Saturday, July 22, 2006

Looking for Snakes

Sometime back, we started a ladies centre in the village. The very first activity taken up was training interested ladies in knitting. This was taken up first, because fortunately we found a teacher - Ms Krishna - to train these ladies. She is from Dangar village, which is around 9 kms away from Kallar. She comes to the centre five days a week - Mon to Fri - and spends five hours daily to take care of 2 batches. After we finalized her as the teacher, we quickly arranged for two knitting machines from Ludhiana through one of Ms Krishna's relatives. Ms Gita, Pradhan of Mahila Mandal of Kotlu Bindariya, offered one of the rooms in her commercial building to run the training classes, that too, free of cost. Since everything fell in place, we decided to start the class as soon as machines come in. Incidentally, when the machines arrived in the centre, none of us were here, so the villagers themselves took care of arranging everything so that the training can start. It did start, albeit on a turbulent note.

We decided to levy a fee of Rs 50/- per month per person towards the training. The idea of this fee was that it would bring only those who are seriously considering utilizing the skill towards creating an additional revenue stream. Also, this would have created a small pool of money, which could have been utilized, later on, by ladies, to buy machines to start their own business. This was our attempt towards micro-financing.

It so happened that when the machines arrived, all sixteen ladies, who got enrolled into the first set, happen to be from Kotlu Bindariya, Lurhani, Baroat and few other villages. Incidentally, somehow, there was no one from Kallar, Mandail, Kotlu Brahmana and Doon villages in the first set. I don't know the exact reasons of it because I have been given different stories, and it is hard for me to figure out what is the truth.

Also, due to the fact that only two machines are there, only 4 people can be taught, each day, which means that a lady gets her turn only after 4 days. So, ladies did some math and came to the conclusion that they are paying Rs. 50/- for being trained for 2.5 hrs for 4-5 days in a month. On top of all this, Ms Gita's decision to take a cut of Rs. 15/- out of Rs. 50/- towards rent charges for her room, added the much needed fuel to the fire.

So, here is the inferno - the centre is running in Kotlu Bindariya village in a room owned by the Mahila Mandal Pradhan of Kotlu Bindariya, who is charging Rs. 15/- towards rent of the room, which she ostensibly has given to the Trust for free. Also, out of the five villages, where we are supposed to work, only Kotlu Bindariya village ladies are getting trained. Additionally, ladies were getting only 4-5 days in a month to learn. Put together, it turned out to be a big problem, which I had to tackle as soon as I landed here.

After speaking to lot of people, I realized few things specific to the problem -

(a) Information about opening of the training centre didn't reach all the five villages.
(b) Ladies didn't know why exactly are they being charged Rs. 50/- per month.
(c) Process of selecting trainees for a batch was not transparent to people.
(d) Ladies suspected that Ms Gita is indulging in some unfair practise by taking a cut of Rs. 15/- and having only her village ladies as trainees.
(e) The (d) above happened because never before have these ladies worked together as equal stakeholders in anything. This was the very first time they were supposed to do it.
(f) There was some reluctance in people to work together also, primarily because they were scared of a change - working together.
(g) No one knew that we are supposed to work only with five villages - Kallar, Mandail, Kotlu Bindariya, Doon and Kotlu Brahmana.

It was amazing to find out how keenly everyone was looking for snakes. While, truely, there were none. Whatever happened was either due to lack of information or due to circumstances. But, yes, as an outsider if you see, you may think there is something fishy out here. The surprising part was that even some of the big-wigs were not willing to sort the problem out because they had conveniently assumed that people are doing this for personal gains. While it is true but only to a very small extent. Allegations were hurled, past experiences (obviously unpleasant ones) were quoted, attitudes were discussed but there was no sign that anyone wants to solve the problem. While exploring this problem, I realised what lack of trust could do to a community. I realized how fragile one's reputation can be just because people, by default, look for snakes, instead of realizing the fact that, just like them, others can make mistakes too.

This reminded me of one of my observations - in India, when two strangers meet, they start their interaction with maximum distrust. In contrast, in USA, when two strangers meet, they start their interaction with maximum trust. I am sure it has something to with our culture, history etc etc, but till date I don't know exactly what it is. In case, you have observed the same and thought about its reason(s), please do share with me.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Publlic Transport

I commute daily between Ghumarwin, where I stay, and Kallar village. Actually, most of the buses go to the tip of the village, a point knows as Kallar Moad (turn/junction for Kallar), where I get down and walk for around a km or so to reach the school. The ladies centre is also just 2 min walk from the school. Sometimes, I have to go to Berthin, a nearby town, to meet someone. If I am going there from Kallar, I will come back to Kallar Moad and then take a bus to Berthin.

