Hau Gaon

Namaskaar Bharat.

I am Sankar Ram, the Sarpanch of Village Kuran. You will find it difficult to find Kuran on your maps so let me tell you something about my village. Kuran is a 100 % tribal (Garasia and Bhil) village of Block Bali in District Pali, Rajasthan. It is quite remote and the closest city is Udaipur which is 175 kms away. The village consists of 323 households settled in 13 hamlets. Only 39% people are educated which means they can sign. People here are mainly agriculturists with small holdings of land. Agriculture depends on rainfall and we grow maize in Kharif and wheat in Rabi. There are 36 hand pumps, a majority of them are non-functional and we also have six ground level reservoirs but there is inadequate water supply. 5% of the people have toilets and the rest do it in the open. There is acute malnutrition. We do have electric poles but we get power no more than 2 hours a day. We also have one primary school and one Anganwadi both of which are in a dilapidated condition and children don’t like going there. They rather play in the open and help their parents in daily chores.

About a year and half ago some people from Jaipur and Mumbai came to our village and they met me and the other village elders. They said they wanted to do some developmental work in our village and wanted to make Kuran into Adarsh Gaon or a Model Village. I smiled at them and asked what is a Adarsh Gaon. They allowed us to define what development ought to happen so that Kuran becomes a model village. I called a large number of villagers into a community hall and asked them what development they wished to see in Kuran. They got into small huddles and then a few women sat down on the floor with chalks in their hands to draw out a list of things to do. Take a look at what we did and asked for:

 

The people from the cities saw everything and then agreed to put in money and people over the next 3 years to create a Hau Gaon which is Adarsh Gaon in our language.  They started the process by doing a complete study of all the households which included number of people, education, health, agriculture, sanitation and financial condition. A complete base line study was conducted and a social mapping of the village was done. This would help us understand from time to time about how we were when the project started and how much progress had been achieved. All the villagers came together and stood under a peepul tree and took an oath that they will work with all their might to make Kuran into a model village.

Today after a year and half, I am happy to inform you about what has happened so far in my village on its journey to become Hau Gaon.

A Model Village Development Committee has been formed and it consists 19 members including me. This committee meets twice a month and plans the activities and reviews action taken by various sub-committees which looks after each of the priority areas like education, health, agriculture, etc.

Nineteen self-help groups have been formed and with our small contributions we have managed to generate over Rs 4.50 lacs as savings. This has helped us mobilise over Rs  10lacs from banks and the State Government.

Since we are were dependent on monsoon rains, the NGO helped us in a big way in conserving water. Over17 ha of land has been treated with various soil and water conversation activities like field bunding and trenching. 8 loose stone check dams have also been built in the village Kuran helping in soil and moisture conservation.

Agriculture too has seen much improvement. Over 120 households as compared to 68 in the previous year have adopted improved wheat cultivation practices. 50 households have raised vegetable nurseries and will transplant in their small holding. 49 households have planted fruit orchard-  pomegranate, Guava and lemon. Low cost drip irrigation system has been installed in the orchards.

 MVDC members were taken to place near Jaipur where a farmer has installed 6 Polly Houses. There they saw how modern techniques could be used to improve agriculture and earn more profits from small holdings.Two families of Kuran have been identified who will do greenhouse based cultivation with support from National Horticulture Mission.

 A lot of good has happened on the water and sanitation front. A 3 day sanitation drive was organized where the community mind sets were engaged and people who would defecate in the open were put to shame . I too went from home to home to encourage people to make toilets and children took out rally. Eighteen of our people were trained as masons and were shown how to build toilets. 42 toilets have been built and we will make sure every house in Kuran in the next 6 months will have a toilet of their own with adequate supply of water. 31 hand pumps have been repaired and fresh clean water supply has been made available at the school, anganwadi and primary health centre. The women folk in my village are also happy that these people have brought in new technology which allows the water to be carried in contraptions like a wheel which can be rolled and taken from source to homes. Even young children are able to playfully help their mothers in the work.

