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Shodhyatra 31 |
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Bricks of Hope: A Drought to Cope
Wardha Shodhyatra Part-II |
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| Abstract |
Wardha should have had a more inclusive model of development given Gandhiji’s long association with the district. But that did not happen. On the contrary, the region was much neglected. How else can one explain almost total absence of rainwater harvesting efforts in the region? Rural enterprises, small farm machineries, and sustainable agriculture also did not get attention, despite so many farmers’ suicides. We walked in the region in search of hope. Meeting a farmer keeping our announcement of innovation competition of 2004 safe in the hope of meeting us someday, made our day. Memories matter.. |
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Not many would expect a brick making woman to have a social media account. But Sumanbai Namdura Sheke proudly asked the yatris to meet her on the web, if they wished so. Her daughter was in a medical college and her son was in school. Her husband mixed clay and sand while she and her mother-in-law moulded the bricks. In a day, they earned about INR 500 after making around a thousand bricks. This was a seasonal work, which meant movement from one place to another after some time. Her face was covered with a scarf, her eyes were beaming with confidence. We had not met many workers with such confidence in their future. After walking further, the yatris noticed a farmer using small vessels to spread water in different parts of the fields. The farmer was trying to save as many plants as he could. Even a small pool of water was important.
In Belgaon village, the community meeting in the evening turned out to be very interesting. A girl got up and said that she did not like men drinking liquor in the village. She also mentioned that parents should not take away the scholarship money, which children got to meet their own expenses. A boy got up and bemoaned the fact that boys would laugh if a girl would sit behind on the cycle.
A small revolution had set in. Young school boys and girls were giving vent to their feelings in the presence of shodhyatris, unmindful of how the elders would take it. It was a revealing experience for the yatris to see so much tolerance among elders and free thinking among children. Not one elderly person tried to snub or reprimand the kids. Lessons in democracy begin early.
Our next destination was Pandharkawda. After sharing various innovations and idea of a village knowledge register, with the farmers, we moved to Ganeshpur where we met Suraj, a class seven student who made a universal mobile charger i.e. it could charge any cell phone battery irrespective of the brand. We know that such chargers are available in the market. But we appreciated his ingenuity in the light of the little access this region has to markets or internet. In Aekbhurji, we sat with the people and noted the local names of about 120 plant samples that we had collected.
After reaching Kheri, we met a hearing and speech impaired student, Archana, who had made beautiful flowers from dried shells of cotton bolls and other agricultural waste. One of the yatris referred to the pieces of bangles used for making various craft goods as broken. The moment he mentioned broken bangles, he was chided by others. In Indian culture, women never liked to use the phrase “broken bangles”. It was considered a very inauspicious expression because only when a woman lost her husband she would break bangles. In different languages different expressions have evolved to convey the accidental breaking. Language holds the key to maintaining sanctity of certain auspicious expectations.
The fear of bear, boar and tigers was engulfing the yatris because it was getting darker and the next village required walking through the forest. Only a few yatris had torches and the stars were not shedding much light. The next day, one could observe a variety of trees sieving the sunlight through bare branches since the summer had taken its toll on leaves. Walking through the forest, everybody feared the tiger but perhaps secretly also wished to see one.
Some of the senior executives of Bajaj Foundation had come to meet the yatris. Perhaps, the walk through the villages was a worthwhile learning experience for them.
In Kherwada village, where yatris had lunch, several tribal musicians played their instruments including a big drum. During their performance, they narrated their devotion to the deity and also celebrated the mood and the meandering meanings.
