My last visit to my hometown in Kerala had been a year ago. I decided to set...
Complexity Of Education And My Belief In Solution
I always believed education to be a basic right for all. I thought that it...
Salma’s Home In The Forests Of Uttarakhand
This is an attempt to understand the world of a forest dweller who is trying...
विदेश का सुनहरा ऑफ़र छोड़ यह युवा बना इंडिया फ़ेलो!
मैं, जाबिद खान, मखौली गाँव का रहने वाला हूँ जो राजस्थान के सवाई माधोपुर जिले...
There Are No Roads But There Is An Ante Natal Care Camp
Organization: Swasthya Swaraj SocietyPlace: Kalahandi, OdishaType of Terrain:...
A Day In My Life As An India Fellow – Part 2
Read part 1 here We took Riya’s father to a hospital in Udaipur and I tagged...
Pulling The Maheshwari Threads Together
As I walk through the narrow lanes of Maheshwar, a symphony of sounds fills...
De-layering Mobility
In the last couple of months, I had been accompanying a team of mental health...
How Shakil Bhai is Printing a Different Story, One Block at a Time
It's dirty, noisy and crowded. There's wastewater flowing in from one side. Cows and dogs are picking through piles of garbage, hunting for leftovers. There's an unpleasant stench wafting in the air. It isn't the most welcoming sight to witness, not...
Youth Leadership In Rural Chhattisgarh
Before 2020 could end, we (Nikita D'cruz and I) got to meet a group of 25 local people from the villages of Janjgir-Champa, Chhattisgarh. If you aren’t familiar with the region, it’s one of those towns that aren’t known to many, and have to be referred to, with a...
Impact Of The Lockdown On Children
“What has been the impact of the lockdown on children?” - the question popped up in the chat-box of an online webinar I was listlessly sitting through a few months ago, a time when the world was only beginning to grow accustomed to Zoom classrooms, office meetings and...
The Imposition Of Criminality
De-notified Tribes (DNTs) continue to be denied access to housing, healthcare, nutrition, education, livelihood, political representation, justice and lives of dignity. It’s scary how little we know/are taught about this history. This is my humble attempt to spread the word.
To The Last Mile: Digital Financial Services In Rural Communities
Ever since I completed my graduation, got a job and became financially independent, I do not remember transacting much in cash, except for the few instances of grocery shopping at a local market or paying for an auto rickshaw ride. There was always a digital...
Many Cures For The Same Disease
Access to healthcare is a necessity to all communities. However, the diagnoses, treatment and recovery vary as widely as the communities themselves. To aid a human body heal itself is considered a noble cause, and the need for it is only increasing with the population...
A Balanced Diet Amidst Imbalances
Gogunda is a small town (tehsil headquarters), about 35 kilometres from Udaipur city. It has a hilly terrain. The sabzi mandi in Gogunda is vibrant with lots of fresh vegetables and greens. From sugarcane to the nutritious singhada (water chestnut), there is a wide...
…Ab Toh Bhai Chal Padi, Apni Yeh Naav Hai…
Having lived grounded for most of my life, moving to a new city would’ve been a horrifying thought. But then there’s a time in one’s life when change is necessary – it hands itself over to you when you least expect it – like finding that crumpled Re 500 note in your...
असामान्य गर्भाशय
मैं आपसे बात करना चाहती हूँ उस जगह की जहाँ हमने ज़िन्दगी की शुरुआत की| यह किसी घर या मकान की बात नही हैं, बल्कि बात है उस जगह की जहाँ हर किसी को जीवन मिलता है, जहा जीवन का सृजन होता है। माँ के शरीर का वो भाग जहाँ हम 9 माह रहें है, जिसे हम गर्भाशय कहते हैं। प्रकृति...
Lost In Translation
Have you seen the South Korean movie Parasite that took the world by storm last year, in 2019? Or the German Sci-fi Drama Dark this year (or was it in 1987?) Why go overseas, did you enjoy Baahubali? There’s a certain "flavour" in listening to Baahubali yell a fury in...
Whom Do We Serve?: Making A Tough Choice For The Organization’s Ethos
When I first got to know about being placed at Shram Sarathi for my fellowship year, I was pleasantly surprised. Wanting to work at the intersection of finance and development, this was like a dream come true. It was also like coming back to a point where I had...
The Paradox Of Poverty
When I think of poverty and development, I think of them to be relative rather than absolute, as they are defined partially by the existing living standards. For example, at a place where the rich owns 10 acres of land, those who do not own any land, could be called...
Socialising At Clinics: How ‘Beemari’ And ‘Dawai’ Became My Go-To Conversation Starters
It has been almost a month since I joined Basic healthcare services (BHS) in Udaipur, Rajasthan. BHS runs clinics in remote villages of Udaipur to provide healthcare services to the tribal population, many of whom are also domestic migrant workers. These clinics are...
A Model Sarpanch And Red Bindis
“Where do women and girls want to go and what do they want?” Until the day I visited a Sarpanch for the first time, as a part of my field visits, I realized that I had not given much thought to the little dots that we like to place on our foreheads as ‘bindis’. For...