I was watching a show on Discovery in which they were showing the modes of transport of future. The mode of transport was shown primarily to be AIR! Jet packs would be used to move from one place to another. People would be able to evade traffic hassles by easily flying over small distances instead of commuting by roads.
Cool. New innovation, huh? Similar optimism must have been expressed a couple of centuries back when road transport was introduced? It’s in big mess today everywhere. We ate up all lands. On the modern road, where vehicles move today, many years ago, those were the roaming grounds of animals. But we chased them away by killing their habitats and making roads for us. Now we want to chase the birds too away by making more intrusions (apart from Planes) into their roaming air. Does this hunger to save time lead us anywhere? Once it becomes affordable and practical, even jet packs will see Traffic lights hanging in the air. But what after air? I guess we will then spoil other planets from scratch as we did to earth.

Let me begin by wishing everyone a very blissful new year. I hope you are in great health and mood.I have spent 6 months in Swades Ki Khoj, instead of sharing experiences individually with friends through emails, let me try to express it here.

My experiences in swades ki khoj had been quite great so far. This discovery was not some one moment. I have had experiences in the past few months which all form this discovery. Changes have started happening without me being consciously aware of them. When I return from morning run, and I see some old woman breaking stones in a corner, my eyes become wet. I feel dwarfed and overwhelmed when I see an old woman bringing loads of fodder or fuel wood on her back, yet managing to give a smile when I wish her Namaste. I am valuing money more than ever before. I have made friends with people who by conventional wisdom are from a world totally different from mine. For example I became friends with Mukesh in Ashram plainly because of the fact that we are both human beings and we have a common language and I need another human being in the Ashram to see and talk to. There’s no hidden agenda or expected returns in such friendship. I am glad I could experience such unique form of friendship.

Around Deepwawali, I stayed in Mehergaon with Pradhan Hoshiyar’s family. That time of around a week was one of the best times I had. I tilled land and had break fast with the family in the field in sunshine, sitting on the same ground which had given the manduwa few months back, whose chapatti I was having there. It was a divine feeling. It was the closest I got to food we eat. I hadn’t even seen a ladyfinger plant before the internship. Pradhan Ji’s 5 tiny daughters appeared one after the other before me like von trapp children of Sounds of Music! One of them still says, ‘mujhe chacha ki khudi lag gayi’. The unconditional love that the family began showering in no time was overwhelming. Even the village became so much familiar with me that when I returned here again after some time (to see ashtabali mela to actually witness animal sacrifice) they all recognized me, although I couldn’t identify them! It was really like a home coming. My village is in Haryana where I last visited at least a decade back. No one lives there any more. I am glad that now I have a village to call my own.

Apart from this I have been going to many other villages in different clusters to speak with farmers. What has been most enlightening is the dialogue with the elderly. I try to hear their perspective on such things as ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’. It’s interesting to know how they feel when I tell them that India is growing or that we are in 21st century. But I haven’t had enough of this. I am still hungry for more of Gairsain! I feel that I have fallen in love with Garhwal and more so with the huge hill in front of campus which I always want to embrace! People are so hospitable that I feel extremely swept over when after I have food in some home, the people in that home apologize with me for any thing I disliked. God, I see god in them! I wonder which world are these people from? Is it the same India where I lived in 6 months back? In fact when someone speaks with discourtesy, I found that almost in 100% cases, the person is from Dehradun or Delhi!

I recently attended a mid-term review workshop of Swades Ki Khoj at Chirag. It was interesting to see what others had been doing. Every one has changed in some way! Many people are more confused now including me! Earlier I would think of getting into music/ theatre/ journalism/ Air force. Now, after discovering more of myself in this internship, I am having more career interests! – NGO, IAS, doing my own business in this area, I hope confusion gets resolved in the coming months!

Now I plan to see Kumbh Mela in haridwar for the first time. These mystic things have become subjects of my interests. I am giving benefit of doubt to these things which I would earlier plainly reject as irrationalities or blind faiths, may be because of strong faith and culture of people.