There are two ways to reach Berthin from Ghumarwin – one via Nihari and Kalllar Moad and other is via Sunhani. Just after around a km from the Ghumarwin bus stop, as soon as the road cross the over-bridge on the khadd, it bifurcates – one goes to Nihari and another goes to Sunhani. Distance between Berthin and Ghumarwin via Nihari is roughly 16 km and via Sunhani is roughly 11 km. As you can see the distance is roughly 50% more via Nihari.

Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) runs its buses only on primary routes. They have asked private bus operators to run buses on secondary routes to provide good connectivity. Ghumarwin to Berthin, Nihari, Sunhani etc are secondary routes, so one can find only private buses plying on these routes. These private buses are smaller in size, and hence capacity, as compared to full size HRTC buses. Most of the private buses are in very decent condition, they do not bear any semblance to a steel box coming straight out of junkyard, which had been my experience with city bus services in the state of Uttar Pradesh, way back in early 1990s. In fact, you won’t find any damaged seats, non-working windows, broken seat-backs or damaged bumpers. The only thing, you wish was not working in the bus is its music system. As soon the bus starts, music is played at a very high volume and the ceiling mounted speakers can make you go mad, especially if you are standing and traveling. It would have been more tolerable if the music and the system are good, unfortunately, most of the time you would hear nth remix of a song played on a bad music system. The combination is really lethal.

Inconsistency in Fares
The fares between two points are supposedly fixed by HRTC, and these private operators are supposed to comply with it. Though, in practice, there is no fixed fare between two points. Every bus operator charges a fare of its own liking (to the degree that you can call it one’s whim and fancy). Mostly, I commute between Ghumarwin and Kallar Moad, and I have paid fares ranging from Rs. 6/- to Rs. 9/- (mostly either 8 or 9) per trip. Every time I ask the bus conductor, why it is different from the previous trip, he would say this is the fare, the previous trip guy won’t know, or some other story. In some cases, I got another rupee or so back after I lodged my protest, which surprises me, because it tells me that if I protest, I am going to get back some of my money.

As I mentioned before, there are two routes to travel between Ghumarwin and Berthin, and, the distance traveled is significantly different. Though, as I figured out recently, the fare between the two points is same, irrespective of which route you take. I am not sure why it is so, but it might have been done to ensure that buses ply on the longer route as well. Incidentally, most of the time, I have traveled to Berthin via Sunhani route. The other day, I was coming back from Berthin to Ghumarwin via Nihari route. The bus conductor asked me to pay him Rs. 12/-. When I said that the fare is Rs. 10/- which I have always paid on my previous trips, he said that Rs. 10/- is the fare when you take the shorter route (via Sunhani) not when you take the longer route (via Nihari). I told him it doesn’t sound right, but I had to pay him Rs. 12/- It so happened that the very next day I had to go to Berthin again and that day I went via longer route but the bus conductor charged me Rs. 10/- only.

After this, I spoke to some local folks who I know, and they told me that typically, these bus guys charge extra if they realize you are an outsider and not aware of these peculiarities. They advised me to give them exact change, so that they don’t have any mechanism to extract extra money from me.

Always late
These buses never run on time. Apparently, they have a schedule and they are supposed to adhere to it. Though, at a broader perspective you can say that they run on time, because the delay, generally, is not more than 15 min or so, but only at the starting point. Though such a seemingly small delay invariably causes problems because of what happens on the way, as explained below.

Since there are all villages and that too on a hilly terrain, residences are scattered all over the place, amidst green lush fields. There are many kucchha (non metal) roads along the way which lead to another cluster of houses or small villages. Put together, passengers are standing all over the place on the way. Incidentally, for whatever reason, people prefer door pickup than walking down to a nearby designated bus stop. Well, the notion of latter one is totally absent, anyway. While door pickup is indeed convenient, but people do not realize the cost they pay for this convenience - the bus is never able to gather speed due to frequent stopping. On a good day, the bus will stop every 250 m whereas on a normal day it will stop at every 150 m, either to pick up or drop off. This results in spending 40 min to cover a short distance of 13 km (from Ghumarwin to Kallar Moad). Though, after living here for a while, I realize why people don’t have a problem with this system. Time is in plenty; no one is in hurry for anything; everything moves at a snail’s pace; meeting times are not observed (I had meetings where few participants turned up as late as an hour, that too without any apology) etc.

