Along Comes Life

DAY 3



My neighbor’s crooning worked as my early morning alarm. And as I rose from bed listening to his musical melody, I wandered into yesterday to relive some of the most beautiful moments I had spent with families that had welcomed me into their lives like I was a dear friend returning from a long voyage.


Pradyut picked me up from my hotel at 8 AM and we were soon on our way to Kaklur, a tribal village. Our car drove past hilly curves and dusty roads, and an hour into our journey we passed guns and uniforms. Wait a minute, what did I just see? Guns and Uniforms?? I strained my eyes out of our moving vehicle to examine my new surroundings. I couldn’t believe that I was passing a platoon of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). They were stationed in base camps to patrol THIS area. Last week’s massacre of 75 paramilitary forces and a local police officer by the Naxalites stood out fresh in my memory. I was officially in war zone.


Kaklur was about 25 kms from Dantewada, the massacre site. I was expecting the air to be thick in this volatile region, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Instead I was greeted by a large group of beaming women that acknowledged my entry with shy glances and hushed conversation. These women carried themselves with unpretentious beauty. Many didis either wore their saris without a blouse or tied two pieces of cloth to wrap their body. Exquisite ornaments adorned their skin and toddlers publicly clung to breasts like baby chimps as mothers continued with their routines. These women had a way of showing skin that was not offensive.


I sat next to Duli, a reserved woman in her early 60’s. Our meeting started and twenty tribal voices fused together to create a striking piece of music. In my visits to all villages here, I had learnt that a inaugural song was sung at the beginning of every Self Help Group (SHG) meeting. This was followed by the agarbatti (incense sticks) ritual that was lit and placed before a peti (box) that contained their monetary savings. The khatta (financial record book) was opened and the SHG’s accountant registered each didi’s weekly savings of five, ten and fifteen rupees. ($1 = 45 Rupees).


I was elated to witness this ceremony that was slowly announcing hope.


After the ceremony, I thanked them for their warm reception. And the didis spoke to me about their children, farms and family. A conversation with them came with an ease and straightforwardness I had not come across in a long time. Unfortunately in the business world, this innocence was disgustingly mistaken as easy to fool. Probably the reason why Ratiram and many other men that had migrated into the cities to work had come back cheated. A daily meal of substandard rice provided at work was unfairly priced equivalent to monetary compensation for back breaking laborious jobs. At the completion of their work period, they were not paid. The men had travelled back home betrayed of well-deserved income. The dejection was palpable. Hardworking poor people were being abused. I wondered if this was an enormous scam to benefit a greedy few living in arrogance of their blatant Power and Money.


It was good to know that nobody was willing to travel into the cities to work anymore. However, they barely survived by growing a mediocre crop on stony fields and fast diminishing forest produce that they used to make liquor. They deserved a good life too. It was a good thing that Self Help Groups were being formed here. These villagers needed to find their voices.


After the meeting, the didis posed for some photos and I was envious of their picture perfect beauty! The singing was energized and I was guided through a private tour around their village. One didi held my back, while another clasped her hands around my butt. It was a bit awkward and anywhere else this behavior would have outraged me. But here the innocence of this gesture managed to outweigh the improper conduct of a scene like such!


We had spent far more time than anticipated in Kaklur and it was close to 2 PM. In another kind gesture to make me comfortable, one of the villagers had cooked lunch for us. It was a delicious serving of dal, rice and fish. I was humbled by the hospitality.


As we drove to the next destination, our car came to an abrupt halt. A tree trunk lay in the middle of a road. Suspicion arose. I noticed that both Pradyut and our driver became alert. In my mind, I imagined the worst case scenario wondering if we were under attack. After close evaluation of the landscape, the two men delicately got down to move the interruption. I watched them cautiously clear the path and visualized gunfire. What would we do? I knew that we would not have anywhere to run for cover. Thankfully there was no action. Five minutes later, we were safely on our way to the next village.


I visited four other SHGs in Chirpal and Kamanar villages. 62 other women had come together to form different groups. Their stories were similar. The burden of earning less than $1 a day was making their families vulnerable. Debt, disease and dependence were plaguing their existence. Rice and water was the staple diet and malnourished children were an accepted sight.


