A Whole New World

DAY 2


The uneven roads laughed at our expense, as we bobbled our heads through bumpy paths that roared up balls of dust as we drove past. We were on our way to the first of many villages I was visiting over the next two days. I could barely contain my excitement!

At Chind Bahar, Pradyut and I were greeted by women and men who were happy to see him and curious to know me. Here, I met the first group of women that had come together to form the Lal Gendha Samuha, a Self Help Group (SHG) organized by PRADAN. Akhila Kashyap and the others were tribal women from similar socio-economic backgrounds belonging to the Maria and Muria tribes.

The women narrated their stories, and I learnt about their lives, dreams and realities. Most didis (meaning sisters) in the group owned land and their families grew paddy or wheat annually. They earned less than a $1 a day and the annual food supply for an average family of five lasted about six months. One sickness in the household pulled these people deeper into the clutches of poverty and they were openly cheated by middlemen who bought their produce at lower than market prices.


I knew I had a good life – a healthy family, a beautiful backyard, and an ATM card.


Later that afternoon, as I walked down a path passing mud huts standing on its last legs, I knew that the families I had visited in Chind Bahar were more affluent than their neighbors here in Maulipadar. The land was barren, uninteresting and hostile. Crop productions were at abysmally low levels. And families were struggling to make ends meet. Neelavati Bagil and others did not have easy access to the formal lending cycle through banks and were mostly at the mercy of money lending sharks that demanded intolerable rates of interest far exceeding the capital borrowed. Classic examples of one man’s misery becoming another man’s fortune.


Their stories were heart rendering but it was their warmth, generosity, and the zest to change their lives that captured my attention. Every night, I smile when I look at the flowers they gifted me on that kind April day. They showered me with a lifetime of love.

We travelled into the forest to reach Chirpal, our third village. I wondered how civilization could exist here. Grueling terrain surrounded a row of mud houses in the middle of vast emptiness. As we sat on uneven stones that decorated the dirt land, it became to drizzle. The didis in this SHG held a lone umbrella to protect me from the rain while they stood there ready to soak in the downpour. A hungry dog lazed, a toddler peed and I got a download on life in the rough country.


Families owned land but no irrigation facilities, lack of finance, poor seeds and zero technological advances prevented farmers from sustainable income opportunities. Most of the income was generated from fast depleting forest resources. Their eyes spoke a thousand words. I was amazed at how such splendid beauty and crushing hardship could reside side by side.


On the way back to Jagdalpur, we ate at a roadside dhaba (restaurant). A music lover and a voracious reader, Pradyut is a computer engineer by profession. We talked about some of our favorite movies while enjoying the food that was deliciously tasty and cheap!


Through the formation of SHGs, PRADAN was working hard to enable rural communities to promote sustainable livelihoods opportunities in Bastar. A movement had just begun. Progress was slowly making its way into these villages. The prospects are bright and endless opportunities were forming.


With a little help, villagers were believing in themselves.


To be continued...