The anganwadi today looks so colourful and beautiful. It is today crowded on all days with children flocking there to play with the new games and toys and of course the building is so attractive. Take a look at the old and the new anganwadi.

The school building too has transformed and children are going there regularly. A number of our children dropped out of primary school. They have been taken to a month’s residential education camp after which they will be able to join back their regular classes. While a number of people in the village have mobiles, our children now are exposed to computer education. A Community Information Resource Center (CIRC) has been established and is fully functional. The CIRC offers digital literacy (one month Intel Easy Step Course) and services (photocopy, and online services and a total of 209 of our children have benefited.

No one would step out of their houses after dusk. Today we have 18 solar powered lamps fitted at all the key places in the village and we can now step out without fear late in the evenings. The lights are nice and bright.

 My people have also taken on to beautifying the village by planting trees along the pathways and we are also putting covers against each tree so that they can grow well without the fear of cattle eating them away.

A lot has been done. A lot more will be done. Elders of my neighbouring villages come to our village to see the progress. They have made a petition to the people who come regularly from Mumbai and Jaipur that they should transform their villages as well the way they have done with Kuran. There is an old saying that a journey of thousand miles begins with the first step to which I say the journey of creating a hundred Hau Gaon begins with Kuran. 

Padhaaro Maahrey Gaon Ma.

Dhanyawaad,

Sankar Ram

PS. Tata AIG, Mumbai along with Centre for Microfinance, Jaipur are endevouring this transformation project in remote Rajasthan as part of the CSR program.

UNBREAKABLES

Someone called it The Emperor of all Maladies. Many a life changed forever and no one as yet can claim to have won the war against the disease yet there are a few who not only have fought the Emperor but have survived. These are some true life stories of the Unbreakables.

She was thirty two, he was a couple of years older and they had a lovely daughter who was six when we met them at Mumbai in 2002. Let me address her as K. It wasn’t the best of circumstances as K was then at Tata Memorial Hospital at Parel. She was battling the Emperor and had come down from Kolkata for the treatment for they said this was the best place with the best doctors and facilities. She was an office colleague and had been a charming girl full of life when she had joined the company around a decade ago. She always wore long kurtas and with her curly hair and big glasses you could never miss her but the best thing about her was her happy nature and for that she was loved by all. The day we saw her, she was lying on the hospital bed with a friend or two in attendance and her biggest pillar of strength, her husband, who looked completely exhausted having lived through the nightmare for the last two years. The doctors had just told the husband that they had tried their best and his wife’s case looked incurable. There was little they could do so it was best to take her home where she could live the remaining days of her short life with her family.

The couple went back home to Kolkata. The woman wanted to live and was not willing to accept a NO for an answer. Both husband and wife searched for literature on the disease and places which offered hope. Their search zoomed on Christian Medical College, Vellore where they read that some people with the same symptoms and ailment had seen miraculous results. The couple left their child with her grandparents and went to Vellore and stay put there for months where she underwent treatment which many a mortal would have said no to but she wanted to live. When things had gone beyond repair, the doctors had even suggested if her brother staying abroad would be willing to give her bone marrow which was seen as her only hope, but the brother had shied away. Her lust for life was so desperate that the treatment at Vellore started having positive impact and slowly she started showing signs of improving. She kept going at short intervals to Vellore and in a year or two returned to near normal life.

We met her once again when she got a transfer to Mumbai. When many a meek person would have opted for an easy posting doing paperwork, she took charge as the Divisional Manager of an insurance branch which had a history of corruption and political interference. She not only took to the role seriously, she turned the office around to making it one of the best offices. She would travel by the Mumbai locals always carrying back with her the laptop for she would work late into the night. While she still had to go to Vellore repeatedly, she never gave up on life. Today, her daughter is in the US studying, the husband is doing well in a multi-national company while the Brave Heart goes on with her work as usual. Never does she ever complain about her health or curse the Lord for her fate. We do get some messages from her at times saying she has had to rush to Vellore and on other occasions recommends other patients to her doctor, her savior. A true fighter to whom the Emperor bows and salutes.