If it is a wedding season (India has few identified time-periods through the year when most of the weddings take place) then it can be really irritating. Lot of these private buses get hired to transport wedding guests, so suddenly you will not find, say, a 2 PM bus plying. If one is waiting for the bus on the way and not at a major stop (say Ghurmarin or Berthin), one is doomed because one has no way of knowing that a specific bus is not plying today. One can keep waiting until it is time for next bus.

Passenger Density
The way passengers are squeezed into these buses, would, probably, put any compacting algorithm to shame. Typically, these buses have seats for around 20-24 people, but you will find at least 50 people in the bus. Best part is that no one is hanging on the foot-board and HP government has banned traveling on top of the buses. Sometimes it is really crazy to find that the bus is waiting at an important stop (say Nihari) to get more passengers even though you will see people standing in the bus.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Disgusting is the word

The schools in HP are closed now-a-days, as summer vacations are going on. Kallar school is also closed. So, we thought, it is a good opportunity to do some renovation work at the school as, right now, there won’t be any disturbance to normal functioning of the school.

The first thing which we thought was to level all the ground around the school so that the school looks tidier and we can have a big ground for sports etc. Right now, the entire school premises is at three different levels. Remember, this is a hilly terrain, where having these levels/steps is very natural. Due to these different levels, there is not optimum usage of the space, whether it is for sports or for having a period or two outside in chilly winters, when any exposure to sun is very soothing and comforting.

Keeping all these things in mind, we asked a JCB contractor to come and meet us so that we can get some estimates from him about the time and cost. So, this gentleman along with his “team” of 3-4 people descended down at school today, that too around 45 min late. Anyway, it was drizzling and we inspected the area along with him and his team. They did some quick calculations and he told me that it would around 100 hrs to complete the work, give or take 10 hrs. When asked, he told me that he has two machines – smaller one at the rate of Rs. 750/- per hour and bigger one at the rate of Rs. 850/- per hour. Then he added very quickly that his bigger machine is brand new and works very fast. So, if we use this machine we can assume that work will be completed in around 90 hrs or so.

While I was doing math in my head to compute the whole amount for the work, he quickly also added that his smaller machine is busy on a long term project so it won’t be available for our work. So, I asked him, “This means, we will have to get the work done by the bigger machine, am I correct?” He quickly responded in affirmative. After this, I asked him, “As per what you said, it would take 90 hrs to complete the work using this machine, am I correct?” This time he fumbled a bit and said, “Sir, let us take the estimate of 100 hrs, we anyway will charge you for the actual time and not the estimated time.” While in theory, I agree with him completely, especially since I come from a software services industry where, generally there are huge variations between estimate and actual, I was pissed off with the cunningness of this guy who, very beautifully, sold his new machine at a higher rate while keeping the estimate same. I didn’t argue any further because I knew the work would not take 100 hrs or 90 hrs for that matter.

After doing the inspection and all this discussion, we came back to the school office for some discussion. I don’t know what because as far as I was concerned, we were finished talking as I had already told him that I would get back to him in few days, about my decision. Anyway, we sat down and he tried to probe me to find out how soon a decision would be made and when he can expect to start the work. After 5 min, he and his team stood up and left the room. I was getting ready for my next meeting, when the main contractor came back to the room and asked my contact number. I gave my cell phone number to him. While he was writing it down in his cell phone address book, he said to me, “Sir, I will give you your share.” The kind of tube-light I am, I just didn’t get the clue and asked him, “Sorry, I didn’t get what you are saying.” He elaborated, “Sir, please get me the work, I will give you your share of money!!!” I was shocked and I told him that I don’t work like this and it won’t be decided on this basis. He looked at me as if I am from a zoo and then said, “Ok, sir, just let me know when you want me to start. Please keep in mind that the work may even take 40-50 hrs if there are not many rocks and stones.” I was shocked – the estimates have tumbled down drastically, almost by 50% !!!. I asked him how come there is such huge variation in estimates, and he explained to me, hurriedly, that if there are some hard rocks it would take more time but if it is mostly soil, it won’t. Before I could say anything more, he left, leaving me standing there dumbfounded.

After he left, I thought about the whole incidence and then it struck me how the whole game works – he jacked up the estimate of work, because he assumed that he would have to give me money to get the work, and he would have got that money out of the institution by giving a higher estimate and higher actual time spent. I was amazed and literally disgusted realizing how the whole thing works.


