Ouail, cotton and contumacy

摘要

PANICKED from its nest, a quail scuds low across a cotton-field. The hunters spin round and blast away. As the bird drops from the sky, a gang of poor boys in plastic flip-flops races through the mud, fighting to pick up the kill. This vignette of feudal life has hardly changed in a century, except for one thing, says Ehtehsham La-leka, a puckish 30-year-old, whose family owns 7,000 acres of land in this southern region of Punjab province. "In my grandfather's day we would have had hundreds of beaters like them."