Savita is one of the few people who has offered me alternative line of thought. Few days back, she showed me a perspective that I could not find myself in an obvious manner. She asked why I talked in English with Mohit Ji from Plan. This is the kind of thing I look forward to while I am with SBMA to actually get moved. Of course I do get to learn from everyone both from village or the NGO. But learning something that I myself could not learn directly is priceless. Generally people in NGO would be submissive and nod yes with whatever I say. But I am glad Savita put a question before me that made me to think. Plus I was tired of such submission all around me. When I thought deeply I realized she was right.

Yesterday when I was talking to Akanksha from Plan, I was consciously making efforts not to speak in English. But I found myself speaking in English every now and then, and on such realizations I immediately switched to Hindi. Thus, it was a game of hide and seek between English and Hindi. This gave me a clue why I spoke with Mohit Ji or with Nishita or Shruti or Prateek from Swades in English. Actually Akanksha was speaking in English. I guess she was also making little efforts to toggle. But mostly she spoke in English. That made me speak in English. Same happened with others too. It just comes onto tongue naturally. I naturally do not talk in English while I am in village or with NGO people.

We have started feeling the heat of climate change in a diffused form when we feel disheartened on not finding something we expected. It is usually associated with tourism. For example, all our lives, we learnt that hills are cool and that it snows there every winter. But often people visit the conventionally cooler places and end up getting dejected on seeing their beliefs turning false. I went to Joshimath so that I could visit Auli too and enjoy winters there. But unfortunately, there was very less snow. There was no point of going to Auli as snow wasn’t good enough for skiing. Even the films and songs that we indulged in while growing up, showed hills to be some kind of paradise. For instance, there was a song from the film Ram teri Ganga maili ho gayi, which said, “husna pahdaon ka, kya kehna ke baron mahine, yahan mausam jaadon ka” , meaning that hills are so beautiful because they have winters all 12 months. Although the song is still a rage in hills, but since the time when this song was written, climate has undergone dramatic change and it’s not so wintery any more. I get up every morning expecting to see some snow here, but even though it’s January time, there’s no snow. My acquaintances from plains keep trying to confirm that it is freezing cold here, but they too feel surprised when I tell them that weather is alright. It’s not that cold. In fact it is colder in Delhi and other surrounding places of northern India. That cold is evident in my mom’s voice when she calls me.

I imagine how much disappointed our kids would be when they will see no characteristics of weather they read in books or watch in films when they actually visit such a place. Even the notion of ‘river’ has changed. Often while travelling I see some water body which natives of that place refer to as river, but to me it doesn’t look like anything more than liquid spill. It will be sad if kids were to see rivers and trees and green pastures only in books and photos. I can see at least some snow, albeit in farther hills. But I doubt my kids will see even that much snow. I am still an outsider in hills. My disappointment is temporary. After I go back to Delhi, I might forget it all. But for the people in villages here different types of weathers have strong connection with the life and culture here. Their festivals are associated with different seasons. They look forward to play in snow every year. Even though it is cold, they enjoy snow as it’s a part of their calendar. They make makeshift boards and do snow boarding. These people must be deeply saddened with this varying pattern of weather.

I guess people are not so active in preserving climate even now because, climate change hasn’t been strong enough to hit the very existence of lot of people in an obvious manner. Droughts and floods in unlikely places are of course result of climate change only. But such causal relationship is not obvious enough for a common man to become sensitive and take action. Humans anyway have strongest tendency to adapt, so if the change is not very huge and quick, people can get used to such things as falling rainfall or lack of snow. As long it is not as widespread and obvious as some kind of epidemic, people will not respond much on a large scale for example carrying out districts wide forestation. But people should learn from their follies. They should not wait for a crisis to actually hit their door for them to get their a** moving. I think environmentalists too will not do harm if they create an atmosphere of fear which can force people to become active in saving climate.

