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...

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...

Lanji’s Quest For Education And A Better Life

Lanji’s Quest For Education And A Better Life

Based on a narration by Lanji Majhi We all have had some old person trying to put us in perspective by sharing stories of how they once used to walk to school, everyday with heavy books in their bags. Well, the story that has been narrated to me by Lanji, a...

My Friend Azzli

My Friend Azzli

I opened the door of our Drop-in Centre and found a short-statured dusky woman, who had her pallu wound around her face, as if it were band-aid. And this kids, is how I met your…I mean, my best friend – Azzli*. In the beginning of the fellowship, new to the whole, “Ye...

One Strand At A Time [A Photo Story]

One Strand At A Time [A Photo Story]

Having spent a major part of my fellowship in Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh, it was impossible to not showcase the art-form that makes the place so special - Maheshwari sarees. The sarees and fabrics are registered for Geographical Indication, a certification that the...

Totes Amaze: How This NGO In Kutch Is Fighting Plastic With Plastic

Totes Amaze: How This NGO In Kutch Is Fighting Plastic With Plastic

Nine billion tons - that's the amount of plastic we have created since the large-scale production of synthetic materials began in the early 1950s. And why not, after all plastic is lightweight, flexible, relatively inexpensive, and durable, which also means that it...

What Being Restricted Taught Me About Empowerment

What Being Restricted Taught Me About Empowerment

As I work with Shram Sarathi in Gogunda block of Udaipur, Rajasthan, if I have to talk about the most epic ways of local commute, I'll tell you this... The field areas, though accessible through public transport, still require one to navigate a few kilometres on foot,...

Is Environment A Labour Issue?

Is Environment A Labour Issue?

Early last month, I watched Seaspiracy, Kip Anderson's second project to shed light upon a new dimension of the human-made environmental crisis. It's a documentary film that takes the viewer into the literal and metaphorical depths of the crisis unfolding at the seas,...

Failing And Moving From Making Agriculture Work For Rural Youth

Failing And Moving From Making Agriculture Work For Rural Youth

Born and brought up in Delhi, I had a fascination to get an exposure to the grassroots of India and see the rural realities in its raw form. To pursue this, I joined India Fellow, a social leadership program. As a part of that, I was placed with Shramik Bharti, an...

We Couldn’t Take Our Masks Off, We Couldn’t Drink Water

We Couldn’t Take Our Masks Off, We Couldn’t Drink Water

Picture from the archives of Setu Abhiyan - Urban team It is a cold December evening and the chilly wind is blowing the plastic shelter of the outside of the house, back and forth. Seated on the plastic rug fashioned from old 20kg cement bags, I make my notes under...

Those Who Fall Between The Cracks – Where Do They Go?

Those Who Fall Between The Cracks – Where Do They Go?

This lockdown was supposed to be different. Wasn’t everything planned to seem much more normal than last year? There are no heartbreaking images of migrants walking back hundreds of kilometres or those of workers stuck at inter-state bus terminals waiting to go back...

Sorry Harry, But It’s Time We Talk About The Potters Of Khavda

Sorry Harry, But It’s Time We Talk About The Potters Of Khavda

In the Harry Potter universe, magic is the heart and soul of the wizarding culture. It sets the wizards and the witches apart from their Muggle neighbours. While Ismailbhai Kumbhar, may pass off as a Muggle, in this context, he doesn't need an Albus Dumbledore or a...

What Motivates Us?

What Motivates Us?

Not everyone decides to work with organisations that attend to particularly vulnerable tribal groups in highly inaccessible areas, but for those who do, what drives them? What is their sense of purpose? Of meaning in work? Working with Swasthya Swaraj at Kalahandi,...