New Lessons

13th October, 2013

Today was a day of running around frantically, compiling data, letting your fingers dance on the keyboard and reading and rereading the report and PPT presentation of our work in the village.

SEARCH and Mendha Lekha

After reading, discussing and hearing so much about a village, you definitely want to visit it. Today, we had an opportunity to do just that. But before we went to Medha Lekha, we visited SEARCH (Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health), which was founded by Abhay and Rani Bang in 1985. Both of them have worked extensively with tribals and have ensured that they feel comfortable in modern hospitals. They created a new type of hospital, which made the tribals feel at home. They firmly believe in the principal, “Think Globally, Act Locally” and it reflects in the work they done till date. We were also given a tour of the Tribal museum, this NGO is trying to set up.

Return to Khurkheda

11th October, 2013

After bidding goodbye to everybody, we left the village at 7 in the morning. We got into a Jeep and reached Korchi at around 7: 45.While waiting for the other team to arrive, I struck up a conversation with a lady. She asked me my name and was curious to know why all of us were here. After telling her about myself, I asked her life. She told me that she and her husband worked in the District Collector’s office and they had just completed a year here. She was on her way to Nagpur to meet my parents.

Unexpected Rains; Unexpected Revelations

10th October, 2013

             

Today was a day of revelations. Throughout the day, people kept making subtle references about the Naxalism problem in the area. It was our last day of fieldwork and we decided to broach the topic openly.

Devi

9th October, 2013

Pandhrigota has two concrete constructions, toilets and a temple they built for the Gaon Devi after the mud temple was washed away by heavy rains. Today, they were going to carry the Gaon Devi, Sitla Maa, to the mandap where they had placed another idol of Sitla Devi for Navratri. The procession started and everybody started walking towards the temple, chanting and playing musical instruments.

Idyllic Villages?

8th October, 2013

Villages are often described as idyllic; but somewhere beneath the beauty lays an ugly face. I am not trying to make a generalization here, but I’ve experienced things in 2 out of 3 villages, which changed my perception of a village.

Pandhrigota: First Impressions

7th October, 2013

Motion sickness is my constant companion while travelling and today was going to be worse. Not only I was going to travel, I was going go up a mountain. So on a diet of some homeopathy medicine and a cup of tea, I started my journey for Pandhrigota.

We bid goodbye to the last signs of ‘modern civilization’ and immediately got stuck in a traffic jam. Not a regular traffic jam mind you; it was a traffic jam of cows and buffaloes.

Back to AAAS

6th October, 2013

Today, we stayed in the NGO to finish data compilation and started work on our NGO reports. Our faculty supervisor also paid us a visit and we had a meeting with him. We talked about the various things we observed during our village stay and discussed the concept of development.

Last Day in Navargaon

5th October, 2013

Emotional moments, cancelled plans, a late night visitor, scurrying around in the darkness for my luggage, an ambulance ride during heavy rains, carrying a drenched bag and saving the charts as I walked in knee deep water  would perfectly sum up my experience today.

Women and Bathrooms

4th October, 2013

Data compilation is one of the most tedious, boring and time consuming jobs. It requires great concentration because if you miss even a single unit, you might have to start all over again. After spending most of the morning and the afternoon with surveys, I decided to take some time off and take a bath.

What is Cleanliness?

3rd October, 2013

Being a cleanliness freak, the hand sanitizer carrying variety, I found some of the things that people do in villages to be really odd. They would wash their feet with water and then walk over mud barefoot, clean the feet on the pairdaan and then enter the house. Their feet wouldn’t be clean at all because the mud that would stick on to their feet. I couldn’t understand why they bothered to wash their feet with water at all. I never washed my feet and would just try to clean my feet with the pairdaan as much as possible. I was not used to walking without slippers and I felt so unclean going to the loo or crossing the angan without them.

Priorities v.s.Needs

2nd October, 2013

I had completely lost track of time and I did not realize that it was Gandhi Jayanti today till the Up Sarpanch asked us to go to the school for a programme. ‘2^nd October, Mahatma Gandhicha ani Lal Bahadur Shastricha Jayanti’ was written on the board. For a minute I thought that there was some mistake. We had never celebrated Lal Bahadur Shastri’s Jayanti on 2^nd October in my school. But surprisingly, everybody in my group mates knew about this and for the first time in my life I realized that Convent Education does not necessarily mean the best education.

Caste problem?

1st October

I could barely sleep the whole of last night because today was the day when we were actually going to go to Navargaon, our home for the next 5 days. After breakfast and a heavy lunch, we left for the village in an ambulance. Our living arrangements were not decided and our arrival did make some people stop and stare.   

Amhi Amchya Arogyasathi

30th September

Officially, our first day of work had begun. We got up early, had breakfast and were raring to go. After a prayer meet, we were told about the history of Amhi Amchya Arogyasathi. 

First Impressions of Khurkheda

29th September

We reached Nagpur today after a turbulent journey in the night (the bus driver drove like a maniac). After walking for a kilometer we managed to locate a bus which would take us to Varsa, which was about half an hour away from our destination, Khurkheda. After napping for a good part of the journey, I finally somewhere near Bhivapur. I was really excited to when I was able to recognize soya bean from afar. But after a while, I could see stretches of grazing land with no cattle in sight. Finally my curiosity got better of me and I asked a co passenger why people did not put this land to better use.  The first thing he asked me was whether I was from the city and I replied yes. He then said that it was not grass but rice which had just started growing.

