Fulfilling Half Day in a Village

Visiting a village was one of the things I wanted to do since long. Though Jagriti Yatra filled that wish to some extent, today was better. (And ya desire for a longer visit still smoulders) I'd gone to an official visit today to Katgaon village in Osmanabad district in Maharashtra. The purpose is to monitor and report on a project supported by a corporate donor. It's a small village with population of around 5000. This post is about my travels, another about the impact of the NGO which I visited will follow.

The two-day visit started in Solapur with taking a room in Hotel Surya International. The room is good except for the fact that it has no tubelight (only CFLs) and there is no ironing facility at the hotel. But my colleague opined that there are no cockroaches and the bathroom is sparkling clean so it's a great deal :P

Moving on, we reached a training centre of Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP), the NGO we are visiting.

Review of "Musings of a Wanderer"

Author: Shreya Chatterjee        ISBN:9381205006

"Musings of a Wanderer" is Shreya's first published work. This collection of poetry by Power Publishers is a slim volume at 96 pages and very conveniently priced at ₹100. She has written since her school days and her poetry has been published in magazines and blogs. Like most Indians, she is bilingual and writes both in her native tongue Bengali and English. Without further ado, lets talk about her book.

Shreya has captured everyday emotions with a simplicity and depth that is both touching and surprising. Touching because you would have experienced the same feelings some time or the other and her words hold the potential to evoke buried memories. Surprising, because at times, what she writes is so straightforward, one wonders why didn’t no one think of putting it this way before. E.g. while writing about her mother’s abandoned slippers,

“Perhaps they even

Had a rest outside the temple steps,

But who knows for how long.”

from ‘Her Foot Friend Played Hide and Seek’. Here, she beautifully crafts an ordinary image that conveys the tirelessness of a busy homemaker. Similarly in ‘A Quiet Stroll’,

“A stroll

By the quiet river,

Nibbling at

Grass strands.”

Many of her poems are based on the onset of monsoon. And almost every one of these is heartwarming as, though she chooses simple words and writes a short verse, she manages to draw a vivid image for her reader. E.g.

“My window weaving a new tale….

When a gush of wind drenched me wet…” from ‘A Shower at Night’ and

“A laughing face,

I rush outside,

To welcome

My first shower

In love with

Those once a year,

Raindrops.” from ‘In Love with Raindrops’

Though the above lines express the joy of the poet at the first rain of the season, melancholy is more pervasive a theme in this collection. I wonder why this would be so in such a young poetess. Although, I must confess that this surprise comes forth from an optimist and joyous soul who rarely pays homage to pain. Based on this collection, it is of course beyond my judgement to know whether sorrow is a dominant theme in all her work or it catches the fancy of the poetess’ pen alone. Shreya underlines this distinction in her work on the back cover of the book when she defines herself as a “writer by profession, poet by will”.  Her poems have not been grouped according to themes or tones. So the interplay of joy and sorrow can be a refreshing read or a bumpy ride depending on the readers’ mood.

“Even they speak

A volume of words

With their downcast eyes.” from ‘Downcast Eyes’ and

“Your silence

Softens

The sore toes

The aching heels.” from ‘Curiously Silent’

As you can make out from the above lines, the diversity in themes truly makes them expressions of a meandering traveller on the journey of life. In the anthology, there are love tales in ‘Two Cups of Coffee’, ‘Behind the Blinds’ and ‘Breaking’. There are tales of warriors and cries of the natives in ‘Warrior’ and ‘Voice’. There are also some poems that encompass social issues, these are the ones which captured my interest first out of the lot. The plight of child labourers is captured in ‘Child Labors…’

“I cry out at her glittering face

‘Books would FEED me

-But NEVER within hours’. ”. Indeed how true that is.

A dutiful women caged in her home in ‘Queen of Our Land’

“Given to the whims of an insolent husband

She wore a painful smile-

Scrubbed and polished,

-Kept things spick and span.”

Or “I am light that stays invisible” in ‘To Be a Woman’.

On the whole, the book is an interesting and different read. For all lovers of poetry, Shreya is one to watch out for. May her poems never get shackled by eight-letter words and nor the emotions so abstract as to be beyond the understanding of anyone but the poet.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda. Participate now to get free books!