Sunday, July 09, 2006

Boomerang

Residents of Ghumarwin are dependant on municipal water supply for their drinking water needs. Typically, water is supplied two hrs in morning - 6 to 8 AM and then half hour to 45 min in the evening - 5:30 PM onwards. This is apparently more than sufficient for all drinking, cleaning, washing and other needs. There are few handpumps also provided but they are not too many and are used in cases of emergency.

Right now, it is rainy season here, and I observed that the municipal water, supplied now-a-days, is not clean. It has some brownish stuff in it. On inquiring I was told by one of the neighbours that during rainy season, this is the kind of water the entire town gets. On further enquiry, I got to know that the water supply is sourced from a small river (called khadd in local language). The municipal water supply is solely dependant on it. So, in peak summers, when it is reduced to a very thin line of water, water supply gets reduced to just half hour in the morning, with nothing in the evening, or vice-versa.

Yesterday, when I was travelling to Kallar I observed the khadd and the water in it. Due to recent rains, there was quite a lot of water in the khadd but it was all muddy. I thought about it for a moment and suddenly everything became crystal clear in front of my eyes. Due to widespread deforestation and being a hilly terrain, whenever it rains, soil erosion happens. Obviously, all the soil, swept away by water goes into the rivers, and in this case, in the khadd. Considering that the water supply is sourced from this khadd, obviously, the water pumped in this town has all the soil/mud in it. I was amazed to see how a problem, induced by humans, is coming back and biting humans only, though in a different form - deforestation is preventing potable water supply. Never before this, I had ever witnessed nature taking such quick and cruel revenge on human beings.

Something very interesting happened yesterday in the evening - for the very first time, in 3 weeks since I am here, I observed that there was disruption in electricity supply for longer than 5 min, and that too twice within a span of two hours. I was wondering what could be wrong. My thought process started. The very first thing which struck my mind was the fact that Himachal has surplus power which it provides to neighbouring states, primarily Delhi, so how come, it is having power issues. The second thing which came to my head was that Himachal has lots of hydro-power projects and this is rainy season, and just now it rained quite heavily, and yet there is a power problem. Suddenly, a World Bank project report on SJVN (Sutlej Jal Vidyut Nigam) project flashed in front of my eyes. This hydro-power project is under construction in Rampur region and it takes the water coming out of another already-commissioned hydro power project - Nathpa Jhakri. The report has mentioned the problem of high silt content in the intake waters of Nathpa Jhakri project which would affect its discharged water and hence the intake of SJVN project. Immediately, I realized why the electric supply is having problems. The same muddy water (high silt content) would have travelled to the Nathpa Jhakri project where turbines would have stopped functioning due to high silt content of water, resulting in power supply disruption. So, the deforestation in high hills of Himachal (and elsewhere) is affecting not only the residents of Ghumarwin for drinking water but also the residents of Delhi for power supply, that too in sweltering heat.

As a music to my ears and a confirmation to my theory, today's Chandigarh edition of Times of India had a page 2 story about how Delhi residents faced problems due to additional power outage as Nathpa Jhakri plant in Himachal stopped functioning for 5 hrs due to high silt content in the water.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Cricket

Today was the last day of the school before it closed down for summer holidays for 40 days. Incidentally, it rained from morning till afternoon. It wasn't heavy except a few spells, which would not last for more than 5 min.

As expected, students were in holiday mood and teachers were busy finishing up their administrative work before the closure. With such a beautiful weather, it made all the sense to enjoy the good weather and have some outdoor fun. Just like rest of the country, kids here also practise the national religion with great fervour. So, we decided to play a limited over cricket match. Though, this time it was with a difference. For the first time in the school, girls played cricket that too as part of a match with boys !!!

Most of the boys were enthusiastic about the proposal, though some were sceptical also. Anyway, we created two teams - one of girls and one of boys and the match started. It was a limited-overs game of just 5 overs. Girls won the toss and decided to bowl. Before girls started bowling, I gave them some quick tips on how to bowl, from where to bowl, how to field etc. As soon as the match started, one of those heavy spells of rain started, but none of the teams were ready to stop the match. They pleaded to continue the match and I gave up in front of their overflowing enthusiasm. So, in that downpour, the first two overs were bowled. Considering that girls were playing for the very first time, the bowling was pretty much haywire - too many wides were bowled and runs just flew from the bat. Anyway, it was quite a sight to see girls struggling and slowly getting a hang of fielding.

