Blogger's end

And I'm back from one more trip, this time from Nayagarh. From the time the trip was suggested I wasn't too keen on it. The trip was rescheduled thrice making me lose all interest. Our seniors had forewarned us on the trip and its arrangements. Moreover, Nayagarh is a malaria belt and I wasn't doing too well. So I'd all the reasons not to want to go for the trip. Anyway I went for this one.. and like all my trips this was again an unique experience.

Upon reaching there we found that the arrangements for stay was not all that good. Many of us were crammed in small rooms.We tried to cheer ourselves up by cracking jokes as we geared up for work, the next morning.

After a difficult night we woke up to a dull rainy morning.Our work involved prepaing micro plans for some of the tribal hamlets in Nuagaon block. With all the rain we were a little worried as to how we would complete our survey. The drive was beautiful. There was greenery all around.. green fields, green hills and green water (or so it looked). It pepped me up. We passed through sal forests, corn fields, sugarcane patches and mango grooves. The clouds floated above and kissed the hills. As we climbed up, we were driving through them.Ladies carried timber wood on their heads and walked up the hills.

My destination was at Simlisahi, a small GP of Nuagaon block. There were thirty odd households of the Goria Kandh tribe. Our first stop was at the Sarpanch's house. I talked to her for some time to gather some primary information about the village. She was shy and had no knowledge of the post she held or her roles and responsibilites. But she had a nice smile which she gave us everytime we asked her a question. So we decided to go to the field and get data ourselves. We tried to look for the Village level workers and the Anganwadi workers. We found them busy distributing grains at the primary school.PDS was going on in the village school and there was a huge queue in front of it. We decided to get some secondary data from the GP office.The GP office failed to give us any useful data . They said that we'd to collect all the data from the block office, even the population of the village.

We had to go to the fields to talk to the farmers because most of them were busy working in the fields, this being the cultivation season. We exchanged greetings and started talking to them about their life trying to find their resources, problems and needs.They cooperated as much but even they seemed uninterested talking about their problems. I wondered if they sniggered at the sincerity of the 'city breds' to understand their problems which stared them at the face.

After we were done with the survey, we as a group sat down and started discussing about interventions, market linkages, agricultural improvements that could better their lives. Everyone was busy chipping in ideas that would look good on our report, or so I thought. It made me skeptical about the whole process of micro planning which depended entirely on people's participation. It was unfair to ask a person to participate in the planning processing when he can barely make two square meals a day.

While I was resting and contemplating the purpose of the trip and the futility of it all, an old man came up to me. He was the school headmaster and was a revered figure in the village. Because of him many girls of the village were now going to school.We engaged in a conversation on the people and their problems. He talked about his experiences and the difficulties he had to face before bringing about any positive change.At one point, I asked him if he saw hypocricy in our efforts .He said "Students come over to study the problems of rural India. Half of them don't understand the problems and propose fanciful plans that dont have a stem in reality. And the other half are skeptics trying to sneer at any efforts that could bring about a change. Neither helps the cause. " He stopped before adding, "To bring about a change, one has to have an open mind and a strong heart. It's easy to be skeptical. If you want , you can. But, would you?" he asked smilingly.

I nodded my head and looked away trying to see beyond the beauty of the hills. The clouds were clearing over the hills..and in my mind too.