything is dry and grazed down to the ground, and some of the local urchins who graze sheep aren't beyond helping out their flock by probing fences for weak spots!

Walls have their covert enemies too - trees keep putting roots down under them and then slowly wrenching them apart. Floors suffer too from this treatment. People say you should never let a tree grow near the house, but I do love the coolness that an overhanging tree imparts. Running repairs to walls and floors seem a reasonable price to pay. And then, there are the cuckoos, the sparrows, the bulbuls and various tiny unidentified birds with electrifyingly loud voices, that come daily to the mulberry tree overhanging my bedroom, and to the even more popular Singapore cherry tree next to our front verandah that puts out fruits each year. There are green parrots that arrive in flocks to eat subabool seeds while they mature, not to mention the bats, large and small, that chitter and swoop around once night falls. Really, it's not often that I have the chance to miss people.

The night noise-makers are different - there are crickets and cicadas that chirp so regularly and rhythmically that you only really notice when they stop. And the rains are made memorable by all the toads, who sing joyously in chorus all night, and only stop, suddenly together, as at some signal, when morning comes. The noise is deafening down by the lake behind the farm - ten thousand different notes all sounding together. Some nights there's the uncanny sound of jackals in the scrub forest nearby - long howls, and sometimes unnerving noises like children crying, or laughing. But they never come very close to the house, and it's kind-of cosy pulling the bedclothes up around you and hearing the noises of the wild outside. Even nicer when the rain comes pattering down on the roof, and you know the plants and trees are all drinking it down gladly, and you're warm and dry indoors. Then there are all the silent but visible creatures - the fire flies that make the quiet nights magical, and the amazing variety of insect life with their extraordinary jointed appendages and beautifully patterned wings. Surely the designer's thumb-rule of  "form follows function" has been interpreted with the greatest freedom in the insect kingdom. The people who use blanket insecticides can't be blind to all this beauty, or can they?

These are the good things. The other side is when the dog gets into a fight with a cobra, gets bitten, and needs to be taken immediately to a Vet in the city, many kilometres away, for a dose of anti-venom. Or when I think of how much I'd enjoy a film (the last time I was in a cinema was at least six years ago), or dinner out, or a tea-shop to hang around with friends. Or even when I need to get something photocopied in a hurry, or find we've run out of salt when all the other ingredients for lunch are already in the pot.  Living in the country explains why the scout's motto is "Be Prepared".  It needs a lot more organisation than I once thought myself capable of - but I'm learning.

Padma was a committed and visionary activist, organic farmer, and a real 'mover and shaker'. Her husband Matthew lives on the farm with their little son, and is continuing the SEED (Skills and Environmental Education) Trust projects at the 4-acre organic farm near Mysore city in South India, with the help of others.

The project is an example of eco-sustainable farming and living (see www.nice2people.com/organizations/seed-trust.html for more info). It partly sustains itself through earnings from visitors who stay for a few days to several months. Guests can also learn various crafts (pottery, patch-work quilt making, bamboo carving, etc), as well as garden skills like vermi-composting. If you're interested in a quiet holiday in South India with home-cooked food, flavoursome salads from organically grown fruits and vegetables, local spots of interest and beauty, then this is the place for you. Self-catering also available. For bookings and further info, please email