Just a sidebar, there are two relatively good umpires amongst boys, who are being trained by me. During the initial days, I coached these two about no-balls, wide balls, how to count the number of balls, concept of "live" ball, how not to come in the way of live ball etc. One of these boys offered to umpire the match and he did a decent job. Also, in every match someone sitting on the sidelines as an observer plays the role of scorer, who takes care of counting runs and overs.

Once girls finished their 5 overs, it was their turn to bat. Before they started, I explained to them the concept of crease, changing sides when an over is finished, running between the wickets etc. When they started, I observed that most of them didn't even know how to hold the bat, so I had to explain it to almost all of them. Again, since it was their first time, they all got out very quickly and finally lost the match.


After this, boys decided to play a limited over match amongst themselves. Girls were not happy and wanted to play again, but this time, they decided to play amongst themselves. They formed two teams of 6 members each and requested me to allow them to play a limited over game. I asked them to wait until boys finished their match, and meanwhile watch boys how they field, run between wickets, catch and throw the ball etc. Most of them did it quite diligently.


Once boys finished their match, I declared that now the two teams of girls would play a match amongst themselves. Boys were not very happy about it, as they wanted to play another match, but I didn't give them a choice. So, another limited over match started, but this time just amongst girls. Again, one of the boys umpired the match. This was an interesting match because both sides were very close to each other in terms of experience and skills. The funny feature of this match was that when ball used to go to a rough terrain the boys used to do the fielding and throw the ball back.


By now, the girls were totally into cricket, and wanted to play another match. So, I proposed to have another match between boys and girls which boys protested. Girls were also not comfortable considering their debacle in the first match. So, we created mixed teams - each team had 4 boys and 4 girls - on the premise that girls need to learn from boys how to play better. Both these teams played match with each other, again a limited over game. During this time, I got called to meet someone who came to school to see me, so I couldn't oversee the match. But, I was told it was quite a good match, except a minor dispute towards the end.

Overall, it was a very interesting day at school - watching the enthusiasm of girls, how they struggled and finally became better, at least in batting and fielding, how guys and girls together formed a mixed team and played with each other. Most of the teachers observed the matches at some point in time. So far, I haven't heard any murmurs. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Kallar School

Kallar school comprises of a primary school and a middle school.

Primary School
It is a government school, but just not a school – it is a “complex”. A complex means this school has some more primary schools affiliated with it. This school in Kallar has 4 other primary schools affiliated with it. Due to this reason, there is lot of administrative tasks which teachers have to do – month end reporting which is a consolidated view of all the affiliated schools, fund management and reporting etc.

When I came here, there were 3 teachers and a principal in the school. Just after a week of my arrival, one of the teachers, Mr. Kumant, got transferred elsewhere. So, now we are left with only two teachers – Ms Raj and Mr. Shyam – to support Ms Bimala as the principal. Their photographs are here -







Ms Bimala













Mr Kumant
















Mr Shyam

















Ms Raj








Primary school has an office, three rooms, a kitchen for mid-day meal programme and a store cum recreation room. While there is no distinct division of rooms between primary and middle school, this is how it is operating right now. The strength of the school is as following –


































Distribution
StandardBoysGirls
132
227
374
4106
5129


In total, there are 62 students supported by just 2 teachers, right now. There is no furniture in the school and everyone sits on the floor. The school has electricity and fortunately, every room has a ceiling fan otherwise I don’t think very many kids can survive the sweltering heat of this place.

Middle School
This part of the school has 3 classes – 6th through to 8th. There are total of 6 teachers – Mr. Rajesh, who also doubles up as headmaster, Mr. Karm Chand (aka Shastriji), Mr. Narottam Dutt, Mr. Sukh Dev, Ms Beena and Mr. Ram Chand. Amongst them they cover everything right from social science to arts and PT. Following are their photographs -



Mr Karm Chand



Mr Narottam Dutt



Ms Beena



Mr Sukh Dev



Mr Rajesh

NOTE: I could not take Mr Ram Chand's photograph, before the school closed down. Will put his photograph here once school opens arrond Aug 17/18.

This school has 3 rooms for each of the classes and an office. Following is the strength of this school –

























Distribution
StandardBoysGirls
6237
71419
82418


Both the schools are in the same compound and, as such, there is no physical separation between them. Only that the teachers and students are different and generally they operate within their own schedule etc. One of the differences is that the mid-day meal programme is only for primary school and not for middle school.

Earlier, there was no proper drinking water facility, though over the years somehow the teachers out here managed to get two separate tanks built which were used for drinking water purposes. There were no toilet facilities earlier, and students used to use the field around the school for calls of nature. Now, with the help of BackToRoots, the trust with which I am working, there is proper toilet facility for both boys and girls and drinking water is also available easily.

