The Call of the soil – A Scent of Rice is a story written by IT Engineer, Venkat Iyer. The author worked for 17 years in IT companies. After giving 17 years to IT industry, Venkat quit his job in 2004 to live on his organic farm.
The Call of Soil By Venkat Iyer Summary

Summary of The Call of Soil Class 11 By Venkat Iyer
Venkat Iyer worked for 17 years in IT companies. After giving 17 years to IT industry, Venkat quit his job in 2004 to live on his organic farm. He was done with corporate life and wanted to change his lifestyle. In 2004, Venkat quit his job as Project Manager from IBM and came to village for farming. He like calm atmosphere of village and started focusing on organic farming there.
The story begins with year 2004, writer is standing in Mung Dal field, it is morning time and sun is about to rise, land is wet and leaves are shining. I was barefoot walking carefully in field, there were Sapodilla trees around me and Mung leaves on land.
This is the best atmosphere and I don’t need anything else in life. Mung plants were not taller than 2 feet and pod were coming out from it. I was very happy in this environment. I am watching sun rising from trees behind, I don’t believe it is my first harvest and I’m standing between it.
When I bought this land by giving advance money, I thought it will take me lot of time to learn farming but my broker, Moru Dada had full faith on us that we will grow Mung Dal in first attempt. I wasn’t prepared to do farming, I was just reading books about what we can farm in land and how to do farming. Here author trying to say he knows nothing about farming when he bought land. So now the crop has been planted, I am not able to believe that we planted this and we are successful in our first farming.
Moru Dada told me that this is perfect season for Mung Dal farming and we can get best seeds of Mung from Surat, Gujrat. After Moru Dada Advice, I went to Surat immediately and bought 10 kg seeds of Mung. Thereafter, Moru Dada gave me his tractor on rent for ploughing and we planted Mung in my whole land.
After few days, when I saw my seed growing in land, I was very happy. I was grateful that I took Moru Dada advice. Moru Dada’s next step was to use pesticides chemical on little plants. I don’t want to use Pesticides as I want my farming to be organic. I don’t want to use any type of chemical in my farm.
When I tried to tell Moru Dada that I don’t want to use pesticides, he was shocked. Moru Dada believed that you can’t do farming without pesticides. Time passes and my crops grows without any pesticides and chemical. Now it is time to harvest. We prepared crops without chemicals and harvest 300 kg crops. My first farming boost my confidence on another level. I learned one thing that my land is very fertile and I can do farming in it without any chemicals. I was very happy about it as I would never use any type of chemicals on my land.
The Second part of story is “A Scent of Rice”.
The writer says it is time to farm rice but I’m late to do a farming of rice. As I could not able to farm rice on time, I planted GR4 Rice which takes less time to grow. But next year, I would do farming of Rice on time. I studied traditional varieties of Rice and I learned you don’t need any chemicals to grows traditional rice.
Rice Crops are strong and insect pests can’t destroy it. I knew Rice would grow better in my fertile land as I doesn’t use any type of chemical. Last year farming taught me one lesson, we should not grow low quality crops in land.
In April 2005, we started searching best variety rice and one of our neighbor suggested that we should plant local scented rice. My nearby farmers started farming low quality rice and they were thinking that I am a fool as I want to farm best variety rice in my farm. When I decide that I would farm good variety traditional rice only, everyone thought I’m a fool.
I looked for best variety rice for long time and I was not able to find it. I tried one last time to find best variety rice and I talked with Baban’s father and few old people about it. They suggest me Kasbai Rice which is a fragrant traditional rice. When I asked them where I would find a seed of Kasbai rice, they told me with sad face that it is not available in market.
I heard a lot about Kasbai rice so I want to grow it only. I thought maybe government would know about it, so I went to agricultural officer but he told me that he doesn’t know anything about Kasbai Rice. Afterwards, I went to Adivasi Mahamandal, I ask them about Kasbai rice, they told me that they doesn’t know anything about it.
One of officer from Adivasi Mahamandal told that few years ago someone sold him Kasbai Rice. Thereafter, I went to place called Dhaniwari where I meet a old person, Devu Handa. Devu was a head of his village. I asked him about Kasbai Rice. Devu smiles and told me that once upon a time whole village used to farm Kasbai Rice only.
But today no one grew Kasbai Rice as all farmers of village are busy in farming new varieties of rice. Devu told me that no one grows Kasbai Rice as it takes a long time to grow. Everyone grows low quality rice because it grows in very less time. I asked Devu, if you like Kasbai rice then why are you not farming it ? Devu tells me every villagers grow low quality rice here and their crops get ready in less time.
After harvesting crops, they leave their cows and buffaloes open in farm. If my rice doesn’t grow on time with their crops then cows and buffaloes would destroy my crops. So that is why I have to get along with everyone. When everyone harvest their crops then I need to harvest my crop as well.
With great sadness, Devu Handa told me that Hybrid Rice requires lots of chemicals and fertilizers for its production. And its farming also requires huge amount of water. On the other hand, Kasbai Rice farming was very good as it requires no chemicals and pesticides. But we destroyed everything by growing Hybrid Rice onto our land. Thereafter, I told him that I came to him for Kasbai Rice seeds. He told me that I would not find Kasbai Rice anywhere in village.
At the end, Devu told me there is a village called Asarvari where Adivasi grows Kasbai on hills. Afterwards, I went to Asarvari village to find Kasbai Rice. I don’t know the language of Asarvari village so I took for help from their village Head, who sends his assistant, Jeewan with me on hills. Jeewan will translate their language for me. It took us 30 minutes to reach hills.
There were two houses and one old woman was sitting outside her house. I told Jeewan to ask old woman about Kasbai seeds. She told Jeewan that she has a rice of Kasbai, but she is asking about us and why we need Kasbai rice. We told old woman that we came from Peth village and we want to farm Kasbai rice.
And I ask for 10 Kg Kasbai rice from old woman. She told us that she doesn’t have weighing machine and she can only give seeds in basket. I ask for one basket rice and Jeewan told me to give money to her. I gave 100 rupees to old woman and she was very happy to get it. Thereafter, we returned to our village after taking a bucket of Kasbai rice.
After meeting old woman, I felt that she is living a true life as she is far away from cities and technology, and living a peaceful life in an environment. These are the people who are protecting the environment but we people doesn’t care about them.