Shodh Yatra : In Search of Grassroot Innovation



 



Before we begin, have a look at the link -  http://www.sristi.org/cms/shodh_yatra1 

 

I hope you enjoy the read and want to experience it for yourself the next time.  

 

 

It is the first morning at Wardha. The freshness in the air energizes the soul. I smell the summer mangoes, watch cuckoo birds taking their flights, butterflies entering the room. Whooaaa !! What a start !! Here I am with fellow Yatri, Mr. Ramkrishna, Founder - http://www.ruralcall.in/index.php

 

At the place where Bapuji walked for his morning prayers. When Bapuji arrived at Wardha, the area was completely infested with snakes and wild animals. But he never killed one, instead he kept them in cages and later left them in wild. I sat in a corner, where he used to work inside the ashram. The place spoke to me. I could sense the 'naked fakir', the 'mahatma' speaking to me. A must visit - Sevagram Ashram, Wardha. 



Interacting with Sister Nirmala, constant companion of Vinobha Bhave at the Bhudan Movement. She and her colleagues covered 25,000 km on bare feet in the 1950s. She spoke of love and compassion, how it could change the world. The real India is not in cities but here in the villages that you would pass through. Touch India naked, feel its soul in its soil. We are old now. We can't walk now. But its upto you to spread the message. May god bless your journey.

Felicitating villagers for their little achievements - an idea to improve village conditions, a unique flavored pickle offered to taste, sharing knowledge of curing a particular illness through the herbal way etc.

Displaying the villagers about the existing innovation they could implement in their own fields. Here is the cycle which when pedaled, makes the piston work and brings the sprinkler in action. Cycle chalao aur paani chidko !!

This photo constantly reminds of the Vidharba region. Black soil, few wild plants here and there. People majorly grow cotton, wheat in these regions.

From the left - A sugarcane eye cutting machine which helps farmers to reduce wastage, a hand pump tweak which helps to store water, a pressure cooker whose steam you can use to create froth in coffee, a pedal pump to remove water in water-logged areas. By the way, this place is Shanti Bhavan, the world's first peace conference was held here.

Gaurav Meena with the inventor of Jabbargears. You can ride your rickshaw uphill easily with the invention.Watch him speak at   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADCgLvrjXWo

Me and Gaurav holding the Shodh Yatra banner.

The Yatra resumes after a halt at Vinobha Bhave's samadhi

The open road, scorching heat & wind, 20km walk on the first day. The interesting conversations & chats among yatris beats the fatigue out of you. I met entrepreneurs, free-lancers, brilliant engineering students, business consultants, corporate guys, farmers, professors. It is such a delight to be in their company. An interesting mix of people, belonging to every strata of society is amazing !!

Don't ask about food and sleep. You eat as if its a feast and sleep like a baby, under the open sky, wherever you get a little space. I can never forget the night sky, twinkling with million of stars, with thousands of thoughts running inside your little brain. The villagers welcomed us with great food --- rice, roti, spicy daal, baingan (brinjal), dahi-kadi etc

Here you see. Prof. Anil Gupta talking to villagers. He is so energetic, constantly keeps interacting with villagers,suddenly stops on the road, enters a school and plays with kids. What an amazing personality. He furiously takes notes when a villagers speaks of an invention, of an idea, clicks photos on his phone and instructs the team to document it immediately.

The guy you see in the pic is of  an retired Indian soldier. He kept entertaining us through his stories and antics. Back home in Bihar, he owns an orchard where he grew a variety of flower and plant. Its a must watch for every farmer he says. Here we are crossing a field, early morning. The water to irrigate the soil is sparkling in sun. 

At a village school. What impressed me was the way, the classroom helped in learning . Look at the hanging stuff --- they are lessons from their textbooks which are depicted pictorially. It makes a student learn easily and moreover it hangs over your head all the time. When I took this pic in noon, we were singing J.P.Narayan's song, which he used to motivate and energize people in large gatherings.

Again at a village, addressing a gathering, Making them understand the purpose of our visit. What is Shodh Yatra? How is traditional knowledge important? How could knowledge be shared? Identifying the small changes in the village, interacting with kids and youth of village. It is about communicating and gathering, sharing knowledge within that hiatus at a particular village. It's a challenging and demanding job to extract a lot of information in a limited period of time. But Yatris, I believe did their job really nicely !!

At a village's panchayat office, under the huge banyan tree, listening to forgotten instruments being played. Those huge brown things are made up of goat-skin and have been played since ages.