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Meet Syeda Noor-e-Jannat which literally meant Syeda, the Light of the World. She was the only daughter of her parents and she had everything going right for her- love of her parents, great friends to play with, huge pile of toys and clothes, in short a happy life when tragedy struck. She was seven years old when she was detected with Burkitt’s Lymphoma and her life changed forever. It appeared that for her father at Dhaka, the Light of the World had been lost for the happy kid. They tried local hospitals and after some time when Syeda’s health started deteriorating, the family came down to Tata Medical Centre, Kolkata where the long and painful treatment started for the little one. The girl retreated into her shell and would hardly interact with anyone except her mother who would constantly read her stories. It took the doctors three years of experiments, three years of fighting to save the kid, three years of care and love. Today Syeda is back in school playing, dancing, singing and taking to her studies as others in her class. The Light now shines once again for her parents. The Emperor is struck by the valour and grit of the little girl and once again dismounts from his white stead to kneel before Syeda.

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My third victor was a fifteen year old son of a farmer who earned no more than Rs 2000 a month.  Rajesh was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. He was brought to Tata Medical Centre, Kolkata where he was put on a Chemotherapy protocol. Despite the painful and prolonged treatment, Rajesh was always in high spirits. He never let the ailment get the better of him. Even with the treatment going on, Rajesh prepared for this Board examinations. Rajesh also had interest in photography. He joined a workshop where he learnt more about the art of photography. Soon the talented young man kept improving his skills and more recently some of his photographs were put on display at London.

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Stories of K, Syeda and Rajesh may be rarity but still they are there. They are the few whose zest for life has sent back Yama to come another day. The lives of the Unbreakables shows that it is not all lost as long as you are ready to stand up and fight. And in this fight there are the good doctors and hospitals like Tata Medical Centre, Kolkata where such miracles happen. I am fortunate to be associated with TMC as part of our Corporate Social Responsibility. Equipped with the most modern facilities and some of the best doctors, TMC was established in 2011. Built at a cost of Rs 350 crores completely paid for by Tata Trusts, this hospital currently has 167 beds and caters to the eastern part of the country which has an extremely high incidence of cancer. The hospital also has a place to put up the family of patients within the campus. Today the hospital is wanting to expand more by adding nearly 200 new beds. Take a look at the hospital. The story goes that when the building was ready for inauguration, the locals of the area protested that they had given the land for building a hospital and not a hotel. In order to calm their nerves, the gates were opened and they were shown around the complex and they were all in awe and praise of the place.

Tata Medical Centre has a face for their fund raising and that belongs to another Unbreakable, Koel and I would request my readers to see the beautiful and touching film on Journey of Hope by logging on to on youtube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGrD9AtEdFQ (select the link, right click and scroll to the site which reads Go to www. and enter to view).

The smile on the little girl’s face says it all. Hope we beat the Emperor once and for all.

SS

The Side Effects of Being a Bookworm

Reading is injurious to health

I was never warned nor cautioned…in fact I was encouraged. A new book for every birthday, train journeys, exam results, Durga puja and at least three to four during the summer and winter vacations. The drug was freely given and the addiction persisted and grew.

What follows here is a retrospective, observational study about the adverse effects of the pharmacological compound that goes by the brand name of ‘story books’ in the Indian population. The age group included in the study ranges from 5 to 60 years and it was conducted over a period of 20 years from 1996 to 2016. The sample size was not fixed. It was divided into the study group that included the people commonly referred to as ‘the bookworms’ and the control group that included ‘everybody else’. The aim of this study was to bring to light the harmful effects of reading story books on the personality of the study group. The results and conclusions have been summarized below as a first person account.

Bookworms are very busy during the vacation time.

We prefer to begin piling our stock much before the vacation actually begins, that’s when the hibernation starts. The books for the next semester can wait for the term to start but not the story books. We prefer to stay indoors during the day and stay up late at night to finish the chapters. It is bothersome for the other inhabitants of the house since we will not budge to help out with any work, we are not lazy but we just need to know what is going to happen next. We will clean our bookshelves arrange the books according to authors but do not expect us to clean our desks.