Maid in India 1.0

"The ‘decimal’ is simply a dot within a number. Its position within a number determines what the number means to us. Just a shift to the right or left changes its meaning exponentially." 

Decimal Foundation, an NGO in Mumbai, cites the above as their inspiration. They serve an omnipresent and yet ignored section of society - domestic help. Do you know when was the last time your maid had a health check-up? Every woman associated with Maid in India gets free medical care every couple of months. To read more about the great work they are doing, and about my visit to their office, read on.

About the yatra

Among the role models, my favourites are Gram Vikas in Orissa - Joe Madiath, Goonj in Delhi - Anshu Gupta and Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan and the focus session on Women and Leadership by Jude Kelly.

You can read about our experience with them on the yatra at Yatra Saar 2010. After every yatra, the experience of those wonderful 18 days is compiled by a team consisting of yatris. This year's document is out. Glance at it, it's a little long, so you may not like to read all of it, but do have a look.

Download pdf of the summary of those amazing 18 days: Yatra Saar 2010

Tata Jagriti Yatra 2010

यारों चलो बदलने की रुत है

These lyrics by Prasoon Joshi is what Jagiriti Yatra is about. It’s a journey that spans 12 cities across the Indian mainland igniting change in 400 young men and women. It takes these participants known as yatris to meet social and business entrepreneurs who are role models in their fields. The 400 yatris for the 2010 yatra are a diverse bunch from all regions of India and 12 other countries including Germany, Ethiopia, UK, Jordan, US and Australia among others.

Not only is the diversity amazing, the things people have done are mind-blowing. In my own group, there are two IAS aspirants, one lobbyist, a doctor who’s worked with ‘Doctors Without Borders’, an environmentalist who’s been to the UN conference in Copenhagen and the Sarpanch of a village in Chattisgarh. Isn’t it just breath-taking? I’ll keep mentioning the brilliant people I meet throughout my posts. For now, let us take a look at what the yatra is about.

The yatra is centered on using enterprise-led development to develop middle India. The jury is out for a precise definition of middle India. Middle India is that class which has ambitions and potential but not resources to fulfil them. Education is limited which limits the income too. Large families and seasonal nature of employment further worsen the situation. Urban middle Indians would be the rickshaw-drivers, grade IV government employees, small shopkeepers and the like. Rural middle India would include small and marginal farmers.

Get them on the shelf

Image via WikipediaDo you like reading or do you dislike it?
If you like reading, do you have a title in mind that isn't on the library shelf? Please tell me about it.
If you don't like reading, there must be one or two books that you have heard of. If you want to read them in near future, please let me know.

The books will be ordered for BITS library. Even if you are not a BITSian, you can suggest books that a college library should have.

Any genre which suits general reading will do. Novels, biographies, travelogues, anthologies....... Because as Sir Francis Bacon said "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested. "

For BITSians, please check in the catalogue that the book isn't already present. (They don't believe in two copies.)

Also, it'll be really nice of you if you could tell me the publisher and ISBN. You need to Google only one book, poor me will have to plough through the whole list.

The empty comment box is waiting for you....

Yaadein 1.0: Elections

Elections would seem a strange choice as the first topic among college memories. But, it was there in one of my first posts on this campus and the last elections just finished yesterday. Election Commission (EC) was the first activity that I took up in campus. Imagine being the second week in campus and the Chief Warden  is interviewing you at 9pm in his chamber.

यादें

कॉलेज का आखिरी साल, हर लम्हे को पूरी तरह जी लेने का जज़्बा लेकर आता है| हर कोई कहता है कि यह चार साल ज़िन्दगी के सबसे सुनहरे साल हैं, जितनी मस्ती कर सकते हो कर लो| पर यथार्थ में यही ज़िन्दगी की नींव के सबसे महत्त्वपूर्ण पत्थर भी होते हैं| चौथे साल तक भविष्य कि चिंता दस्तक देने लगती है, साथ ही दोस्तों की अहमियत महसूस होती है | इस उधेड़बुन के बीच मैं यह चिट्ठा लिख रही हूँ, कॉलेज के रंगीन दिनों पर | कुछ दोस्त विदाई ले चुके हैं, बाकीयों से बिछुड़ने का अहसास है |  पर होठों पर सदा मुस्कान लायेंगी कॉलेज कि ये यादें ........