The Villages

There are four villages – Kallar, Kotlu Bindariya, Doon and Kotlu Brahmana. They all are situated near to each other. Here is a schematic diagram, it is not to scale and is just a very rough sketch –




This would give one an idea about the relative location of each village and the school. All these four villages come under one Panchayat (village council). Right now, advocate Mr. R L Bharadwaj is the Pradhan (chief) of the Panchayat. Depending on the population of the village, it may have one or mode wards. Every ward is represented in the Panchayat via an elected representative. Right now, Kallar and Kotlu Bindariya each has one representative, while Doon has two and Kotlu Brahmana has three representatives in the Panchayat.

There is a concept of development Block also, which essentially covers a bigger region and has multiple Panchayts in it. These four villages come under Jhandutta development Block. In the Block Development Committee, these villages currently are represented by Mr. Prakash Dhiman.

Every village has its own Mahila Mandal (women committee), headed by a Pradhan. Typically, these Mahila Mandals take care of women related issues in the villages. They are kind of an evolved version of the earlier concept of self help groups (SHG). In order to encourage increased participation of women in village affairs, government has made this structure mandatory. In lot of cases, these are pretty effective also, as these groups get funding from the government and authority plus responsibility for women affair in the village.

Put together, these four villages have roughly 2000 people, around 400-450 households. Most of the area covered under these villages is sparsely populated, though there are few concentrated pockets as well. Most of the villagers grow wheat and corn as the main crops. In between these two crops and sometimes side by side, they would grow some other stuff just for home consumption purposes. Somehow, villagers out here have not started moving on to other kind of value crops. I still need to figure out the reasons behind this, but right now, I have no clue whatsoever. Though, I have been told that earlier, people used to grow pulses, rice (in a small part) and other fruits out here but later on they stopped due to various reasons. It seems this area has lot of potential to grow naakh (a variety of pear) but people don’t want to grow them as a crop. I have been told that the primary reason for this is the unavailability of market for the produce. While it does sound little absurd considering that Chandigarh is near by and Delhi is not far off, but I am sure the devil is in the detail, which I have yet to explore. Just to clarify, even though this area is in HP, it doesn’t grow apples, because apparently snow is needed to grow good apples. This area is too low lying to get even the sight of snow.

The other day, I witnessed a very interesting thing – I was waiting for a bus at a place, and suddenly I saw 2-3 men walked behind me to the nearest tree (if you want to call it that) and started talking to an old man sitting near by. This was a “tree” of squash with fruits all over it. Somehow, I didn’t notice it earlier. These people selected which fruit they wanted to buy right on the tree and got them plucked and paid for it to the old man. I was amazed to witness the whole thing. This was like buying the freshest vegetable straight from the tree!!!

Water is the main issue here, whether it is for drinking or irrigation. The hilly terrain makes it more difficult to provide adequate and quality water supply. Most of the farmers are solely dependent on rains for irrigation of their crops. So, if rains fail the crops fail; very simple correlation. Unfortunately, since last 2-3 years the rains are dwindling and farmers have seen 3 consecutive crop failures, which is hurting them real bad. Government on its part has done few things, which includes providing lot of hand pumps through out the state, and laying down water pipeline to reach every nook and corner of the state. Though, it sounds good, and actually it is, but the problem is that eventually water supply board is also dependent on rivers (called a khadd here) etc as water source, and when rains fail there is no water in the source also. People generally are dependant on hand pumps for their drinking water. Off late, this is also causing problem, because in lot of places arsenic has been detected in the underground water, which has rendered lot of hand-pumps useless. World Bank and GTZ Group have done few projects in HP to help solve this problem that too with participation from the local community. Hopefully, these efforts will bear fruits in due course of time and water scarcity will not be a major issue.


Mr. Chaman

I need to tell this story, though at the expense of one of my colleagues and a dear friend – Anand V, who we also fondly call Chaman.

At Kallar school, in 7th standard, there is boy by name Chaman. Yes it is his real name. Incidentally, this boy is very quiet quite unlike my friend, but as playful and mischievous as my friend is. When I got to know about it on 2nd or 3rd day, I was very amused and I told my friend about this boy, the very next time I spoke to him. He was also equally amused, and we shared a good hearty laugh at the coincidence.