Bookworms care more about the paperbacks than the paper notes.

We will drag our parents to stand in long queues, pre order the next book in series and end up buying hard bound new books even though we know that in a month or two the same book will be available at a much lesser price. But we are an impatient lot, we cannot wait that long. As I said, it is an addiction and we get a high by getting our hands on the first set of copies.

Bookworms are unable to like English being taught in schools.

We do not like the fact that excerpts from plays or novels are kept in syllabus. We need to know why Mark Antony decided to address his Friends, Romans and Countrymen or whether Brutus was truly an honourable man or not. And so we end up reading the entire play and not just the famous speech even though we know that we will never be asked more than one question from it.We cannot limit the number of words in a letter to 100 and in an article to 250. We just cannot express ourselves and feel constrained and almost claustrophobic when such limitations are put. We often resort to unscrupulous means such as making our handwriting tiny so that the space occupied appears to be limited even though our flow of words is not. While some of us become rebellious against this unjust system of curbing creativity by not writing a few answers at all, others could not care less and continue to let the ink fill the pages and smudge the hands knowing fully well that they will never finish the paper.

Bookworms can be very prejudiced.

We might not respond if you begin an introduction with ‘Myself Chhotu, from Mumbai’.

While we can chatter non stop about Bathsheba and Gabriel Oak, we might just end up completely ignoring you in the madding crowd if you say the novels you have read are Chetan Bhagat’s Revolutions. So we find it difficult to strike a conversation or to continue one after a point with the control group.We are a rigid lot. We prefer the feel and smell of rough yellow paper than kindle the desire to accept and adapt to the electronic world.

Bookworms can be oblivious to the world.

You can step on our feet, push us, squash us in the local trains of Mumbai, that’s alright; we won’t say anything to you while we are reading. We are more interested in whether Ralph de Bricassart reciprocates Meggie’s love or not rather than ‘Pudhil station Andheri’.

Bookworms can be extremely irritating movie companions.

We do not think any movie has done justice to the books. We will exclaim aloud time and again in the theatre “that is not what happens in the book” or “oh my God, they omitted the most important detail, the whole plot rests on that.” And no, you cannot have an opinion about the movie if you haven’t read the book.

Bookworms are pests when it comes to matrimony.

We can be a source of constant worry to our parents and grandparents when it comes to finding a suitable match. An ideal matrimony profile for us should read,

“Looking for a tall, dark and handsome gentleman with Sherlock’s brain and Darcy’s heart, as noble as Aragorn and as swashbuckling as Rhett Butler, with principles of Howard Roark, charm of Jean-Benoit Aubéry and the madness of Willy Wonka, as selfless as Sidney Carton who sticks with me through the best of times and the worst of times and who makes me an offer with The One Ring that I cannot refuse and for whom love means never having to say you are sorry.” Great Expectations. Period.

The perils of the world of fantasy are many, the study has been able to elucidate only a few. The data collected till now has shown that the benefits of reading far exceeds the potential complications and adverse effects. It is thus justified, according to the authors, to expose the child at an early age to the drug. The research is still continuing but the progress has slowed down as the bookworms are an endangered species now. The world will soon be rid of them. But the question that remains unanswered is, ‘Do we want that to happen?’

Till then…Mischief Managed!

MS

Confessional

Father, I want to confess.

Yes my son, you may.

Father hope what I say today will remain with you.

Yes son, it is between you and the Lord. Now tell me what you wish to confess.

I have sinned, Father.

What did you do?

I have stolen, I have flicked not once but many times over. Stolen from family and friends and people outside.

Tell me more, son.

It started every early when I was very young, maybe seven or so. My father would hang his trouser from a hook behind the door. Whenever I would get some time, when no one else was in the room, I would walk up and put my hand in his pockets. Often I would find some coins. Taking one or two would never be noticed or, maybe, my father, too much in love with me, preferred not to make an issue out of it. It went on and my cravings grew and so did my confidence. But I crossed my limit one day. I had a sister who was challenged. She would put all the coins my parents would give her in a box. This was no piggy bank but just a used tobacco box with a hole drilled on top of the lid. My sister would put the coins in it and bring it close to her ears, then give it a shake or two just to hear the sound and would smile. One day I opened up the box and took out a good number of coins. Feeling rich, I went to the market and bought a cheap plastic chess board. Next morning when my sister picked up her box she felt it light. She went to mother and said that the box was nearly empty. My mother, knowing her son well enough, straightaway came over and saw me busy practising my grandmaster moves.

