Peanut Oil?

Kolar District was an arid, rocky landscape with sparse and undependable rainfall. By increasing the amount of water that was available for the irrigation of their small plots we would help marginal farmers supplement their incomes by cultivating cash crops.

The surface wells had to be dry before they were drilled and blasted, so when it was necessary, we had hydraulic pumps that the farmers could borrow instead of having to bail them by the time consuming traditional method using a bullock to pull up a large clay pot or a leather bucket. The pumps were driven by an uncomplicated one cylinder diesel engine: fill it with fuel, crank it up with a hand crank and it usually chugged to life without problem and could pump more water in an hour than the bullocks could pull up in a day.

I was on my back replacing the clutch on one of the pick-ups that we used to transport the crews and the compressors. A farmer that had borrowed a pump the day before pedaled his bike up to the workshop, hopped down and leaned it against one of the bamboo poles that held up the thatched sun shade where I was working. He deftly retied his dhoti, wrapped it around his waist, drew it between his legs and tucked it in, all in a matter of seconds. He clasped his calloused hands in greeting, took a step forward, and said in Kannada:

”Namaskara appa, pampu muridide" – roughly “the pump will not work.”

We loaded his bike and my tool box onto the bed of my Jeep and took along a jerry-can of fuel for good measure. We bounced and thumped over the track that punished any vehicle that drove faster and was less sturdy than the robust, wooden-wheeled carts that were the traditional mode of transportation. 

The village was no more than a cluster of small huts plastered with red clay and located between the jagged granite outcroppings and patchwork of small fields that were common in the Kolar landscape. 

The dry heat of the afternoon had thickened by the time I parked under the wide canopy of an ancient peepal tree; its spreading branches and dusty leaves providing the only shelter from the midday sun. I followed the farmer and the throng of curious villagers that had gathered to witness this diversion from their daily routine. 

A frail old woman, stooped from arthritis, pulled up a corner of her sari to blow her nose. She cleared her throat and asked in a raspy voice if I was a representative of the British King George, not so strange when you considered that England had given up India as a colony only few decades earlier when George was sovereign.

I didn’t explain to her that King George was long dead and Indira Gandhi, the daughter of India’s first post-colonial leader, was the Prime minister now. I told her simply that I was there to fix the pump.

I turned the crank, nothing happened, and cranked again, still nothing. I unscrewed the fuel cap. The tank was full. When I stuck in a finger the liquid felt slimy. It didn’t have the right viscosity or smell. I touched my finger to my tongue. It seemed edible. I turned to the turbaned farmer who leaned so close over me that I could almost feel the stubble on his unshaven cheeks and asked:

“Uncle what have you put in the tank? “ 

"Oil” he answered. 

"Oil? What kind of oil?” 

“Groundnut oil”, he answered mystified as if there was some other kind. 

In Kannada oil was a catch-all term for, kerosene, petrol or diesel and when I said “fill the tank with diesel oil”, he didn’t realize that there was a difference - oil was oil and should work. 

I tipped the pump on its side to empty the tank, poured in some fresh diesel, sloshed it around to rinse any residue of the peanut oil, drained it and refilled it with fresh fuel. I removed the injector while my audience followed every move, children crowding each other to get a better look, adults a little farther back. I washed the injector with diesel and cranked the engine to flush the fuel pipe from the oil that was excellent for frying chapatis, but not very suitable as fuel for an engine. I primed the pump with a bucket of water and cranked hard.

The heavy flywheel rotated, hesitating for a few seconds before the engine came to life. With a puff of silver grey smoke, and after belching a couple of times, foaming water gushed out of the delivery pipe to the delight of the crowd.

Thoughts on our Work 

In a small way our pump was helping to draw the line between the past and the future and everything we did changed or affected the complicated social structure and agriculture that had evolved through the centuries.

No one considered the serious risks of displacing millions of small farmers and farm laborers. Families that had once lived off the land were driven from traditional village life into the squalor and anonymity of the cities looking for some kind of future. Lacking government financial support, small farmers had no other choice than to borrow from the money lenders or land owners to pay for seed, fertilizer and pesticides. When crops failed as they periodically did, the land that had fed and housed them for generations, and was used as security, would be sold and consolidated into larger farms.