Can ten days
make a difference to someone?? Ten days… Just ten days??? Yes, and it made all
the difference to us. The furious waves of the gigantic sea in front of us
vanished and out came there miniature ponds as still as a stone, except for
cattle and humans bathing. The unending stretches of grey sand have been
replaced by vast patches of lush green fields. After all, it is TIME, the most
lethal weapon in the creation of mankind which can do anything. The language of
communication, the demographics, the geography, everything changed. However, one
thing did not change. The warm welcome we got, the way we were treated, the way
people served us; all remained the same, depicting a true INDIAN attitude.
For those who
are lost by now, we were in the Zest resort in Pondicherry ten days ago, and
now, we find ourselves amidst the heart of rural India in Raigarh District in Chhattisgarh.
Seven STUD(ent)S all set out with an objective of understanding the Mid-day
meal programme in this place, we landed in Raigarh on the 3rd of
July. In collaboration with Naandi Foundation, a NGO, we were to conduct this
study and give some recommendations (God knows what). The article features 7 of us (Abhineet, Rahul, Vishal, Ghanshyam, Saradha, Janani and the Legendary ME) and the
other ones who are the block representatives from Naandi.
A bumpy ride
amidst heavy rain, an early-morning goof-up (auto breakdown) for Rahul, a narrow
escape missing the early morning flight from Mumbai to Raipur, an irritating flight,
a warm welcome at the Raipur airport, a tiring 6 hour travel to Raigarh in our
wave of sleepy inquisitiveness, a sumptuous lunch, landing at an unexpectedly
good hotel, ending in an ironically boring but an excited day. This sums up the zeroth
day of our rural stint. One thing worth detailed description is the tiring 6
hour ride to Raigarh.
The driver of our vehicle was probably an ex-pilot. He
ensured that the speedometer never went below the prescribed max limit. On the
narrow two-lane roads of Chhattisgarh crowded with trucks and trailers
constantly delivering goods to the industrial belt, here is a small 4-wheeler
racing at full speed like a pro playing ‘Need for Speed Underground’ barely
managing to avoid hitting anyone. We all sat in the vehicle with our hearts
clutched in our fists and our minds at a constant vigil prepared for assault.
However, unable to concentrate after a while, and the previous night’s
weariness drooping upon us, we all fell asleep praying to god to ensure that
our parents won’t get to hear of any casualties of ‘7 managers crushed under a
Chhattisgarhi truck’.
Our first True exposure
to BHARAT at Raipur Airport which resembled a two-storey building; Once again,
when Mr. Sunil Singh Kapat, the Naandi Project Officer who came to receive us,
exuded optimism humility and confidence. Are we really losing touch with our
culture and our true self with the so called ‘GROWTH’ at the urban factories of
human civilization? Here are freshly recruited Management graduates of a
leading Indian business house put up on a rural project with an objective of
understanding BHARAT and how it works as against INDIA, which reminds me of
Amitabh Bachchan’s legendary ‘India vs. India’ monologue. We spent the evening
discussing about what probably could be our fate for the coming days, though on
one hand, we were pleasantly surprised at the kind of place we stayed. We were
supposed to be ready by 8:30 AM, the next morning as said by Sunil. So, we
dispersed early to bed that night.
The next
morning, started with a delicious breakfast. And there were two chariots
(Boleros) ready for the princes and princesses from the city (we were in fact treated
like that) to take us to the Naandi Office, on the outskirts of the town in a
village called Kodatarai. The roads leading to their office were our first
glimpse into the countryside. The only word that we could think of describing
the scene would be ‘PRISTINE’. The office wore a shine, a simple two-storey
building, probably the only one in that village, with the house owner’s
residence on the ground floor and Naandi foundation having rented the office on
the first floor. Special arrangements were made to greet us. Royal welcome… I
repeat ROYAL WELCOME awaited us. This was also true with the remaining villages
we visited in the subsequent days, where we were garlanded, showered flowers,
presented hand-stitched bouquets, kumkum, Aarti, etc.
The first day
went on with introductions, invocation songs, of course, a rurally grand
welcome to each one of us, followed by a discussion on how we want to go ahead
with the project, and each one of us got into action. RS, AS and GH spent the
entire first half of the day with their continuous downpour of questions while
VS was busy smiling looking into each one’s faces. JK was scratching her hair
all along, unable to understand what was going on, and bugging SG or US (that’s
me) to translate the discussion into English or her local language.
After an
intellectual outburst, we all took a break for lunch. And later continued the
next phase of debacle; However, this was more peaceful than expected. It was a
very brief (really brief) presentation by Naandi team about their presence in
that district followed by a very brief (I repeat “very brief”) Q&A session.
The same story repeated again. After a tiresome day for some and a gruesome day
for some others, we came back and re…tired…. t…o… zzzzzZZZZZZZZZ.
(... To be continued)
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