I joined the Transforming India Initiative on September 6th. Just 2 days into the program, my entire batch was informed that the following day we would be sent to a remote village in pairs as a part of our Rural Immersion Travel Workshop for 6 days. Not just me, but my entire batch had so many questions.
What are we supposed to take with us? What kind of place will we staying at? What kind of work will we be doing there? Who will we be staying with? How safe is the place? What are the facilities we will get?
In short, we were told that we will be staying with a farmer family in the village and that we had to do whatever they were doing. Only later did we know that it was easier said than done..
Day 1
On Monday, I was in the comforts of my hostel room in central Hyderabad, and on Wednesday I was travelling to a rural village called Angadi Raichur in Kodangal. On September 8th, we left at 6:30 a.m. from Hyderabad to reach Kondangal. Most of us slept along the 2 hour bus ride. After reaching Kodangal, we were split to 2 groups, and each group was put in an auto to reach our assigned villages.
Half of us saying bye to the first group that left.
My classmate Sanyogita (Sango) and I reached Angadi Raichur around 11am. We were introduced to Akila, the youngest daughter of the house. Pakirappa and Narasamma where Akila's parents. She had an older sister, Anusha, who sadly passed away a few years ago and an older brother, Raju, currently in grade 12. Akila's grandfather also stayed with them. Akila is currently in grade 11 studying from home through online classes. Luckily, Akila understood little Hindi so it was a bit easier for us to converse with her.
Although the house looked big, it was relatively small. Sango and I were given a separate room to share, but we requested that we wanted to sleep with the family. We didn't want any special treatment. We did whatever they did.
For the next 6 days, we slept in the dining room with Narasamma and Akila, while all the men of the house slept in the hall.
Akila's grandfather is a first generation farmer. After his paralysis, he spends most of his time at home. When we spoke to him, we were able to understand how agricultural practices changed over the years. When he was a farmer, agriculture was primarily organic, and farmers were able to get better returns due to favourable weather conditions. Now, he is saddened of how fertilisers have ruined the soil. The taste of vegetables and crops have changed so much compared to what they were when he harvested them.
The first day, we spent time to understand more about Akila's family. She introduced us to her neighbours and distant family that lived in and around the same locality. I was happy to see how each family found small ways to support each other even if they did not live under the same roof.
We drew a family tree of Akila's grandfather. Akila grandfather has 4 children (2 sons and 2 daughters) from his first marriage, and 3 children from his second marriage. Akila's father is the 2nd oldest child from the first marriage. This tree helped us understand her entire family and where they were today. Except Akila's family, almost all other members moved to the city in search of better jobs. Akila's family is the only family currently practicing agriculture and dependent on agriculture for their livelihood.
Day 2
Almost all houses in Angadi Raichur have no bathrooms. This was definitely a problem. For me at least. After waking up early in the morning, we were told that we had to relieve ourselves in the field. Sango and I carried a bottle of water and followed Akila to the field. Lucky for us, there was a red gram field near Akila's house, so we didn't have to walk a lot to get to the field. But after reaching the field, we had to walk quite a bit inside the field to find a comfortable place to shit. A spot that wasn't too bushy, easy to move around and a spot with not too many insects. Definitely a one of a kind experience.
Our journey to the bathroom
As the house had no bathroom, we had to take bath inside the kitchen, in the area where they washed their vessels. As there was no water heating system, we mostly took bath in cold water. Whenever we needed hot water, we had to take a small pot, fill it with hot water and wait for it to heat. As firewood was the primary fuel used, we had to wait quite a bit for the water to heat up.
It was a bit difficult for us to wrap our heads around the kitchen being used as a shower area.
As a part of the immersion process, I only packed my saris. I generally don't wear saris as I'm always in jeans or shorts. Having packed only saris was definitely a challenge as I had to tie them every day. Narasamma helped me the first 2 days, but after that I was able to get the hang of it. According to me, if had to fit in and not be seen as an outsider in the village, that started with how I dressed. Wearing a sari definitely helped me, as I was received a bit more openly by the people in the village. What I learnt just by choosing to tie a sari was that in order to truly experience a culture, you really need to look and act like people of that culture. The effort will definitely be rewarded in its own way and appreciated by the people you interact with.