So far I believe I have killed 5 rats. Rats have always posed big threat to me, primarily they cause lot of damage even to things of no use to them, like books, paper and cloth and also, in case of those big mice, they are a compromise with hygiene thus a risk of diseases. When I arrived in Ashram, one thing that gave me sleepless nights were chaos of mice in night. I was so disturbing that even thoughts of quitting internship cross my mind. I did not expect luxury in the village, but then I will be happy even if I get a small but clean hut.

I had no clue what to do. I did not have that box in which rats can be caught. In the village, I asked one gentle man, Bangari Ji, who had expertise in kitchen garden, although sometimes sold some unique sized product of his farm for handsome prize. He did well in treating disease of vegetables, so I thought he might as well suggest something for rats. He told me to make small rolls wet flour along with broken pieces of glass. Rat will instantly die as glass pieces will be too big to get down his tiny intestines. When I shared that novel idea with Claudia, she found it gross and evil. Next he suggested complicated methods of using leaves and oils of certain plants. On the way back I saw a simpler solution of Mortien Rat Kill. I found out that a couple of those were available with Ashram also. So I used those cakes. Although cake was not found next morning, but the rat had his night thereafter too. It turned out that those cakes had expired and hence were ineffective. I got 6 sachets of brand new cakes next day. And it worked. I had peaceful nights. But one day, we opened one room in Ashram, and it smelled gross. We found the victim of my rat kill cakes there, and from the malodor it felt that expiry date of the rat was at least a week old. He was a big fat horrible carcass.

I had relief for a month until I was moved to another room. New rats found their way here. They punched holes in plastic containers, leaked a mustard oil bottle and nibbled on bathing soap. What did they achieve in doing this? I suppose they don’t eat plastic or soap or drink mustard oil. I was forced to another Rat Kill cake. I found that their main source was bath room, so I placed on there and on in front on room. Every time I would keep rat cakes in night, first thing I will do to look for no signs of the cake. The one in front of my room was gone. I was happy. The one in the bath room was still there. I noticed that in the night I also left the instruction paper that came with cake, next to the cake itself. I wonder if the mice read the instruction when he arrived at the cake and thus comprehend my intention and left the cake unattended.

People in hills in general and at the NGO in particular are very respectful. First of all, I never hear ‘Tu’. It’s mostly ‘Aaap’ and sometimes ‘Tum’. Okay I do not mean to say that respect is reflected only through the pronouns we use to address others. But at places where it is, like this one, then being addressed as ‘Aap’ makes me feel respected. Even those, who have more experience than my age! , they call me ‘rajeevg’ and ‘aap’. Surprisingly, this ‘rajeevg’ does not sound as Bihari ‘rajeevg’.

Recently when I went to medical hospital, the doctor was quite ill mannered. The generalization that government doctors will any way talk like they are obliging the patients will not be valid here. The other doctors Dr. Rana and his daughter were quite charming. Fuming at the outrageous attitude of that medical superintendent I filed an RTI for the information I attempted to request for, politely. Back at NGO, I explained what triggered me filing the RTI. I told that I was deeply offended by the way she talked to me. Everybody in the village talks with so much respect, so I wasn’t used to this kind of behavior. Dimri Ji told that she was from Delhi. I felt so small in this one piece of information. Why do Delhi guys have to be so high headed? When I wrote ‘Yeh Delhi hai meri jaan’ entry in my blog earlier, people were all offended about my opinion on Delhites, but that observation of mine is quite clear and correct and one does not need to wear microscope to see this.

