Jaso Dan Lalas and family at Dadharvala in northwestern Rajasthan, Bikaner District
Jaso Dan is a Dingal poet, a friend of Durga Dan, milk vendor in Bikaner town and a farmer with rainfed agriculture in a sand dune area. The photo gallery below narrates about their life in Dadharvala village. Like many other other villagers they also have a home at Bikaner where part of the family live most of the time.
01d Jaso Dan with grandson and his son Harman Dan at their house in Bikaner
02 Jaso Dan's son Sajjan Dan with children of the joint family
03 Harman Dan with his mother, children and wife in pardah.
04 Jaso Dan at Dhadharvala village trying his new dhoti
05 Jaso Dan takes farewell of his mother before going on a pilgrim trip to the southern tip of India.
06 Two sisters. One of them Jaso Dan's mother
07 Mother's sister living alone at her cottage.
08 Meal at Jaso Dan's homestead
09 Jaso Dan's daughter-in-law. Her husband works in Gujarat.
10 Milk time
11
12
13
14 Sajjan Dan have a nap in the afternoon heat
15 Their cow also.
16 Sandy rainfed ploughed and sown fields waiting for the crop to emerge.
17
18
19
20
21
22
23 A bed for the night watch, who chase away stray intruding animals and wild antilopes from the crop fields.
24
25
26 Pearl millets at the earhead stage.
27
28
29 Jaso Dan frighten away birds from the crop field by drumming on this rusty tin box.
30
31
32 The homestead entry at sunset. There is no electric light at this farm.
33 An sprinkler irrigated field with a groundnut crop at a Meghval farm in the other end of the village.
34
35
36 The owner of the farm with son and grandchildren.
37 A meghval family working as agricultural labourers and sharecroppers for Jaso Dan.
38 The meghval sharecropper brings his light ox cart to Jaso Dan's field.
39 Time for harvesting Jaso Dan's pearl millet crop.
40
41
42
43 The sharecropper has taken care of his part of the harvest.
44 Jaso Dan harvesting pearl millet cobs
45
46 The whole team at work in the sandy fields among undulating sand dunes.
47
48
49
50 The family has harvested other items, too, from the mixed crop.
51
52 Phog, a bushy plant of importance as a sand dune stabilizer and as fodder for animals in years of drought.
53 Harman Dan's daughter at the kitchen with fireplace and a cage for protecting food from animals.
54
55 The homestead is beautifully decorated with clay of different colours. An ageold tradition.
56