The good news is there was another reality – a positive reality. Dreams did not have to be put on hold anymore.


The villagers were gaining the strength to believe in themselves. They were adapting to change. People were being mobilized as SHGs were being formed. People had begun to understand that they have the power to change their lives. Their children could go to bed fed and the fields could grow three crops a year. Other sustainable livelihood opportunities could be extended. They could get out of poverty.


It is not the easiest journey but they have faced much tougher times. It is a matter of time before one good thing leads to another.


To be continued…

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...

Where My Journey Begins

My adventures began much before I reached Chhattisgarh. In transit from Bangalore to Raipur, I was looking forward to spending one evening with friends and family in Hyderabad. My plans were rudely interrupted when I fell off a bus and suffered a ligament tear in my right ankle. Thanks to my minor crash, I indefinitely cancelled my trip to Chhattisgarh and took a compulsory time-out in Hyderabad.

My injury became my family’s excuse to deter me from going into a politically unstable state that had very recently witnessed the police massacre by the naxalites in Dantewada. Rightly concerned about my safety, they used sweet-talk, drama and finally blackmail to convince me to return to Bangalore. This song and dance continued over the next two days before I decided to do what I thought was right…and took a leap of faith.

DAY 1

The air was filled with anticipation and excitement when I got off the airplane from Hyderabad into Raipur; when this host city’s landscape took me back the development growth chart at least 15 years. The lack of choices was also a bit unnerving when the sole taxi service provider at the airport signed me up to car pool to the Panri Bus Stop with a tall, big middle-aged stranger who could easily pass off as a Hindi movie scoundrel’s right hand man.

Once at the bus stop I tried to maintain a low profile; but my bright red roller suitcase and mineral water bottle were an obvious giveaway. My appearance came with pros and cons as I was soon charged way more for a meal at a roadside restaurant but also received king club seating in a white plastic chair strategically placed in the shade. This provided some much needed respite from the sun, who had planned to greet me into Raipur with a customary welcome tan. From my luxurious position, I also witnessed a bullied monologue between the local police, a runaway teenage boy and the travel company. These public guardians were making their best efforts to force the bus travel agency to put the frightened boy onboard one of the few buses plying to his village. Soon after, I left to proceed to my destination and I still wonder if that lost boy found his place where his dreams can grow.

Disobeying the Indian rule of time; our bus punctually rolled in and out of the bus stop at 11:30am and both the driver and conductor very efficiently hurried all passengers to our seats. I had noticed that the market area was mostly male dominant but when I realized that I was the only woman onboard, I experienced quivering heart syndrome. In defense, my brain quickly began to concoct plans to maintain my safety, when I became distracted by the many women and families that boarded at subsequent stops.

My journey was filled with small and large conversations with all those who were excited about this alien travelling beyond their big city. I particularly enjoyed it when a 7 year old boy was fast asleep on my shoulder reminding me of my own child. And it was also fun to chat with two young women who were returning home victorious after their day’s earnings of Rs.100/- for their 10 hours of hard work as day laborers. The scenic views sculpted by Mother Nature were captivating and so were the classic and innovative repetitions sung by street vendors trying to sell their chai, kulfi, and biskuts as the bus periodically stopped bathroom breaks. The bus made its final stop into Jagdalpur at around 7:30pm. The sun bid me farewell and the friendly mosquitoes greeted me as I proceeded to look for my host on this warm April evening.

My host Pradyut Bhattacharjee represented PRADAN, the organization that was hosting my stay in Jagdalpur. His passion and zeal were instantly contagious and it was very easy to feel comfortable in his company. The 4 wheeler rented by him drove us straight to my hotel.

Hotel Parth Palace was located on a busy road in the heart of the town. As I checked into the hotel, I noticed shirtless men that filled the corridors with cigarette smoke. Suddenly, the lack of visible female residents made me cautious of my environment. However, I decided to trust my host’s choice of accommodation for me and entered my room. As I settled into my new environment, my new lizard friend danced on the ceiling above; sending me into a trance right away.

Room 111 at Hotel Parth Palace, Jagdalpur became my new address for the next three nights.

To be continued...