December 2014: Traditional Finery

 
The village belles dressed in traditional finery presented a picture of India that was Young, Beautiful and Traditional. An India seeped in culture. An India proud of her heritage. An India that I thought no longer existed.

How their lives will change once education and technology reach them, I thought. The thought excited me, but I was also apprehensive about how our collective heritage will be lost.
 
And then she whipped out her mobile phone, and checked her make up using the selfie mode. She was satisfied.
 
I was too. Technology and tradition do not have to be mutually exclusive.
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2014: The Year That Was

November 2014: The Village Life

The village life. The rural life. The burst of colours. Scents. And textures. We romanticise everything, from the smell of crowding to the taste of fresh food. Even the poverty, seen through city eyes, is exotic- wood fired stoves never look as good in urban slums. 

Do we look beneath? At farmers depending on the rains; at others depending on the farmers. One bad harvest can wipe out all chances of repaying loans. With the only way to create wealth being dependent on factors beyond their control, is it any wonder the menfolk all migrate to urban slums?

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2014: The Year That Was

September 2014: Find their own Solutions

The longer I work in the social sector, the less sure I am of what I thought I knew. In fact, the only thing I know for sure is that I do not even come close to having all the answers. 

We speak about economic independence, but how does a woman go out to work, when she has to stay behind to catch water? We all agree that child labour is bad, but banning it only leads to greater exploitation.

On the ground, all we can really do is to act as facilitators to help communities find their own solutions.

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2014: The Year That Was

Lantain, a oil lamp

Can you imagine a situation where life comes to a standstill after night falls? Where you cannot cook, or sew, or read or do your homework after sundown. But that is the reality in the millions of villages across India where electricity has not reached. 


Unless you fancy a garnish of insects on your food, dinner has to be had before it gets dark, and all you can really do after that is to sit around in the moonlight and talk or sing. 


It is any wonder that a lantain is one of the most precious commodities in village homes?
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There are words, and there are words. Some words can be easily translated, others need to be described.  In April, I’ll attempt to capture the Soul of 26 'Indian' words in a  drabble of exactly 100 words.

Growing up with Choice

“What do you want to be?”, the class of graduating high-school students was asked. Among the teachers, doctors, engineers, and civil servants, a lone voice said, “a good housewife”. Unambitious though she seemed, she probably had a better understanding of her destiny than the rest.

The first generation of women in their community to go to school, few of them would be allowed to travel to the nearest city either for higher studies or to work. Within a year of graduation most of them would end up married.

But they can ensure that the next generation grows up with Choice.
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Manolo Blahniks in a tomato field

Tomato is a water intensive crop. You would not expect to see acres of tomato fields in an area which till a few years back faced droughts every year. And yet, that is exactly what you do see.
Why tomato and no other crop, you ask the villagers.
"All those years when we didn't have water to drink, we dreamt of growing tomatos. Now that we get water in our wells, we are living out our dreams", was the answer.

Who knew calling yourself a tomato farmer was as aspirational as owning a pair of Manolo Blahniks? But it is.

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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.
This an other cool Water Facts at Burrowers, Books & Balderdash

Spam in the middle of Nowhere

I was in the middle of nowhere, or so I thought. A hamlet high up on a hill. A place without water and electricity. A place where the only mode of transportation was two feet. A place without a primary health-care centre, or a store. A place not on the map. A place so beyond civilization, your mobile lost connectivity long before reaching there.
There, a beep was heard over the roar of the wind. My mobile managed to pull through a message. "Flat 15% off on all books till May 31", it read. Are we safe from spam anywhere?

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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Life without essential mod-cons

My kitchen is full of amenities that I take for granted- microwave, grinder, refrigerator, freezer, gas stove, water filter, electric cooker. Things that work on electricity, gas and other utilities that I enjoy without interruption. When I turn a tap, I get water. My water purifier is connected to the mains so drinking water is at the touch of a button.
And yet all I can say, most euphemistically, is that I do not particularly enjoy cooking. How then do women who have to collect firewood from the forest, and walk miles for their water manage to feed huge families?

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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

On Dung

Why should a third of the patients at a rural healthcare clinic be suffering from asthma, I wondered. There were no polluting industries in the vicinity of the village. The air was so fresh, it should have been curing respiratory diseases: how then was it causing it?


I had the answer when I entered the first hut. It was so full of arid smoke that my eyes welled up with tears, and I had to run out of the room.

Too poor to afford fuel, the people burn cowdung cakes in their stoves. Poverty was the Cause, not the Air.

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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Doesn't the scene look idyllic?

From last year: D for Daddy's Darling Daughter

On Bucket-lists

I really must put this on my list of places to visit, I told my Mom after she sent me photographs of tulip fields in bloom. Like many others, I have a list of things to do... someday. Things that are doable, only not now.


But completing a full marathon was never on the list, because till I started running, even 10k seemed impossible.
Sitting in an un-electrified hut, eating freshly harvested peanuts and gossiping with villagers was never on it, because who even thought about such things?

Bucket-lists are great. But it's better still to let Life surprise you.
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Last year's B post - B for Burrow.

In Parallel Worlds

Three days in a village in one of the poorest states in India.
Griding poverty. Governmental indifference. Regressive social practices. Ineffective education. No employment opportunities. No access to primary healthcare. No power. Unsafe drinking water.
Twenty-four hours after getting back home, I am struggling to come to terms everything I saw.

The nearest city is famous for silk sarees. On hearing where I had gone, a friend asked me if I had picked up a couple of them. One saree would keep a family comfortable for a few months.

Sometimes I wonder if my friends and I inhabit parallel worlds.

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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

The sarees from Benaras are undoubtedly beautiful- they are just far removed from where I was.

Where does milk come from?

My kids and I were playing 'Animal Questions'.


"Name three animals that give us milk." No reply. I realized they probably did not know the difference between a cow and a buffalo, and they definitely did not know about goats, so I simplified the question. "Okay, name one animal that gives us milk." Still no reply. "Come on. Name one animal that gives us milk."

"But animals don't give us milk", the older one ventured tentatively. "Milk comes from a packet."



When people in villages consume milk from packets, can I really expect my city born kids to know better?
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Fetching Water from the Well

The only running water she knows is the trickle she gets when her daughter pours water from a glass for her to wash her utensils. There is one water pump in her village, but it is almost always dry. Her only reliable source of water is almost mile away.


Every morning, she walks a mile to the common well, and returns balancing pots of water on her head. Every evening, she repeats the journey.

But she doesn't complain, because her friends make the trips with her, and they have their special songs which they sing on the way and back.
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.