Wait, the best of the story is yet to come ;-) A couple of days back, when I was teaching English, in the class, he made a comment from behind to one of his mates – main sad gaya hoon. At this, few of these boys laughed. I heard them so I inquired as to what was going on. One of them buckled really quick and told me what Mr. Chaman had said. I immediately asked the class to translate his comment into English. After little help from me, we got it – Chaman is rotten.

Since that day, if this guy says/does anything naughty in the class, rest of the students say – Chaman is rotten. The other day, he was doing something else while I was teaching. I observed that he is busy somewhere else. So, I asked him, “Mr. Chaman, kya ho raha hai (what is going on)?" Before he could say anything, rest of the students said, “Guruji, Chaman is rotten.” I was bewildered.

First Impressions from School

From the very next day of my arrival, I decided to start teaching the school kids. I decided to start with English from 8th class and gradually go down till 6th. When I spoke to class 8th students, I found them very weak in basic grammar. So I started with very primitive things like understanding various tenses, how to identify them, what are the rules to translate each of these etc. Initially, both I and the students had tough time with each other - I am still grappling with frequent usage of English words while speaking in Hindi, and they are grappling with a teacher with different dialect, pronunciation and way of speaking. Slowly but surely, I am making good inroads into 7th class but 8th is still a challenge, primarily because most of the students of this class are very quiet - difficult to know what they are thinking.

One thing which is amazingly obvious is the divide between boys and girls. Girls are very quiet and are generally away from boys. Even in the class they are seated separately than boys. They play volleyball during recess while boys play cricket. I must point this incidence out - one day, after finishing a logical step, I decided to generally chit chat with kids and ended up asking who all want to play cricket. To my surprise, almost every girl in the class raised her hand. I asked them if they had played earlier, and they responded in negative.

The good news is that now-a-days, whenever students of 7th and 8th have a free period, they come to me and ask me to teach them. I am still not teaching 6the standard, so one day a few of them came to me and asked me when I will start teaching them. I had no answer for them because I don't know if I can teach them properly as they are learning very basic things in English and I am not sure if I can do a good job out there.

I have observed that lot of times the students would know the answer to a question, but they don't speak up, even if I ask them, specifically. It seems to me that they are not encouraged to try out and fail. Due to this, their confidence is almost zero, and they won't open their mouth at all. I am trying to change it a bit, by not resorting to any kind of punishment at all even if they are crazily wrong.

Another interesting observation is that these kids are very scared of writing on the board in front of rest of their class-mates. Even if they tell you the correct answer verbally, they won't be able to write it on the board. I slowly found out that these kids are not very strong with spellings also. I am trying to make a lot of these kids to write on the board when they know the answer. Sometimes, I ask them to write even when they are wrong and then ask someone else to come and correct it. This way, their hesitation of writing is kind of going away. During initial days, something very interesting happened - I asked a girl, who answered correctly, to come and write her answer on the board. After lot of reluctance, she came to the board, wrote the answer and smashed the piece of chalk (which she used to write) on the ground and rushed back to her seat (of course on the floor), as if to show her furiousness. Truly speaking, I got little scared of her and since then I am very careful not to push her to write on the board ;-)

How did it start?

So, how did I land up in this place doing whatever I am doing? Well, since Sep 2005 or so, I was getting itchy to do some work in social sector. I have been helping an orphanage in Bangalore, which I got introduced to through a colleague of mine at ThoughtWorks. A small group of us has been trying to help the inmates of this orphanage – some 70 odd kids, both boys and girls of varying age right from 3 yrs to 15 yrs. More information about this effort is available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/koshish_effort.

Through this involvement, I realized that by participating part time in such kind of activity can at most prevent a disaster to happen, but it cannot improve the situation or reverse the cycle. So, in order to really change the situation, one has to devote a considerable time to such activities. With this in mind, I was wondering what I can do and when and how. My mind had too many questions and literally no answers. Over a period of time, I shared my thought process with few of my good friends.

Suddenly, one day, I received an email, from one of these friends, which had details about a project, conceived by one Mr. Thakar of Delhi, to be executed in a set of 4 villages somewhere in Himachal Pradesh. I went through all the attachments of the email and found it interesting. Actually, first I saw gaping holes in the whole planning and execution process and I wanted to talk to Mr. Thakar about it. I wrote an email to him but somehow I never sent it across. Then around couple of days later, I thought of that email and then instead of sending the email, I picked up the phone and spoke to him. Incidentally, that very morning, Mr. Thakar had left for these villages. He received my call while driving towards these villages. He pulled over and spoke to me for around half hour. After listening to him, some of my doubts got cleared and then I knew why he had made the plans the way he did. Anyway, we decided to speak again after his visit is over and he is back in Delhi, which we did. I asked him lots of questions some of which he could answer, and some of which he couldn’t because they were futuristic in nature. At the end, it seemed that before I make a decision I should probably visit these villages and check myself the ground realities.