In several villages, the demonstration of a cycle based sprayer, a rotor sprinkler mounted on the water tanker and a few other innovations got considerable public attention. The sprinkler mounted on the tanker seemed to answer a felt need for providing life-saving irrigation in a region where there were hardly any water sources. One needed about 20,000 litres to save one acre of crop. The idea of such a tanker had evolved through several iterations under the guidance of the Former President of India, Mrs Pratibha Devisingh Patil. She had shared with NIF her concern about frequent crop failure in Vidarbha. Initially, she suggested a small device, which could carry water on a mobile platform for irrigating the cotton fields. Three grassroots innovators made different variations of the device which could provide a kind of drip irrigation in the root zone of standing crop. However, the final form of a rotor sprinkler mounted on a water tank seemed a far more effective solution for providing life-saving irrigation to a crop under stress. Dharambir who had received the President’s award for his Multipurpose Food Processing Machine had designed this tanker under the guidance of Mrs Patil. He demonstrated the device village after village, generating curiosity as well as invoking appreciation among the people.
The next day, we reached Kinnara village which had several contrasts. There were many small houses and a few very large houses, too. One such house had beautifully stained glass windows. Sunlight fell filtered through these glasses on some old books, diaries and manuscripts lying rather uncared for. Once upon a time, it might have been a house of a prosperous person whose grandchildren had now come on a bad time, it seemed. The owner informed that the house walls were made by mixing lime, sand, leaves and fruits of stone apple.
The women had brought a lot of recipes to showcase in a roadside meeting organised by the Bajaj Foundation volunteers in the next village. The yatris had not seen so much diversity in herbs and the methods of cooking them. Several of the dishes had therapeutic properties.
In Parsodi, the village meeting revealed certain paradoxes in using local resources. This village was famous for making cheese. However, almost 200-300 litres of whey milk was thrown down the drain every day. People were not aware that whey is a very good growth promoter when sprayed on crops and is also a very nutritious supplement. They also told that the whey when added to gobar gas plant ensures consistent and continuous supply of the gas. When asked as to why they would not give it to children, they mentioned that they used acid to coagulate the milk instead of lime juice. But using lemon instead was a very small cost and could easily be handled. There were several such resources, which were not being optimally utilised in the region. In view of widespread farmer suicides in the region, the need for reducing the cost of cultivation, particularly of plant protection, was very high. In most of the schools, we found posters of chemical pesticides, which could be used at different stages of the crop cycle. There was hardly any reference to biological pest control or non-chemical pest control.
It may be useful to recall a study on Village Knowledge Management Systems to deploy science and technology for preventing suicides. The study was undertaken at IIMA a few years ago for the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. It was discovered that children of the families where suicides took place had no knowledge of sustainable pest management practices. For instance, growing of lady’s finger crop around the cotton field was one such practice which was reported from Jalgaon in Maharashtra and elsewhere. It could reach the Honey Bee Network in Ahmedabad but could not reach Vidarbha yet. The lady’s finger belongs to the same family as cotton, has similar flowers as cotton and it flowers earlier than cotton. Pests get attracted to it and thus the cotton crop is spared. We shared many such practices in different villages, but the absence of diffusion any such practice surprised the yatris no less.
One of the most memorable moments was in Jhargaon, when a villager brought a poster that had been sent out by NIF in 2004. It was a remarkable moment when we could see in 2013, a nine year old poster preserved by a villager hoping that he might meet us some day. That kind of invisible presence of the Honey Bee Network convinced the yatris that a horizontal culture of lateral learning spreads pervasively. But lest we get too euphoric, let me end on a sad note. We had reached Dhaga village by noon and were struck by a calf lying on the ground under the sun. It had been injured by a tiger a few days earlier. Given the severe fractures in the body, the calf was in no condition to get up. There was a cattle shed for taking care of stray animals and also milk cows. The local staff did not realise, however, that even if the calf was on deathbed, the death need not be painful. Some of the shodhyatris first covered the animal to protect it from the sun. Afterwards, a few others moved it under the shade of a tree and gave some water. Several shodhyatris were upset at the plight of the calf and the initial indifference apparent in the way they saw it lying under the sun. The following day it was taken to the hospital. The pain still lingered on. |
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| Volume No. |
Honey Bee 24(4) 4-7, 2014 |
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