While sitting in my study room and having the luxury of being fascinated by...
Settling In And Attending A Visioning Exercise
Finding A Place To Live Last month brought with it some of the most...
Theatre Of The Oppressed: Rehearsing for Real Life
These are my reflections from five months of practicing Theatre of the...
Her: The Story Of A Beautiful Creation
The role of women in my life has been invaluable and transformative, shaping...
भुज की महिलाएं और कमला बेन की कहानी
भुज भारत के उत्तर-पश्चिम भाग में रहस्य की भूमि कच्छ जिले में स्थित हैं।...
Sickle Cell Anemia And A Day In The Life Of A Counsellor
On 8th August 2023, I accompanied Laxmi Patkar, a counsellor at Jan Swasthya...
Observations And Realities In Schools At Saharsa, Bihar
Bihar is one of the marginalised states in India in terms of education. It has...
The Story Of Thoriyari Village Pond
Thoriyari village pond is a place to visit, a great learning resource to...
Conversations About Boundaries
"I think women's tolerance to male entitlement has come down as compared to our mothers' generation", said Rohini* sitting on one side of the canal. We were five India Fellows who had come to this beautiful village called Noor* for our rural immersion. Two other...
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...
My Experience Of Living In Rural India
As a part of India Fellow, I lived and worked in Kashipur in Rayagada district of Odisha. Here are a few highlights from the 13 month journey: Food Odia food is rice with other items. No meal is complete without rice. I used to get my meals from a mess for INR 2000 a...
From Udaipur, With Love
“Is experiencing village life one of the reasons you joined the fellowship?”“What, no haha. I mean, I know a lot of people are looking forward to that. So, no offense, but I grew up in a village, so not really!”, something I said in the first month of the fellowship,...
Working With Minimum Resources, With Those Who Have Nothing
Picture by Mahir Bhatt, a 2017 fellow Trigger Warning: This is a case of suicide, as narrated by Sister Rani, a senior nurse at Swasthya Swaraj in Kalahandi, Odisha There was a sudden hustle in the clinic, almost a sort of panic as a tribal woman was brought carried...
![One Strand At A Time [A Photo Story]](https://indiafellow.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_20210906_114752-scaled-1.jpg)
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...
Bridging The Digital Gap In Rural India
Financial inclusion, in today's day and age is not what it was a decade or two ago, when having a bank account was the starting point. Today, 'digital' is a key piece in the puzzle of financial inclusion, specially for low income communities. India is set to have 820...
Of Windmills And Women
“I ask you to leave your home, the clothes you wear, the family you love, and all that surrounds you because tomorrow, I will build a mall on the above the stacked pyres of your identity. You can’t fathom it. You won’t. Why must I? Why must your development come at...
Of Partition, Earthquake And Community Festivals: How Kharad Artisans Double Up As Storytellers
“You are looking at a handmade, natural-dyed Kharad painstakingly made by my son Samat and I,” says Tejsibhai Dhana Marwada, letting the coarse, flat-woven rug slowly drop to the floor revealing a design in intense colors of black, white and dark brown. “But most of...
‘Postnatal Care’ In Rural, Tribal Villages Of Southern Rajasthan
Ramila* is a 22 year old woman who lives in Hathiya Talai, a village in Gogunda block of Udaipur, Rajasthan. Ramila had high fever on the third day after her delivery. Her baby died on the second day. “There was no breast milk and the baby would just not open her...
![Of Clay And Mirrors [A Visual Story]](https://indiafellow.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Banner-scaled-1.jpg)
Of Clay And Mirrors [A Visual Story]
When Argaben begins pinching and shaping the clay dough, she's not doing so to put on a show. Yet, when she breathes life into the otherwise lifeless lump of clay, shaping different patterns and designs, we all watch in awe. The freehand work from memory. The fluidity...
Resilience, As I Understood It
Resilience and perseverance - the two virtues almost always attributed to the poor. The glorification of their hardships and our awe for their ability to survive. Haven’t we started looking at them akin to cockroaches? They never die with a single stroke, it takes...
Education For Change
Imagine yourself as a child living in a small mud house in a green valley, with lush farms on rolling hills that extend until as far as you can see. Your family is engaged in agriculture, growing rice and corn. A good harvest ensures enough food for the next few...
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...