On Apr 24, I took a flight from Bangalore to Delhi, met Mr. Thakar and after spending one day in Delhi I took an overnight bus to Manali. I got down on the way at Bilaspur. Here I had to wait for one hour, as the next bus to Berthin was only at 5 AM and it was barely 4 AM when I got down the bus. Finally, the bus arrived and after around an hour and half it reached Berthin, where I met Mr. Kuldeep who is the nephew of Mr. Rikhi Ram, who belongs to one of these villages – Kallar. It is because of him that Mr. Thakar created this project for these villages. I was put up in a PWD rest house in Ghumarwin where I stayed for 5 days. During this time, I met with everyone at Kallar school, participated in two meetings with villagers, met with Mr. Prakash and Mr. Bharadwaj (current Pradhan and a senior advocate at Ghumarwin), Agriculture research institute at Berthin, BSNL officers at Ghumarwin (to find out about broadband availability), a NGO by name Manav Seva Sansthan at Berthin, Senior Secondary school folks at Berthin and some youngsters at village. One of my old time college friends, Ramesh visited me for a day during this visit. That time he was working at NIT, Hamirpur which is just around 40 km from Ghumarwin. We met after a long 8 years.

Overall, I could get a sense of what all is going on, and what all one has to do from the perspective of what Mr. Thakar was planning. I left Ghumarwin and went to Uttaranchal to see my parents out there.I stayed in Uttaranchal for around a week or so, before returning back to Bangalore. During this week I thought a lot about the project and discussed with my parents and few friends. After returning to Bangalore, I had few conversations with Mr. Thakar over phone which gave me further insights into the whole project. Finally, I spoke to ThoughtWorks that I would like to take a 6 month Leave of Absence to pursue this project. ThoughtWorks’ management was extremely accommodative and they agreed to my request even though it was not the best time for such a thing as I was supposed to be relocating to US for a very important assignment. Finally, to help things at TW, I made a short trip to US before coming back and starting my Rendezvous with Kallar.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

The Begining

Very recently, to be precise on Jun 21, I took Leave of Absence from my active work to pursue a project in rural Himachal Pradesh, a northern state in India bordering the states of Punjab, Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir. The project is about helping the rural community in the villages of Kallar, Kotlu Bindariya, Doon and Kotlu Brahmana in the areas of education, vocational training and agriculture.

Let me first give an idea of the distances and directions. I relocated to a place called Ghumarwin which is around 45 min away from the city of Bilaspur. Bilaspur is on the way to Manali from Chandigarh. The above mentioned villages are around 30-35 min bus ride from Ghumarwin, on the way to Berthin, which is just 10-15 min bus ride from these villages.

In general, all the above mentioned places are very close to Punjab-HP border, so even though they are hilly they are just in the foothills. Therefore the climate here is pretty much like plains only. It is quite hot out here just as in plains in this season.

Initially, I stayed in a Guest House at a place, 3 km. from Berthin, called Dharoti. I used to take a bus from here to Berthin and then change the bus to go to Kallar, where the school is. This is a government school - primary (standard 1 to 5) plus middle (standard 6 to 8). The school has total of 10 rooms - two rooms are used as offices; one each for primary and middle school, one room for kitchen for mid-day meal programme, and one as store cum recreation room, rest of 6 rooms are used to accommodate 8 groups of students !!! So how does it happen? Fortunately, if you want to see it that way, standard 1 has just 5 tiny-tots, so they are generally accommodated in primary school office itself, and depending on the day, one other class from primary school is seated in the corridor. By the way, just to clarify, all the students in all the classes sit on the floor. There are 3 teachers in primary school to take care of 5 classes (isn't it amazing?) and 6 teachers in middle school.

Overall, the villages are not in very bad shape. You will find only few families below the poverty line. But, most of the families linger just above the poverty line. Villagers mostly are dependent on agriculture as their main source of food/income. They mostly grow wheat and corn, which is mostly used for home consumption and a little bit is sold to get money for other things. Most of the families will have at least one cow/buffalo which is used to provide milk etc for the household. The villages have electricity and, recently, under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna, tar roads have been laid to all these villages. Roads inside village are still not tarred, but transportation is available to reach till these villages.

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