As we passed Aamgaon, which grows rice and not Mangoes as the name suggests, I spotted quite a few Langurs. I saw scarecrows, too, something I had never seen in my life. I often wondered how a stick man could keep birds away. A kaki sitting next to me told me that birds and wild pigs in the night often confused them for a man and stayed away. It was not 100 percent effective but it worked .

Nagbhide boasted of a forest range officer and a herd of deers and Brahmpuri had an engineering college! After all that I had read and heard from people about Khurkheda, I was really surprised to see an engineering college in the middle of literally nowhere.  It was then that I realized that how scared I really was about this entire trip. Behind my brave façade even I had nightmares and misconceptions about the place. Were they easy to let go? Not really, but this college did manage to bust a few myths.

The highlight of this trip was Vainganga, a gigantic, mesmerizing body of water which was just five minutes away from Khurkheda. And my journey had begun.

********

After bathing and finally feeling ‘clean’ after nearly 18 hours of travel, we had a first meeting with Doctor Satish of Amhi Amchya Arogyasathi. We were given a few basic instructions and were asked to rest. We decided to follow sir’s instructions and slept for hours, till it was time for dinner. 

New girl in the village

Curiosity and unbridled enthusiasm are the two words which would describe my state of mind as I boarded the bus to the Dahiwadi, Tuljapur. Being a city snob, actually scratch that; a metro snob, I had never seen a village in my entire life. Osmanabad was a place I had studied in Geography in my 6^th standard and at that point of time, I had firmly believed that that is the place where Osama Bin Laden hailed from.

Never in my wildest dreams had I thought that it would be a place I would learn to call my home as I grow up.

Hand sanitizer, tissues, two water bottles, notebook, pens, chips, chocolates, Glucon D, farsan and a sunscreen lotion are the ‘basic necessities’ I carried along with me. After all, I had to be prepared for all eventualities. And so with a heavy bag and a duppatta in place, I entered the village for the first time in my life.

As expected, all of us were greeted enthusiastically by villagers. After hearing a speech by the Sarpanch, all of us went our different directions. My first task at hand was to go for a transit walk and make a list of all resources of Dahiwadi. As I walked by, I could see a few children playing and the first thing I went and said to all of them was, ‘Hello!’

“Who is this mad girl?” would have been the first thought in their mind because the minute I said that, all of them ran away, much to my chagrin. I decided to move ahead with my work. One part of my task was to try to identify and collect samples of any unusual plants I might come across. I was saved from plucking leaves of every plant I came across, by my field partner who could easily identify most the plants. But then we came across a flower shrub we could not identify and decided to take a sample.

When we spotted a Kaka passing by, we decided to ask him what the name of the plant is. Unfortunately, he couldn’t understand Hindi and my knowledge of Marathi was limited. In the end we managed to convey the question to him through sign language and finally managed to get the name of the plant, ‘Aingraj’. (Later I was told that this particular plant has no name and that Aingraj was actually that Kaka's name. Our sign language was seriously flawed :) )

Next, I visited the fields where I had to be explained every second word a Kaka was saying. I identified soya bean wrongly twice, thought the gayran ( grazing land) was actually rice crop in its nascent stages and even managed to slip twice; though both times I was saved by my amused field partners.

I understood the true meaning of power dynamics, when I was invited in the Kaka’s (the one who showed us around) house. That is when, I realized why one shouldn’t stick to one person while collecting data. You get to know only his perspective and the person starts having certain expectations from you.

After my transit walk, we had to make a map out of the details we had collected from the village. The metro snob in my kicked in and I could not bear messing my hands. Lunch was a queasy affair for me. For one, I had to sit on the floor, no spoons were provided and I had to pee; urgently.

I decided to close my eyes and focus on bladder control, eat as little as possible without a spoon and try to find the cleanest spot to sit down.

*******

In the evening, we were going to have a Mashal march, something that I was really excited about. With my limited knowledge of Marathi, I managed to gather nearly 20 kids and I felt very proud of myself. I made them stand in a line, in groups of two, and taught them a few slogans.

One of them was, however, was standing all alone and nobody was talking to him. I went up to the little boy and started talking to him with my limited Marathi vocabulary. He seemed to be a little scared; and within a few minutes, I realized why. A group of boys were calling him names. Feeling bad, I offered him a few chocolates (a mistake, I later realized) and tried to cajole him by saying that he was my friend.

By this time, the group of boys who were teasing him had grown. They kept calling him things. By their tone, I knew that it was something really bad, but I could not understand. I called a friend to help me. He came and said a few things to them in Marathi and they scattered. The little boy belonged to a Dalit family and was being picked upon.

Very few children from the Dalit families had participated and the girls were virtually absent. For the first time in 3 months, I saw the caste and gender problem in front of my eyes. That, too, in a village just 30 minutes away from my college. I shuddered to think what I would see in other remote parts of Maharashtra.

I thought myself to be a person who could change people’s life; but by offering the little boy chocolates and calling him my friend, I ended up alienating him. Throughtout the march, I walked besides him and ensured that he was safe.

But something kept pricking me; I was going to be in the village for another hour or so. What about tomorrow? Who will take care of the little boy then? I had no answers.