Today, while I was going to bazaar, as usual in hills, I forgot the way and took wrong turn. But I realized that and turned back. Finding me confused, one lady from a group sitting near Swajal tap asked, ‘Kahan se aa raha hai, rasta pooch nahi sakta, kahan se hai’.
I was shocked. I was at least expecting, ‘kahan jaa rahe ho’ if not ‘Ko jaani, kakh batan aani’ . All the way to the market, I thought about this. I intentionally took the same route while coming back to encounter the lady again. Before I reached the tap again, I met some women of that group. I was ready to let my anger out by asking them if that’s how they too usually talked.
Before I could say a word, I saw the familiar Garhwali smile and the first woman asked,

‘Bhaiyya, rasta mil gaya?’
‘haan’

I got some encouragement and noticed that they were dressed in Garhwali form. I was too disturbed earlier to see what they were wearing. I asked the girl behind, ‘Didi, gobar khad gaddhe se le jaa rahe hoya seedha’
‘Khaad gadhe se , bhaiyya’
‘Kisne banwayaa, Swajal ne?’
‘haan, isi saal’
‘accha, kaunsa? Keede waala? Vermi to mil gaye the na’
‘haan haan, bhaiya bhaat khao’
‘nahi, bas dhanyavad’

As I moved happily little ahead, I met another woman.

‘bhaiyya, mila gaya tha rasta bazaar?’
‘haan’
‘badi jaldi waapas aainch tum’
‘didi, aap yahin rehte ho’
‘nahi bhai, me dehradun rehen, yeh to inka gobar le jaa rahi hun’

I was joyous to know that even though she was from town, she knew Garhwali and spoke Hindi with Garhwali accent and respected people like anyone here in Garhwal. But I was yet to see the other that rude lady. So I asked this one, ‘didi, who jo behenji udhar baithi thi, unka ghar kaunsa hua?’
‘Bhaiyya, who to delhi ki hai, bhai ke ghar aa rakhi’
‘Well, that explains it!’

On my way up, when I arrived at the tap, I saw the uptown woman still washing clothes under the tap. I noticed her hair and dressing style. She was alien. Without saying a word, I moved on.

I guess to respect someone, one doesn’t need to be a villager or city dweller or illiterate or educated. It’s a common sense. The woman from Delhi immediately assumed a higher position for her in the group because she was Delhi. One might argue that the lingo and style that I despise might actually be the culture of Delhi. Well then, Delhi must be culturally very poor and this culture thing is as much clichéd and futile as the undying spirit of Bombay. I wonder even in Haryana, which is supposedly famous for its raw language and habits, people speak this way with strangers.

Yeh dilli nahi ban sakti meri jaan unless it raises it culture quotient.

Another place, Another home, Another family, Happy Deepawali

Initially I did not like her, like any one else from her species, in fact I did not even know until recently if she was she or he, because people would address her as he only. I got to know her gender only after she gave birth to four little angels. It’s surprising that I have been staying in Ashram now for close to 3 months without worrying about dogs. Rather I feel affectionate towards Julie. Earlier I would always hesitate to go into a house where there’s a sign beware of dogs. In such homes, I would ask from outside itself if the dog was tied or not. In fact, sometimes I would enjoy showing third finger to dog. But here at Ashram, first of all, for the first time, I am not scared of dogs and there are two of them. Four actually, there are two puppies too. I treat them like another occupant of Ashram, saying Hello when I pass by them. Things actually changed after Claudia left. Before that, I was too absorbed in conversations with Claudia to even give a look at these dogs. I would try to stay away from them. Once, I was having lunch, and Julie came and sat right under my chair. The moment my leg touched her and I realized this, I sprang from chair, shaking the whole food table and thus almost giving a heart attack to Claudia. She told that she was surprised that Julie sat under my chair, even though I did not like her then. I think over last few weeks, Julie also understands that I don’t dislike her. Earlier, when I would try to go close to her or touch her, she would kinda bark, or go away or become alert, but now she just politely closes her eyes or does not react. May be in sometime, she might reciprocate the affection as she does to other people in Ashram. I guess the relation between me and Julie is improving because she has seen how much I love her kids. First time when I tried to touch the little Frank Jr and Sophie, Julie barked and almost hit my finger. But now when I cuddle them, she doesn’t react. She’s is just silently happy that there’s one more to the army of people who shower affection on her children. It’s quite magical actually. Kids on streets in cities do not get so much love as these puppies do. Who ever comes to Ashram – new or old, just loves them, and does baby talk to them. Most strangely, Me. I wonder if ever touched a dog before this. But when these puppies are around, all my fondness comes out. Sometimes I let them probe or lick my shoes when they try to climb on to me, by placing there tiny paw on my shoes. When they walk and do kinda rap through their neck, they really resemble the little toys we see in stores, who does things or dance or walk through some spring action. But I am yet to become fully a dog person. I don’t touch them quite often, as I have fear that there might be some insects or diseases in their hair. The way even kids in Ashram keep the puppies for long in their lap and remove dirt or insect from their hair and body, I can’t do that now, may be for hygiene and fear factor. Plus I feel tired of washing hands every time I am done with them. Amit Ji in Ashram already told that there are small lices or insects kind of thins with Julie, which she has transmitted on to cane chairs which she naps upon in the afternoon. Since then, I have stopped sitting on those can chairs. Now if I can’t share a chair with dogs at this stage, how can I possibly jump straight to the level of having the puppies sleep with me. I think all of this might boil down to faith. If I had my own puppy, personal one, then I would have taken care of him, given him bath to him and then I would have belief that the puppy is clean and stay with me like another human being, and I wouldn’t have any doubts about him. As long as I don’t personally take care of the puppies in Ashram, the suspicion might prevent me from going too close to them.