One of my favorite pics. Mr. Vijaj Rajkumar at the centre, takes a nice nap. With a MSW degree, he has worked with various NGOs, helping them assess their performance. One of his first jobs was with a group of hijras. I had a lot of interesting conversations with him. The afternoon siesta was a must. Gaurav near the roots of the giant tree, makes him look like a black bear in hunt of honey.

This old lady has hit a century in terms of her age. Here people asking ki daadi aisa kya kiya ki aap itna time, itni tandurast hai? She speaks about what she used to eat a hundred years back. I find it amusing, when with her toothless grin, she speaks of old times, no electricity, lot of cattles, lot of millet and pulses to eat.

Mandva, 2km more. I hang my wet t-shirts on that piece of stick. Rarely does one get such an opportunity to be Raj Kapoor in real life. All that I am missing is a pair of Jaapani Joote and Ruusi toppi. (I think my clothes dried in 15 minutes, it was that hot)

Unfortunately, I had to leave the yatra mid-way. One of my last pics taken. at a village meeting. I think, its a must for all of us to be part of Shodh Yatra. The yatra ended after a week, but the search within shall never end for me. I keep thinking about the experience, the people I met, the discussions that came up, the believes that got distorted, new ideas that came and plan to act on similar theme in near future.  Keep it up, Shodh Yatris !! Thank You for the tremendous time together !! Look forward to the next one !!

The Voice

Lying over the pillow of my fulfilled dreams,

I open my eyes to this cold, starless night.

Interrupted by an utterance from the chilly wind streams,

The voice enquiring me about the road leading to light.

Startled, I ask the voice to walk away from my occupied corner,

It stays to grow in the form of translucent dew over the green grass.

The directions had to come from me, the silent mourner,

Clueless, tired was I, pointed him fingers to an unknown marsh.

It disappeared from the surface to travel the unknown path,

Back to my undesired solitude,

I recall my journey to the road leading to light.

How my voice had kissed some one’s night?

Till then, I wait for that voice to return from the marsh,

Happily speaking to me, for it had traversed the road unknowingly

The Old Man of Damodarpur

He didn’t need a stick to find the obstacles in his path; he knew the streets of Damodarpur village so well that he could have walked through them in the dark effortlessly. He was so old that when asked about it, he used to look at the banyan tree near the Ankadlamani pond, waiting for it to answer. Every mud-house in the village knew him. The old man was aware of every tree, animal, and bird existing on the soil of Damodarpur. He had seen the Rushikulya River, when it was a thin stream of water flowing by, which later grew to be a river. This old man of Damodarpur was my grandfather, he who named me ‘Pavitra’ (Pure) when I was born. In his youth he was a freedom fighter, he was a poet, he was an entrepreneur, he was a story-writer, a great orator, and he was all that experience could make of an individual. Grandpa was one who took me to watch the sunset near the bridge on his strong shoulders, made me feel free like the birds he enjoyed to watch, he told me ghosts don’t exist, yet every night I sat on his lap to hear bed-time stories about Indian princes, fairies, demons. I remember when my school bell rang; he used to be there at the school-gates with a ripe yellow mango for me, to take me back home on his cycle, smiling at me when I used to drop the mango peel all over my white shirt. We climbed the nearby hills every evening, and used to stand there watching fisherman returning back to their cottage, watch a distant steamer disappearing in the horizon somewhere in the Bay of Bengal. While descending, he used to explain me the medicinal value of every herb he touched and talked to in his own world. I never had heard of Mark Twain, but he made me love them, gifted me Tolstoy and Dickens. At times, he sang Kalidas and Bhanja to me to divert my attention from things which were unnecessary according to him like the John Logie Baird invention. On a straw mat in his favorite corner of the house, he sat for hours wearing a plain dhoti & vest, immersed over the literature that he loved more then his life, at times using his inkpot and the pen to record them. He had hundreds of letters of his addressed to me, which he wanted me to read, but I never could for reasons unknown. Before I knew, I got too big for him to carry me, too tall to help me learn swim. Before I knew, I grew, I grew so much that I was lost in the passage of the time, which carried me away from him to a distant land of dreams, expectation and accomplishments. These small moments with him soon became a thing of past, and suddenly today I want to meet him. I want to hold his hands and hear him, I want to tell him that he is the sweetest thing I have .Wish I could express it all to the old man whose soul rests now six feet deep inside the heart of Damodarpur. I love you, Grandpa; I am reading your letters kept on the shelf.

