Yeh Bahut Mehenga Hai

"Why should I pay THAT MUCH when I can buy something exactly like it at _______ for half the price?!" (one may fill the blank with the name of any High Street shop)  More than a century ago, English artist and activist William Morris argued that "nothing should...

Friendly Spiders Of Agragamee

Imagine you have just woken up. You get up and open the door to step out, and the first thing you see is a spider hanging in front of your door, spreading its web. Thinking it might have gone, I took my first step to go out but the web stuck to my entire face. I...

Mautana: Dilemma Of A Dead Body

Mautana: Dilemma Of A Dead Body

Tribal culture is the primitive culture of prehistoric era. Today, tribal groups are settled on different Padas (pieces of land). Even though the distance between the tribal people living in valleys and cities is decreasing with the increasing transportation...

Who Is A Karyakarta?

Who Is A Karyakarta?

The word 'Karyakarta' literally means worker in English. I've been trying to understand it better. Who is a Karyakarta? Is it you and me? Is it a CEO of an organization? How often do we introduce ourselves as a Karyakarta? I have never had. In fact, I had always taken...

Working In Grassroots : Perspectives Versus Realities

Working In Grassroots : Perspectives Versus Realities

Shakshi with the girls and women she is working with My dream of bringing a change into the existing system of our society and to adding value to it in an impactful manner was taking shape when my journey as an India Fellow started with my host organization, KMVS...

Structures And Grassroots – My Observations

Structures And Grassroots – My Observations

Disclaimer: My views are from a novice's point of view who just entered the social development space. From what I understand in the context of finances, the stakeholders in the system I am directly or indirectly working with, are:  GovernmentOne of the most...

Lessons In Development: Then And Now

Lessons In Development: Then And Now

On the second day in my current home, Khandar, a tehsil in Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan, my idea of development took a major hit. After spending the day under hot sun, it started pouring heavily and the area was filled with water. Since the majority of the inroads I have...

Digital Mobility In Panna, Madhya Pradesh

Digital Mobility In Panna, Madhya Pradesh

Sajan Bai (on the left) glares as I (on the right) download WhatsApp on her phone The popularity of smart phones has radically changed the way people communicate and gain information. With a single device, one can browse a random question on Google, text a classmate...

You Feel disgusted? You leave!

You Feel disgusted? You leave!

A long line of women, carrying their babies in slings across their chests, balancing eggs and channa on their heads, is a common sight as we travel in our jeep at Swasthya Swaraj from our head office in Bhawanipatna to the villages. Children are always tied close to...

Dalsinghsarai: A Place Allowing Me To Challenge Myself

I was standing alongside a brown stray dog, both of us patiently waiting on one side of the railway track. A train was expected to pass and the tracks had been temporarily shut. Along with the dog and me, there were many more people waiting – a woman on a scooter with...

Collectives And Public Health

Collectives And Public Health

The ongoing pandemic has emphasized the importance of creating a robust public health system. In Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh the shortcomings of the health infrastructure in these trying times were visible not only in the infrastructural inadequacy, but were also...

Who Bears The Brunt Of Borrowing Money?

Who Bears The Brunt Of Borrowing Money?

A gender lens to understand credit in rural India Microcredit = Lending to women in groups I remember making sense of microfinance using this simple equation the first time I read about the concept of lending to the poor. Somehow, it did make a lot of sense and it...

Being Human

Being Human

I have always wondered about what makes a human “human”. Is it their high functioning evolved brain? Their social development? Or values like empathy, compassion, kindness? Though I haven’t been able to answer this question completely, I feel that I may be coming...