What was once Bollywood’s pastoral passion—green fields, frolicking farmers, ambling bullock-carts and pleasant villagers potting about thatched huts—seems to have finally caught the imagination of the city slicker. With several enterprising Indian farmers offering a slice of simple, ideal village life to hankering city dwellers, the countryside is not only providing a unique travel opportunity but also intitiating the farmers into part-time business.

The notion was first embraced by Haryana Tourism, when it convinced 13 farm-owners to open their doors to outsiders in 2004. Three years on, the number of farm resorts in the state has almost doubled, while states like Himachal, Punjab, Rajasthan, Goa and Kerala are also following this route to woo tourists.

Deven Srivastav, owner of the 50-acre Surjivan Farms near Gurgaon, who was the first to take the plunge in 2004, is so pleased with his farm experiment that two months ago he set up the Association for Promotion of Rural and Agri Tourism (APRAT) to provide free counselling to those keen on taking up farm tourism.

“From wheat, gram and vegetables to pulses and oil, we grow everything organically,” says Srivastav, who makes the farm stay a back-to-the-roots experience by lodging the travellers in mud huts with thatched roofs and preparing the food on chulhas.

“We try to give them a slice of rural life while ensuring their comfort,” says Srivastav, whose kerosene lanterns, often a necessity in the power-starved Haryana, are a big hit with children at night.

If organic living is the mantra at Surjivan Farms, state-of-the-art poultry farming is the strength of Hi-Bred farms near Karnal, while camping sites by the Kurali river make the Roots Farm Retreat in Ambala district a big hit with children—its little fans include the grandson of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.

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