“From where have you got this chess set? You stole money from your sister’s gullak….you thief….,”and her hands started falling all over me. It went on for quite some time till Lord Krishna in the earthly form of my father appeared and said, “I bought him the game.”

Love can be poison at times. Had he not protected me that fateful day, maybe I would have not committed many more of similar crimes in life.

Go on Son. Tell me more.

Father, this was when I was about ten years old. We lived in government quarters which were tight on space and we lived on budgets that were tight too. There was little of luxury that we had. One luxury I was fortunate to have was studying in a missionary school where many a Richie Rich and sons of senior bureaucrats sat next to me. One close friend was Harjiv. He lived not far from my place and would travel in the same school bus. We got along very well and there were many days when he would insist that I get off the bus and go to his home for lunch, after which we would draw and play and have fun. There were days when I would stay overnight at his place as well. His parents were also very loving and would take special care of me. They never differentiated between their son and me. I still remember one morning at the breakfast table, when I had no clue how to use the fork and knife while eating, his mother gave me my first lesson in table manners of knife in my right hand and fork in my left. They would even drop me back home in the car- my first car rides. His mother even gave me some of his good clothes which he would outgrow and I loved wearing those fanciful shirts that my parents couldn’t afford.

Why don’t you just tell me what you did, son?

Harjiv had a big collection of dinky toys. These were miniatures of cars of different makes and models. These ranged from the sports cars with Benson & Hedges written on them to Volkswagon Beetle. But I always had an eye on a James Bond Aston Martin car. It was a golden coloured car which had three knobs on left side below the doors. Bond would use these against his enemies for shooting them while driving. When you pressed the first lever, two guns would pop out from the below the bonnet. Press the second and a steel screen popped up behind the rear window. Bond had enemies who were everywhere. This screen protected him from the firing guns of the evil forces. The third lever was the best. Press it and the roof of the car would open up and the villain sitting next to Bond with a gun in hand would get ejected as our Hero saved the world on Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

I flicked the car, Father.

Harjiv never mentioned it to me. Maybe, he had so many that he never missed it. I kept the car safely stored away in an iron trunk in my house. Would take it out and play with it, show-off with it to my other neighbourhood friends and put it back again. The toy was so good that I had it with me for over twenty years till we shifted to another house, possibly lost in transit or there was another one like me who wanted the car too. Today I feel like confessing to my friend. Hope he forgives me.

Son, is that all or you have more to share? I have many more waiting to talk to me.

Father, just two more for the day.

Ok. Go on.

Next when I was eleven and studying in class six. Among the many friends I had, there was Sunil who had come a year ago from another school. He was quite my size and a friendly sort. We got along very well and soon he became my best pal. He would sit next to me and I would everyday copy his homework early morning before the teacher came into the class. In turn, he would munch the mughalai parantha and other interesting stuff my mother would pack for me for lunch. It was a great arrangement and you could see us together everywhere in school. His birthday was approaching and I wanted to give him something. With empty pockets, wasn’t very sure but was on the lookout for something. Among the other school friends was Rupinder who stayed in a massive bunglow at Lodhi Estate as his grandfather happened to be a minister in the central government. I had taken some comics from Rupinder and returned him all except one…a big, beautiful comic book….Tintin in Black Island. It looked almost new.

How could I give Sunil just a comic? So I picked up one of the two new staplers Baba had got from office. These were the Kangaroo Brand staplers, which were small and cute, not like the usual big ones we were all so used to. I took one of them and along with it took a box of staple pins for the new stapler. Then I took a big envelope, put the comic and the stapler and the pins in it, and sealed it neatly with staples for the other remaining stapler. Pleased with the packing and the contents, put the same in my school bag. Next morning handed it over to Sunil…. “This is for you. Happy Birthday, Sunil.”