Yours,

Pavitra

Bhaiya,yeh kaise diya??

The art of bargaining is an unusual one, its taught in none of the universities from where we attained our bachelors and masters degree. There is no formal training undergone to master this art. The grounds to practice this art is spread world-wide especially anywhere a transaction is being carried out. I am lucky to be trained under a master of this art, under her guidance I have blossomed in this field, but still have a long way to go. My mom has consistently practiced and honed her skill since her childhood while she went to buy bangles at the village fair. In front of our home is the street where the weekly market is held, this was my mom’s home ground where she gained repute amongst the ladies in bargaining with the vegetable sellers. The Monday market was what she waited all week for, to display her tremendous talent in obtaining onions,potatoes,cabbages,drumsticks,bittergourds,lettuces,capscicums,lemons at the most lowest prices, unimaginable to the rest of the family members. Achievements in bargaining were divided into 3 categories according to mom:-
1. If you obtain something with a price reduction ranging from Rs.5-Rs.20, its no big deal,its something you deserve and is fair enough on part of the vendor to provide it to you.
2. If you obtain something with a price reduction ranging from Rs.20-Rs.500, it shows that you carry huge potential to reduce down the profits of the shop-keepers, and make them allergic to your next visit. It’s a positive sign and you are the pride of the gang that raids the Monday Market. It sees an able leader who can carry the torch for the next generation of bargainers.
3. If you obtain something with a price reduction ranging from Rs.500-Rs.5000 and more, you are God, your sight deepens the fear amongst the sellers and you need to open up a coaching centre to tutor, where no bargaining is allowed .
My mom belongs to the 4th category.
The 4th category is the one who expertises in bargaining in those shops where there is a big tag hanging on the glass-walls,’FIXED PRICE’ and forcing them to sell their goods at their cost price. The 4th category members are very rare and form an elite organization(L-FAB), with a significant achievement of saving some thing around Rs.5,00,000/- in their life time for their family with the aid of day to day bargaining .The calculation is quite simple, 10000kg consumption of onions by the family in 25 years, we assume that they bargained around Rs.5/kg , so Rs.50,000 saved. The tomatoes, cauliflowers,cucumbers,mangoes,lady-fingers,nail-polishes,school-bags,stationary items,sarees,dad’s suit,leather belts,plastic chappals all remain to be accounted for, which would certainly exceed the RS. 5,00,000 value. The members of the elite organization have certain rules and regulation, which they follow religiously everywhere. Recently its been in news that the rules have been accepted as the golden principles for bargaining and are being compiled into a book ready to release.It has faced severe protest from the local vendors and shop-keepers.Last night, I stole one of the pages of the unreleased rules-book of the L-FAB from my mom’s cupboard. It was just the ultimate book written ever on the subject. Rules:-
1. The shop-keeper has to get deadly bored of your presence, so irritate him as much as you can by adopting methods like getting all his items out of the shelf,repeatedly asking the price of the items which he has told you several times before. There are chances that he can get confused and spell a cheaper rate.
2. Mostly the goods are sold 70% above are target prices, so the price that should be from our side has to be around 75% less then what the shop-keeper is offering.
3. Stick to your price and don’t budge even an inch. Stand there staring at his goods like they were the most inferior and treat the shopkeepers like you were just passing by and thought of showering your kindness onto them by buying few items from their shop.
4. There would be chances that the shopkeeper would be equally stubborn, but there is nothing to fear, take few steps away from the interiors to the exit of the shop shaking your head vigorously, the shopkeeper is bound to call you back and is ready for another round of negotiations.

Always remember, bargaining is the only safest and profitable thing to do for ourself while buying commodities.
LFAB-Ladies Front For Aggressive Bargaining.

Cheers,
Dipankar.

Girls and Football.

