As harvest was underway, the predominant color was a golden yellow, alongside brown mud being ploughed and green rice shoots being transplanted. Activity was intense, relentless, as bundles of cut rice straw were fed into wooden threshing machines by women wearing circular bamboo hats, the grains hauled off by motorized carts to nearby villages for domestic use or onward distribution.

As I cycled, there was virtually no road traffic — perfect conditions to take in the transfixing scenes. A farmer walked cackling ducks out from a village; a woman stood beside her buffalo; a ploughman worked almost knee-deep in mud; sacks of peanuts were strapped to bicycles. More buffalo wallowed in paddy fields while a farmer casually crossed a small bridge, his animal running in front; men were catching fish from a pond.