Sunil was thrilled. He still remembers the present. My father kept on asking me about the second stapler that he couldn’t find. He remembered it late into his life but I kept the secret to myself. Don’t know if Rupinder ever missed his comic book….maybe not. He had too many to worry about one old comic book and anyway comics are meant to be taken and never returned.

The next crime, Father, I committed was when I was twelve. It was summer vacation and the days were long. In the early morning, say around 5am, friends would call out your name while you slept in the balcony of your government flat. In no time you were ready to go either for a long walk which could be ten odd kilometres from R.K.Puram to Palam Airport to watch the planes take off and land or to go to a nearby park to play. We were back around 9 am and then in peak summer there was little to do other than play indoor games. We also had some young entrepreneurs in our colony. My first brush with start-ups, as they call it today, was to start a borrowing library. Ravinder and Sandeep were two brothers who gave me this idea and I lapped it up. We collected all the books and magazines we could lay our hands on, pulled out and cleaned a wooden shoe rack and placed the books on it. Everybody in the colony was informed about the library. They could borrow any book for 25 paise for a day. All details of the borrower’s name, address and date were entered in a long book maintained diligently by Ravinder who was the eldest of us all. Sundeep kept the monies in a tin box and also kept records of our daily collection.

It was so far so good but in some time we realized our readership had declined as people did not find new books there. They had finished reading almost all we had on display. We had to get more books. Ravinder came up with a plan. There was a market not far from where we lived in C- Block, Vasant Vihar. There was a book store which had many children’s books as well as comics. Ravinder said that in the afternoons the owner of the store went home for lunch leaving behind his twelve year old son to take care of stray customers. All three of us did reconnaissance a couple of times and knew the exact time when the store was in the custody of the youngster.  The plan was hatched and one afternoon the trio went over to the store. The place was completely empty with no other customer there….perfect. As we entered, the boy asked us what we were looking for and we told him magazines and comics. While Ravinder and Sundeep started asking the boy to fetch them some film magazines that were in the far end of the store, I sat down where the comics lay and quickly picked up 4-5 small sized comics and shoved them inside my trouser while pulling out my shirt.

My bad luck or my amateurish act possibly caught the eye of the boy who rushed towards me. “What have you taken? Show me what you have taken.” I stood there frozen like a fool while Ravinder and Sandeep rushed out of the store. I simply took my hand beneath the shirt and pulled out the comics I had taken…. “Oh Commando Comics….!” he shouted. By now I had come back to my senses and threw the books at the boy’s face and made a mad rush. As I was running out I realized that just next to the store was the Vasant Vihar Police Station. There were policemen walking in and out of the station constantly but I was hardly in any position to watch the cops. My life was at stake and my legs were to be my saviours. The boy ran out shouting “Chor…Chor…”but by then I had gone into an alley and neither he nor the cops saw me. Somehow I reached home, watching every step and every person on the road…I didn’t want to be caught. Exhausted I entered home and found the brothers waiting for me. That was the end of the library dream.

Son, all this happened when you were very young. I am sure you would have done even bigger things later in life.

No Father. That Commando incident was the last. The fear of getting caught by cops, thrashed and put behind bars haunted me for a long time and I didn’t do any more of this flicking business ever.

But why are you confessing after forty years.

Father, you are right. My parents and sister are no more. So surely they’ll never know the truth but I have friends who still are very close to me. Whenever I see them, I feel like confessing but fear that they will shun me after that makes me weak and I keep quiet. I’ve been living with this guilt for so many years and now I want them to know about it when they read this story. They will get time to think over the relationship….to forgive or not to forgive. I shall accept their verdict even though losing them now will be more painful than anything. But I still must confess.

Often parents in their excessive love for their children cover up the mistakes which gives the child the impetus to do more of them without fear. On the other hand, the fear of being beaten up and put to shame can do the child a world of good. No wonder someone wrote, spare the rod and spoil the child.

SS