A trip in time, 20 years behind...

Life at a Rural Management school can be quite interesting..

As soon as we landed there, as a part of the induction itself we were sent off to villages in gujarat..

2 people per village for seven whole days...

I was sent wid a gal called swapnil to a village wich was the worst of the lot.. i mean we had been told that villages in gujarat are quite prosperous so i was hoping something very different.. and al the other ppl from the class got wat i had anticipated and i got a place near the MP border wich is the most backward region of gujarat...
really tribal..!
will put some photos for your convenience….

Well, so this place was where I was to stay for seven days and thr was no toilet here!!! I mean we actually had to go to the fields!!!
The first day was hell.. then second disgusting.. third depressing.. fouth was ok.. fifth , got a little used to it.. and so on and so forth…

So well, this place…
Was a nightmare as I said and sme of our class mates went to places where they were given AC rooms and 2 attendents and all!! Now talk bout discrimination!!
But all said and done I will say I was glad I went to the place I went to…
Got to learn a lot..
(apart from how to use the fields for....)

The house was crude.. their needs simple.. the family huge.. 1 man(80 yr old.. I fell in love with him.. the reasons will b apparent as u read on…) 2 wives.. 1 dead, 9 children and their families.. which summed up to some 32 grandchildren (excluding the kids of his 3 daughters…) and all stayed thr!

This is the house that we stayed at

And then we were supposed to roam about in the village meeting ppl.. and understanding their problems.. now imagine a village where thy cant speak anything but gujarati and I dint know anything of it!!! Except for a few rescue classes that we were put thru @ IRMA b4 they sent us to this godforsaken place…

The ppl we stayed wid were atleast 20 yrs behind.. more than that actually…
Thy had a farm land.. and lot of cattle.. the food was cooked on the chulha… in mitti ke bartan!! The taste was awesome.. but I used to eat less coz the morning ordeal was enough scary already…

Thr I met the dadaji.. the man of the family… 80 yr old.. but as strong as any of his sons.. worked more than any of them and could do everything.. he was a very good carpenter.. so good that he was quite a professional… at the same time he could make bows and arrows and use them to kill wild animals..

A very proud man…. Bold, Courageous and fearless… At the same time very compassionate… Man as a man should be..

btw when we were sent off, we had been warned that if we wanted to see leopards IRMA will take us to Bhopal zoo but plz don’t be ultra excited and adventurous to see the leopards that stayed less than a 100 mtrs from the place that we stayed at… the family I stayed wid was a parmar family.. deepu bhai being the host..

So on the first day dadaji told us to come along.. and we went wid him.. thr he took us to a ‘tekdi’ near by.. we dint realise wat he was doing until when told us that “idhar baagh(tigers/leopards) rehte hai” … I was shit scared.. I told him I want to go back.. and al started laughing that ‘dadaji hai and u r afraid?’ apparently he was a legend thr and he was famous for his tales of having actually faced some wild animals and he had actually saved prey and brought it back from the animals cave.. ALIVE!!! And this is no exaggeration.. this tale we heard from so many ppl in the village!! These ppl practically stayed in a forest which had been a tribal area and converted into farmland.. anyways..

and so suddenly he says that he cud smell a wild animal somewhr nearby… and that now it will come out… an lo and behold, right from under the stone that he was standing on came out a wild animal called ‘jarak’!!! I had never seen it before.. something like a jackal.. but white.. and he shooed it.. we started screaming!!!

The stones are the caves of the wild animals.. and thats dadaji lookin for 'it'

He knew blackmagic.. ppl from nearby taluka places came to get treated by black magic from him… once I was sitting wid him… and he was drawing some weird drawings on a broken pot.. it was scary and I asked him wat was he doing.. and he told me it was blackmagic!!! And that He was going to cure some one
… i asked him to plz let me watch him doing it.. and he scolded me and told me not to even come nearby!!!
Watever….

He hated non vegetarian ppl… he asked me whether I was one… I said no…! cudnt risk being honest.. we had been told that these ppl are quite conservative… and then he was so relieved to know that I was a veggie.. he then went on to say that all the non vegetarian ppl are ‘ganda manas’ meaning dirty pplL and that they don’t even drink water from the house of ppl who r non vegetarian.! anyways… so thr r innumerable experiences of this place.. like the bhil wedding that we saw…. Which was one awesome thing..

I fell in love wid him.. he was 80 yr old.. had not seen more than 6-7 different places in his whole life time.. was a proper hunter wid bows and arrows in his young days.. at 80 he had no ailments except that his knees were growing a little weak..
He was a verrrry proud man… seen a lot of life.. a wise man… he was proud of his moustches.. and he must have been really handsome when young…
He wud sing suddenly out of the blue.. some weird songs and ‘radhaben’ and other girls wud start giggiling… by the end of our stay I started understanding it a little.. he wud sing things like ‘beso re beso jamavalo’ (meaning sit and have food!!) he wud sing anything…his own compositions..and tunes too! he was cute…he was also famous for his bhajans and kirtans… his knowledge bout mythology was awesome.. he never went to school ever but he cud read and write.. how ? don’t ask.. he was never formally trained.. he was a famous palmist in that area…

The Eldest and the youngest of the family...

Thats radhaben... one of the many granddaughters of dadaji...

One incident that touched me was when I told him that I wanted a photo of his and he was working then so was not wearing proper clothes and was on his underwear..
He said ‘hum pagdi bandhenge phir photo leo.. hum apka desh me jayenge na photo se.. phir pagdi to bandhni chahiye ni… ’ he went all the way, got dressed up, wore his best dress, pagdi and then came and told me to click his snap!!
He is such a sweetheart.. I told him that nasik is a beautiful place and that he must come thr.. he told me that he wil if it is in his destiny to see nasik….



