First Immersion

An account of the initial immersion into the grassroots. Fellow’s encounters with diverse realities, unfamiliar terrain, and new relationships

Meenakshi Devi and Her Never Give Up Attitude

Meenakshi Devi and Her Never Give Up Attitude

A still from Meenakshi Devi's classroom My anticipation from the first field visit during our induction training was largely based on my stereotypes of villages. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie puts this across eloquently in her TedTalk 'The Dangers of a Single Story' She...

Redefining My Idea Of A Village

My father grew up in a village named Purana in Jagatsinghpur district of Odisha. My grandmother, whom I fondly call bou (mother, in Odia) still lives there. As a child, I visited and stayed there during summer and winter vacations. However, most of my ideas about the...

Last Mile Delivery of Products & Services

As a part of training program at India fellow, I got an opportunity to visit the rural parts of Udaipur. The visit was intended merely for observing people and surroundings. Madar - the history of this village is older than the foundation of Udaipur itself. It was a...

Looking Back and Ahead – From Mizoram To Rajasthan

Having spent my early childhood in a small village of Kamalanagar in Chawngte, Mizoram and living half of my 26 years in different cities of India, I have been fortunate enough to experience different flavors of life. This post is about an experience from Madar...

Life, And The Patterns in Which it Unfolds

Today, I have a little too much of motivation to wake up, dress up, show up in the foyer and hit the road ASAP! "Why? What's the reason for this adrenaline rush?", I asked myself... It’s the rural immersion, something that I’ve faintly heard of, but was highly...

Plato And Cave – Valuable Lessons From The Allegory

In The Republic by Plato, he analyses a story of a group of people born and brought up in a dark cave without any connection with the outside world. The "Cave Allegory", as it is called, gets interesting when one among them finds out about the truth of their existence...

We Need A Balance In Stories About Indian Villages

A single story is one where the same thing gets told over and over again about a people or a place we do not know first-hand. The danger? It leads to stereotypes, to half-truths, not the truth. Our lives and cultures are composed of many overlapping stories. A single...

Not My Cup Of Chai

“One’s destination is never a place but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller An early morning bus from Udaipur to Gogunda made up for a good start. Gogunda is a small town and a major hub for surrounding villages in Udaipur. It is well connected via buses and...

माटी से निकटतम या रोटी से

भारत की ३३% जनसंख्या की तरह मैं भी एक शहरी नागरिक हूँ. अपने २५ वर्षों के जीवन में से २५ दिन भी मैंने किसी ग्रामीण क्षेत्र में नही बिताये. राजस्थान के किसी गाँव को मैं उतना ही जानती थी जितना “बालिका वधु” या “सरफ़रोश” ने मुझे बताया. हालाँकि, वहां के पर्यटक स्थलों से मैं...

Of People And Places

Ever had the feeling where you were kicking yourself for leaving the good life behind? From being a reasonably well-off graduate student in Toronto, enjoying first-world comforts, to being completely drenched and hanging on for dear life, on the roof of an overcrowded...

A City That Existed Before : Palesar

"*Kishanlal is a farmer who is aspiring to make a "Pakka Makaan" which he is not able to. Money is a major constraint and he worries about his 'Kaccha Makaan' falling down due to the excessive rain, just like it happened with the few unfortunates who died last year....

Do Beegha Zameen

A still from the movie Do Bigha Zamin (1953) ‘… Jisse ghar mein paans paans basse hain, ussa do bigha zameen mein syaa hoga?’ posed *Jaspal Singh as he closed his response. His response was to a question asked by me about land ownership in his village, Palesar. And...