Sometimes I feel like a stranger in my own country. Off late, when I go somewhere and I am asked for ‘aapka parichay’. In my introduction, I say, ‘Rajeev Gupta, Gairsain’, which I guess should be sufficient. But they insist in asking, “No, where are you from? Which organization?”. They want to get out of me, that I am from Delhi and that I work with SBMA. I go to market, after little conversation, I am asked, “where are you from, you need a lodge?”. Recently, I visited a community health centre in the village, and I wanted to ask the doctor why the costly medicines are never available with the dispensary and if she is allowed to prescribe such medicines. So I went up to the doctor, and told her that I needed some information from about medicines. She asked me for introduction. She spoke further only when I told her that I was from the NGO. Now that she knew I was from NGO, she asked why would NGO be interested in this information. That’s why I did not want to divulge that, because after that, the conversation takes a different turn. In fact, so many people come to this only medical centre from remote villages. I am sure the doctor does not know them either. But she doesn’t ask them their introduction when they come for treatment. Or perhaps she does not bother to know a patient as long as he doesn’t do the abnormal task of questioning. Similarly, when I went to Krishi Mahotsav, and tried to make my point, the government adhikari asked me to give my introduction first. Why do I have to be from any organization to make myself heard? Can I not talk and ask because of the fact that I am an Indian? Do my wearing jeans and tshirt and sometimes a cap and clicking pictures make me any less Indian and I look like being from Africa, or America or Europe or Pakistan? The only explanation I can think of is that there are millions of India’s that exist with in the Indian Republic and each of those tiny India’s consider the others as a different country. With so much of diversity, such dilemma and identity crisis are bound to be there.

It was my 3rd visit to Krishi Mahotsav today. It was at Maithan, which meant I went down around 200 meters in terms of altitude, thus it was very warm there. Initially, I was sitting in shade, but my buddy sun wanted to see me, although I did not and thus began the game of hide and seek. Whenever a patch of my hand was under sun, I would move my chair a little towards left. In no time, I was almost stepping over the chair of old man sitting next to me, thus there was no left left! So I got rid of chair and came close to what we all become after death – soil! Although the sun chased me down there on ground ttoo, but now I was more absorbed in the conversation that was going on between the adhikari’s and the farmers. Farmers complained that adhikari’s were listening so much but there was none who was even taking down the suggestions. The speaking adhikari, dude from Horticulture department pointed to another adhikari Mr. Tamta sitting next to him saying that he was writing, seeing that the poor Mr. Tamta started opened a register kept on table, I hoped at least then he had started writing. Everybody was saying that unless there is something done on these suggestions, there is no use of such fancy events as ‘Sarkar Kisan Ke Dwar’.