I remember it was one of those science lectures by Rameshwar Sir, and he stated that oil and water are immiscible.Unable to recall any such observation we demanded more examples from the pro- footballer turned science teacher, finally with a big grin he said, Girls and football are immiscible mixture. Though it wasn’t a perfect example, it helped me to understand the word ‘immiscible’. Football,one of the most famous sports known to humans, never arouses any kind of emotions among the female homo sapiens ( exceptions always remain ).The impact of 32 nations,playing non-stop 64 matches,for a month round for them is just like the impression of a cheap-lipstick from the Monday market in their purse which disappears from their lips within few minutes. Rooney for them is some kind of rhyming word to looney, and the team of Nigeria should be banned because it’s a pain to eyes to differentiate between players. The idea of 22 players running behind a round thing drives them mad, its better to learn new tactics to torture the newly wedded daughter in law by follwing various tv soaps. A conversation made by mistake with one of my female colleagues about the previous evening World Cup games sealed my belief in the capacity of female homo sapiens to understand this beautiful game. These were the questions and remarks she posed before me :-

1. Whats so great about a poor little thing being kicked all round the park by 22 madmen? What is so great about kicking it between two bars ? I keep kicking all the time…..the last time was my boyfriend out of my life. J
2. I never seen someone running like that OMG OMG this is ridiculously funny, my rabbit runs like that HaHaHa HeHeHe. She was referring to Messi.

He was playing really awesome that evening.

3. Does this man play? This is so rude and insane, he damn shouldn’t be allowed to enter the field,look at his face, he scares me, shitty monster. She was referring to Rooney. Rooney’s touch were good that evening.
4. Where does so many footballs in this park come from?
5. Baaahhh that goal keeper is a real asshole, he caught the ball with his own hands,stole all the pinchful of interest that I had sustained with great difficulty through out that’s plain cheating.
6. You know he was looking like a Greek-God yet he was on the benches, how cruel is this world to deny him to play, its sheer injustice. Madam was referring to Beckham. Beckham was injured.
7. That referee is the craziest of all, he was madly running both sides of the ground .Was there a need to do so??He seemed to be a gambler to me with cards in his pockets. ( that too…red and yellow..OMG…red and yellow hehehe ) And those madmen were listening to his orders, ahhhhh where do u get see such a sight??
8. Hey England’s strategy was real bad, they could have placed all their players sticking to the goal posts of the opposite teams, the ball would come and they could have scored rather then settling for a draw. And by the way whats Off-side??

Girls and football, immiscible mixture.

Cheers,

Dipankar.

Mumbai Rains

Mumbai rains are different from others. A strong army of dark-things march towards its destination at a voracious speed. The fragrance of the soil spreads in the air, as the first drops of the rain kisses the ground. A sudden burst of movement of people on the roads run for shelter, under a tree, under the roof of some old-shop. The chaiwaala is surrounded by a crowd , vada-pao stalls get fully-packed , the rest move against the rain in the local-trains standing near the exit. Children from the thousands of buildings that have faced the monsoon onslaught before get down and open their arms to feel the rain. It splashes across their bodies immersed in a moment of pure joy, ecstasy. The trapped souls occupied with their never-ending job look through their office- window to watch lovers walking down the street under an umbrella. The clouds keep bringing the nostalgic waves which hit many, the ones who stand in their lavish home balconies with a mug of coffee to the ones who have no space to sleep. Rivulets enter the drain which had been choked since summer, the unsold mangoes being covered with plastic sheets, the trees turn to a cleaner shade of green, the earth obtains a different colour, the Arabian sea swells. Mumbai rains are just a little more wet.

cheers,
dipankar

I want to be.

One afternoon in class 8th, our teacher had raised her voice and asked us,''Each of you tell me what do you want to become in your life?'' Replies were heard, most of them wanted to become engineers and doctors. There were few who wanted to be teachers,CAs and IAS officers, rest cited what their bench mates wanted to be. There were friends who were good at portraying teachers with big noses in the last pages of their book,never intended to be cartoonists, friends who were so good with free-kicks and cover-drives, none of them replied to be a footballer or a cricketer, the ones who had designed the stage for the annual function never thought of being an architect. Today most of them are engineers,even the always wanting to be doctors, teachers, IAS officers are engineers. All of them, including me even, are on the way to achieve things which we thought could not be achievable if we went to be something else in life in India especially. Is that the truth of are life, we never explored. In our 20s we are earning good, have a bunch friends to enjoy with, a comfortable life, a job which is manageable , which sums of our life lived till now as the best one could get.at our age. We were happy till the other day, when the same old teacher mailed us asking another question to us,''Each of you tell me did you become what you wanted to be in you life?'' Replies weren’t heard in the classrooms this time, but the answers were made to oneself, and the conscious was bitter, it was cheated, carrying the guilt to have opted the easier way out for the attainment of things that were needed and required. This night I sleep dreaming of old artifacts lying deep down in some dungeon, I sleep dreaming of discovering tombs and coffins, of studying old clay pots, that noon I had stood up and answered,'' Madam, I want to be an archaelogist''.

cheers,

dipankar