A Field Worker’s Diary – Part 56
I had written a little bit about the 2009 Jharkhand trip that I and my-then-colleague Venkat Kolagari had taken in my last post.
We were supposed to do our study on a project for the elderly being implemented by a voluntary organisation in three places. According to our plan, we both thought of going to a village together on our first day. The next day, our plan was for each of us to go to different places to complete the study. By doing this, we thought that we could complete the study in 3 places within 2 days only. According to the plan, we completed our work in Khunti district on the first day. I had to start early on the second day to go to Hazaribagh. It was about a 3-hour drive from Ranchi on the National Highway 20. Unlike us, there is no concept of a bus stand in Jharkhand.
Public transport is non-existent. All were private buses. Buses depart from a different place for each town. So, Venkat booked an auto rickshaw for me to reach my bus stand and departed to his bus stand. I didn’t know Hindi. I can understand it but I can’t speak in Hindi. My auto rickshaw driver kept talking all throughout the ride without me having to make an effort to talk. He showed me a house saying that it was Dhoni’s new house. He stopped our Rikshaw just besides the Hazaribagh bus and told me to board it.
The name ‘Hazaribagh’ means thousand gardens it was once a densely forested area. Even though Hazaribagh was surrounded by forests even now, I saw numerous coal mines on the way from Ranchi to Hazaribagh. When I got down in Hazaribagh, there was a person waiting for me from an organization called Navbharat Jagruti Kendra which is one of the partners involved in the implementation of the project. He took me to his office.
The founder of that organisation, Girija Nandan explained how they brought the elders in the area into the Self Help Group (SHG) network through the project, what sort of programs were they conducting through the groups, etc. Girija Nandan is a Gandhian. He is a gentleman. He spoke slowly and in moderation for a little time about his Sarvodaya ideology. This project for the elderly is just one of many programs being implemented by Navbharat. I felt it was my good fortune that I could meet the members, especially Girija Nandan garu, of this organisation which is working on the principles of equality, fraternity and self-help. After I understood the project procedures, they took me to a village to speak directly to the main stakeholders in the program — elders.
By the time we reached, maybe around 50 elders, most of whom were women, were waiting for us. On the day before in Khunti district, we had met elders belonging to the Munda tribes. Unlike them, the women here wear their sarees over their heads like a veil. This area was mainly inhabited by the people of Thakur caste. Just as they did in Khunti, the Elders Self Help Groups’ members explained the programs they did through the groups. However many questions I asked, the women members didn’t open their mouths.
It was lunch time by the time I finished talking to all of them. After lunch, I spoke exclusively with the leaders of the groups. According to our plan, I was to stay there for the night and go directly to the Ranchi railway station and meet Venkat the next day. Our train to Hyderabad was the next evening. Rather than staying in a hotel in Hazaribagh, the Navbharat staff thought that it would be nicer for me to stay in the village, and arranged for me to stay in someone’s house.
The owner of the house was a carpenter. He had four daughters and one and only son. With 7 members in the family, their small house seemed to be bustling with activity. The eldest two daughters going to college and could speak a little English. So, the Navbharat staff thought that it would be convenient for me. After dropping me at their house, the staff told me that they would come pick me up early the next day, and left.
The girls decided to take me around their village. It was such a tiny village that it could be covered in just 15 minutes. We went around all the length of the village and then went to the Krishna temple which was on a hill a little farther from the village. While coming down the hill, I saw many men sitting in a circle under a tree farther away from us. I asked the girls what was happening there, they replied that the Thakur Khap Panchayati of some sort was going on. They added that Khap Panchayatis or Caste Panchayatis were quite common there, and that women didn’t attend them. Moreover, people of other castes don’t even go to another caste’s Khap Panchayati. It was dark by the time we got back home. Their mother served us dinner with baby potato curry (without scraping the peel) and rice. The youngest of the girls came to me saying that she would put mehndi on my hands. After drinking tea early next morning, we went to the nearby mahua forest.
I spoke to some of the children who were busy collecting mahua flowers from the ground. Just as I went back and finished my breakfast, someone from Navbharat came to get me. I bid by goodbyes to the family, and went to Hazaribagh with him and took a bus to Ranchi from there. For a person who didn’t know the local language, if staying with an unknown family in a tiny house in a remote village was such a cozy experience, just imagine how big the hearts of that family must have been!
Bharathi Kode