The smell of rice stalks (B&W Photo Contest - Landscape)

_{Picture taken with camera OPPO A37f}

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Rice is a source of sustenance, says the farmer. Rice is a source of food security, state officials said. Rice is a source of carbohydrates, says nutritionist. And, of course, there are many more assumptions for rice from different perspectives.

In social science textbooks in elementary schools have been informed that rice is the staple food in our country. We, who at that time were children, nodded our heads, admitting that fact. Yes, how not, while we always eat it at home.

_{Picture taken with camera OPPO A37f}

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But along with that, something non-physical has actually grown in the depths of the mind.

Rice stalks grown in vast paddy fields, from the time they were stalks, appeared over a shallow puddle in the muddy ground, until they were seen more dense and then became like a field covered with soft green carpets until they yellowing and starting to bend because of their increasingly filled seeds.

All of that, slowly but steadily, has lowered its roots into our inner being. To love them beyond our consciousness, to miss them when we did not see them for a while.They have created a memory that is not of the past kind, but a memory that knows no time limits. It is the past, the present, the future, at a time.

_{Picture taken with camera OPPO A37f}

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The rice stalks had spread its distinctive smell in the air, smelled strongly by our sense of smell, and it became the perfume of life that constantly made us aware of our lives.

_{Picture taken with camera OPPO A37f}