That is how he wanted his snap to be taken…

I was moved by the poverty..
these ppl lived on so little.. I mean thr needs were so little..
so different was their life.. and we have come from here..
this is how my great grandfather must’ve lived… and today I live in such a different world!! The place had a beauty of its own… it became sooooo beautiful in the eve!! It was unbelievable..





Evening At kamboi… beautiful aint it?

peacocks used to be coming around their house every now and then…





The kids wud be happy wid such small small things..
These kids were never told not to play in mud.. coz that was their only toy. They were never asked to wear chappals coz thr feet had to get used to the stones.. and thy were never told to not roam around alone.. life of these kids was very different.. very different.. thr was this cute little 10 year old.. he loved this little calf that was thr…
He tended to it all day long.. and all the kids kept playing wid it… these kids dint need any soft toys.. they had the real thing, real animals to toy with….








thts deepu bhai's youngest son, goti... such a cute kid.. the calf then suddenly got up and goti had a great fall ! cried for long after that






Deepu bhai’s kids.. Goti, Bholu and Sejal… Bholu had beautiful Eyes…

Life was tough for them… if rains did not happen more than half the families wud go without any food to survive..

Thr was a family of this very poor farmer..





The Bhil Family… Few members were out as migrant labours to ahmedabad…

he had only 1 acre of land.. and 1 bullock and 1 goat.. I asked as to wat milk they drank and he said they never had tea with milk coz they cud not afford it!!!! He had two kids! Imagine their childhood without any milk!!
Their house was made out of mud.. and when I asked him as to wat problem they faced in the rainy season, he told me the whole roof drips so much that thr is no place to sleep.. the chulha goes wet and sometimes thy have to go without food.. and this they were talking as if it was no big deal and nothing to feel miserable about!! I mean I was feeling so miserable but he wasn’t.. he was ok bout it…
I really dint know at that moment as to wat the hell do we crib about when we have every goddamn thing!!! These ppl were not miserable!! No thy simply were not!!! And that is wat touched me… something inside me moved…

Apart from the 4 months of rains here, thr was not much of farming to do here so they migrated to cities like ahmedabad and baroda.. and worked as wage labourers… and the condition that they lived thr in was more than pathetic.. it was disgusting pitiful, sick sad.. depressing…

They were exploited.. not paid proper wages.. thy dint have homes.. and imagine after so much migration was thr any scope of education for their kids? Was thr any hope of doing anything but fight for 2 square meals? This same family (photo) had a loan too… half his land was mortgaged for the wedding of one of his sons..!!

I will not depress u more.. but when I came back from kamboi(the village) I was changed.. u can say I was humbled.. thr is too much misery in this world.. and we are doing nothing bout it…
Nothing.
Thse ppl need someone like us… someone like u and me to be with them.. mind u they don’t need donations.. these ppl have immense amount of self respect…
They really do…

Anyways so then all said and done.. I saw a lot.. I saw that thr s a world wich is not aware of anything..they don’t care if USA was bombed.. and they wudnt care less about the local train terrorism too…coz for them imagining a local train is a big deal too…. They cant imagine why ppl will cramp up in a train everyday!! For wat purpose.. and they cant imagine wat is the big rush!!!

And all of them looooove ajay devgan J anybody we met told us that thr favourite hero is ajay devgan!!!

Seven days at kamboi…
Staying with a famiy of strangers whose ways dint match wid any of my ways,
Yet they loved us like a family.. first day I was wondering as to how will I stay wid these complete strangers for seven days… on the 4th day I decided to call up my sir and tell him that I wanted to come back and on seventh day when I was leaving from thr I cried.. and so did my sweetheart, dadaji… he promised me that he wll come to nasik… but I am not even sure if I will ever b seeing him again..
will I ever see cute little goti again? The beautiful little calf.. and the makkai ki roti.. its weird how life can bring u around some ppl and strike a cord within a few days….
Life continues to surprise me….





That’s the family.. deepu bhai wid wife, bakulaben and kids.. Goti, sejal and bholu
Then deepu bhai called up and told that they all miss us a lot and these ppl really mean it when they say it… they had nothing to give but yet they had soooo much to give! (sounds cliché but really… )

I will never forget dadaji… he kept saying that ‘ab to jaana hai…..’ and I felt sad.. I want to meet him one more time… I want to make him happy.. and I want to see him smile… and I you know wat? It is so easy to do that.. one phone call from me will also do it.. or I just have to send a print out of his photographs to him.. or the rice seeds that I have promised to send to him… that’s the beauty of it… they are happy even if u do so little for them… these ppl live by their heart…

Beautiful People…






Dadaji at work… making rope…







Looking for leopards…






Bholu’s eyes… Very very beautiful… Photo cud not do justice to them….







Goti.. Deepu Bhai's youngest son..





Sunset at Kamboi





Dadaji ka Hukka… Kept on having it the whole day.. I asked him for one swig too but he said he will not give coz it will become ‘jhoota’. He has asked me to get a hukka patra while coming next time.. phir saath me beithke hukka piyu chu…



They made me wear their traditional jewellery…All silver…




That’s Dadi…





That’s bakulaben in the kitchen… cooking make ki roti on chullah…


At last.. I know that was too long.. but had to tell u all owing to my compulsive disorder of writing long mails…
Anyways thr is more to it.. than what I have written.. meeting these ppl once in a while, around the corner, in trains while travelling etc is different and staying wid them is entirely different… I am thankful to IRMA for sending me to such a place.. :)