PS: If you are a non-Hindi reader, don't worry, I won't be writing the memoir completely in Hindi :P

Driving in Jabalpur

If you appreciate chaos, you would love this. Heavy traffic, no rules whatsoever and roads with potholes. Driving a two-wheeler in Jabalpur is at times a circus where you are unknowingly one of the jokers.  I went driving for a mere 8 km today and a few peeks at the journey can tell you a lot about my daily experience:

I’m driving a bit towards the left on the road and a passenger auto decides to go left and stop right before me. No problem, with autos you can expect that they’ll turn or stop whenever and wherever they feel like. I then overtook it from the right but then somebody has to get down on the right side.

Time Efficiently Disbursed: TEDx

Inspiring ideas + enthralling evidence + splendid speakers = TEDx BITS Goa

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. TEDx was a conference which attracted many speakers from all over India who wanted to spread their ideas. It was an awesome experience to hear those prolific thinkers today. TEDx was preceded by TEDx University where a few speakers where given 4 minutes each to present their idea. The main speakers were given 18 minutes each.

Some of the impressive performances were of : engineer turned toymaker Arvind Gupta, world music band Shanti, structural engineer Himanshu Parikh, YES+ guy Khurshed Batliwala, Rubik cube prodigy Bernett Orlando, MIT artist Chris, entrepreneur Nikhil Velpanur, origami artist Shivaram Narayanan, founder of Blank Noise Jasmeen Patheja and film-maker Aparna Wilder. There were many other speakers, you can see the list @ http://www.tedxbitsgoa.com/speakers

Arvind Gupta has marvelous hands and an intuitive mind. He makes scientific toys out of household things including discarded materials. A cycle tyre tube and matchsticks were used to make various polygons with shape-shifting properties. A triangle is the only one which doesn't change shape, demonstrating that the shape is most fit for mechanical trusses. He showed an electrical motor, a sprinkler, a Velcro slate and wool pen for blind children among other things. His work is the kind of grassroots innovation India needs.

Another grassroots change is being brought about by Himanshu Parikh, a structural engineer who believes in Water and Sanitation as the tool to change millions of lives in India. He strongly believes that we don't need aid from abroad, just one-time investment by corporates, community and government can change the faces of Indian villages and slums. He presented data which was eye-opening. Though he said that an average investment of 6000 per family for drainage gave rise to about 75k of investment by families themselves. A fact that I find hard to digest despite his facts. But, if his movement can become widespread in India, it would have a much bigger impact than green and white revolution put together.

Jasmeen is a founder member of Blank Noise, a community initiative which raises the issue of eve-teasing. It is an issue which plagues Indian society and it was heartening to know that somebody is raising a voice. If you wish to know more about this vital issue, do visit her website http://www.blog.blanknoise.org/ Or join them at twitter @ http://twitter.com/blank_noise

Jessica Mayberry talked about community journalism which would focus on incidents and individuals ignored by the mainstream media. Her work can be another way of rural empowerment.

Shanti band's performance on melody based fusion music was beautifully rendered. It was a pleasure to listen to the symphony of sitar, tabla, keyboard and drums.

Bernett Orlando was a pleasure to watch. The kid is only 13 and can solve Rubik cubes in minutes single handed and even blind folded. It was amazing to watch the fast, nimble fingers of this 6 times national champion. The hand shadow puppetry show by Amar Kumar Sen was fun too. Another set of nimble fingers that served a feast for the eyes. Seeing origami by Shivaram Narayanan was a new experience. His pieces were almost lifelike. I thought of it as only an art, never crossed my mind that it would have so many applications. 

Two websites which I found worth checking out: Bharath Gyan and Bytes for All.

Bharath Gyan talks about the science lying undiscovered in the observations of ancient India. Khurshed Batliwala showed a few examples from here. One of them showing how we always knew that the earth is round भूगोल and it moves जगत. From his examples, I have a feeling that the site would be fascinating to read.

Bytes for All is a journalism initiative centred on IT innovations which affect daily life. It would be an interesting kind of news to keep ourselves abreast with.

This was a fruitful day spent listening to these wonderful people.

Applause and gratitude to Swetansu Mohapatra, the student who brought TEDx to our campus.