After getting ready, we left with Akila to her family's field. It was a 2 hour walk to the field and the path was a rather difficult one. Akila's grandfather had around 20 acres of land that was distributed among his sons. Land owning was only possible by men not women, and that practice hadn't changed even today. The main crops cultivated during the Kharif season in the family's field were red gram, cotton and rice. She took us to one of the field that had red gram.
Akila in the red gram (toor) field.
On the way to the field, we interacted with a lot of other labourers in field. We definitely had a language problem as everyone in the village spoke in Telugu, while Sango and I could only speak Hindi and Tamil respectively. With sign language and Akila's help in translation we were able to briefly communicate with them.
The main problem I could understand was that farmer bought input (fertiliser, seeds, fuel etc.) at retail price and told output (crops harvested) at wholesale price. This was the reason farmers claimed they never made any profit. Also a bad season, meant no harvest and most farmers did not have crop insurance, which meant that they needed to incur the entire loss themselves with no external support.
After we came back, we rested for a bit. After that we decided to do a transect walk around the village to get a better understanding of the social institutions. We identified that the village had a primary school and a high school, 4 anganwadis, one primary healthcare centre and 2 ration shops. The village also had 2 mosques, one church and a few hindu temples. Walking around the village gave us a better sense of the people and the culture.
We came back late in the evening and we decided to cook instead of Narasamma cooking for us.
Narasamma lying on her son Raju's lap :)
Narsamma wakes up at 5 in the morning. She does all the household chores (cleaning, washing, fetching water, collecting firewood, buying vegetables etc.), cooks both breakfast and lunch and then leaves for the field. She leaves around 10 in the morning to the field and comes back around 5-6pm. After coming back she has to finish some household chores, cook dinner and after this she goes to sleep. She generally sleep around 10-11pm.
It is difficult to do so much of work like what Narasamma did (we called her Amma). Work that is expected out of you, primarily because of your gender. These gender roles are strictly followed that it has become a part of her life, and over the years, a part of her identity. For someone like me who grew up in a 'liberal' household, the idea of gender roles is something I was taught to believe in. Household chores involves an equitable distribution of chores and is not something that should be designated to someone of a particular gender. If I ever do get married, I would want my future husband to also share a percentage of the household responsibilities as opposed to expecting me to do everything.
Seeing the amount of work Amma had to do was a bit painful for me at a personal level. Narasamma never complained. She did everything and then did everything again the next day. Akila would also share a couple of the tasks that Amma would do. I could picture Akila doing the same thing her mother does in the family she moves into after marriage, and that really bothered me.
We just wanted Amma to sit and have a meal. No pressure of cooking, cleaning the kitchen, serving etc. We just wanted her to take a break from her busy schedule and just do nothing for once. Sango and I decided to make roti and egg bhurji. Keep in mind we had to cook for 7 people including ourselves. Cooking with firewood was more difficult than I thought as the intensity of the heat kept changing. Meal prep for 7 people took a long time. In the end, we cooked a lovely meals, and we were so happy to see Amma enjoying the meal.
Cooking egg bhurji while asked Amma to not do anything
After dinner, we were too tired and we crashed immediately. No beds, we slept on the floor with kora mats. Amma, Akila, Sango and I all slept together here.
Day 3
After finishing all our morning chores, we had to plan our day. Narasamma had to go to another field, so we couldn't go with her. Pakirappa and Raju and gone to another village for work. So Sango and I decided to learn more about the village. We decided to go to the local government school to understand how it functioned and what problems the school was facing.
Angadi Raichur has a primary school (class 1-5), high school (class 6-10), Urdu medium school and an anganwadi for children below the age of 5.
After talking to the staff of the school, we were told the current challenges of the school. The school had 9 teachers for a total of 270 students. These teachers taught different subjects for classes 6 to 10. The school was definitely understaffed. Funding was the primary problem here, as a result the school did not have enough classrooms to accommodate all students. Therefore, some classes happened outside near the ground. Other facilities like classroom furnitures, sports equipment, technology etc. could not be purchased due to this problem.
As Angadi Raichur's High School was the biggest, children from neighbouring villages also attended school here. With regard to the sex ratio of students, 56% of students were girls while the remaining were boys. Although this sounded like good news to me, it was not the case. Most boys were sent to private schools in Kodangal, while girls were sent to the government school. Boys got a better education than girls and this was always the case.
