Kotra Diaries I

I could look at it as a very unfair move on the part of my employer. I could even look at it as paid vacation – dunno yet how much of it is gonna be paid though – the rate at which I’m going, I’m partying every weekend and bingng like crazy.

For the uninitiated, I’m in Rajasthan right now. I’m typing this out while I’m in a cosy AC room of a decent hotel in Udaipur, but that’s not where I am for the rest of the week. I’m working in two remote tribal villages in the interiors of Rajasthan.

It’s not like I’ve never been in a village before, but this one month is letting me absorb the life I’ve seen glimpses of in movies and books and stories my grandma told me. Something like – “There wouldn’t be any electricity where we used to live” (and that is a tale of 50 years ago) was ingested but never comprehended until now.

I am getting to see new things – or the same things in a different light. For instance, I knew about the overloaded Aces and Taxis that run from village to village in these parts through something as superficial as a Fevicol TVC, but only now do I get to sit in such a vehicle. You may have a colleague sitting in your lap. You may have the driver craning over your leg to shift gears. You may even have a goat stepping on your feet. And this I’m talking of the luxurious ride – since I’m a “Madam” from the city. The regulars sit on the top of the Jeep, cling on to a beam or a bar and travel standing. Sometimes the width of this lumbering elephant is increased by a foot on both sides thanks to the 40 people aboard. I also get to hear gory stories of people falling off, losing limbs and lives, of accidents that are best left unexplained. But this doesn’t stop the villagers from waiting hours for that one car – no matter how crowded – boarding it and going to their destination for work or otherwise.

I get to see the disintegrating Aravali mountain range with hills becoming easier and easier to traverse, the rain water flowing out of the lands, failing to satiate the villages and their farms. I get to see lives – such different lives – sometimes an epitome of humanity, love and principles and at other times – utter ridiculousness. Certain customs – I cannot comprehend; the lifestyle that I look up to; the grit that I could never gather.

I see kids who want to study – who aspire to be a “Sir” or a “Madam” like me – who do not have a decent teacher to teach them right. I see these kids – happy with their lives – sent to other villages to work in Cotton Fields. I see a spark in some of them – a spark that could work wonders if given the right platform. I see a vicious circle that I cannot cut through – the motivation to study and the resources to provide for it need to be driven together.

I see men and women who possess surprising clarity about the life, problems of their village and solutions for upliftment – that makes me wonder about the efficacy of education in the first place – should we instill literacy or wisdom?

At the same time I see raw, earthy beauty in all forms. The contorted branches of weather beaten trees, the bugs that attack me and turn into stink bombs, the small rivulets that beckon be to get drenched in them, the lonely routes across the villages that I tread on, the beautiful people with beautiful smiles all around opening their hearts out to me even though I am the stranger, the alien, the newbie in their abode.

More on this later.