As most houses in Angadi Raichur did not have bathrooms, we were curious to know if the school had bathrooms. They school did have a rudimentary form of bathroom for the girls, but it was not maintained well. Boys had no bathrooms.
Open bathroom for the girls. All the waste water from here made it into a pond nearby the school.
Pond near the government school where all the waste water was directed.
Couple of bright spots in the school was that mid-day meals was provided to all the students in the school. Food primariy consisted of a carb (rice), protein (dal) and a vegetable. Headmaster of the high school took it upon himself to start English medium in the high school in 2019. Despite the challenges faced due to Covid, he has successfully convinced parents to shift some students to study in English medium.
After visiting the government school, we wanted to get a better understanding of the village. So we walked to the Sarpanch's office to see if we could talk to him. On arriving at the office, we figured that he wasn't around. A lot of curious villagers noticed us and came up to us asking us what we were doing in the village and how long we would be here. Although the language barrier made it a bit difficult for us to converse with everyone, an idea popped into my head. Why not ask the villagers to help make us a map of the village? This map would include social groups in the village, different resources, social institutions, road connectivity of the village and the general structure of the village. This would help Sango and I understand the village better.
All it took was a chalk piece in the end.
We mapped out the entire village on the road right outside the Sarpanch's office. Around 30 people helped us construct this map. Village elders, women, youth and children all participated in this mapping. Overall this was such a wonderful experience!
This was how the process of mapping happened. Any kind of mapping needs to involve the participation of the local people. Mapping was one of the most effective Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools we used to connect with the people of Angadi Raichur.
We learnt a lot after doing the social mapping. Our main learning was:
1) The caste segregation was very evident after the mapping. Majority of the people in the village belong to Backward Caste (BC) while the minorities in the village belong to Scheduled Caste (SC). We drew the map outside the Sarpanch's office. This place happens to be the centre of the village where majority of the BC population reside. So most of the villagers who helped us with the mapping were from the BC community. When they drew the map, the conveniently drew all the SC households outside the village. Sango and I were staying with Pakirappa and his family which happens to be a SC household. Despite the fact that their house is within the village, this house was not included inside the village map the locals drew.
Pakirappa and his family where Hindus who converted to Christianity. On the first day, when we interacted with Akila's extended family and neighbours we were surprised to find out that most SC households converted to Christianity. We couldn't understand the root of the problem until we did the mapping.
If we were to study the social hierarchy of Angadi Raichur, Hindu are the majority. Within Hindus, BC Hindus were on the top of this social chain. SC Hindus were in the bottom of this chain, even below religious minorities like Christians and Muslims. SC Hindus are not allowed to mingle with the BC Hindus. Use of public facilities by SC Hindus can only happen after BC Hindus have finished using them. SCs don't usually enter the BC area of the village due to this caste segregation. As a result, most SCs in Angadi Raichur have converted to Christianity in order to move up the social ladder to gain better social mobility. We understood this after interacting with the village elders who helped us in the mapping of the village.
2) The village was harmonious in accepting people of different religion. There was no pocket in the village occupied by a specific religion. Almost all members of different religions (Hindu, Muslim, Christian) lived in different parts of the village and were evenly mixed. The village has 4 temples, 2 mosques and 1 church which are within less than 500m distance of each other.
One of the Hanuman temples in the village
3) Almost all households in the village relied on agriculture as their major source of income. When mapping the individual houses of some of the locals, we were able to ask them to map their agricultural land as well and got more details into the type of crops the sowed in different seasons. Main crops grown here were cotton, toor dal and rice. Understanding landownership of different people also helped us understand the socio-economy of the village. Almost 90% of farmers were Small and Marginalised Farmers (SMFs) with 4 to 5 acres of land. Men get paid around Rs 500 a day while women get paid around Rs 350 a day. Despite the fact that women did tasks that were laborious (weeding, sowing etc.), they were paid less. Only a handful families had farm mechanisation like a tractor, while most families couldn't afford to buy one.
After a rather long day, we visited Narsamma's animal shed. She had a couple of goats that were to be sold in the next few days. The bigger the goat, the more money it fetched for them. I managed to carry a young goat with was absolutely the cutest.
From left to right: Akila, Narasamma and I
This was such a beautiful day and I learnt so much just interacting with the people of the village! We had dinner right after and then crashed.
Check out part 2 of this post here!
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