Ladybug's field notes

I looked at Indira with disbelief! I was shocked but she actually managed to take a deep breath, wait for a few seconds to pass and talk in the same calm voice that she had, to begin with. I looked at the men again. I could not believe I was hearing this, “Women? Well! they are good for nothing now-a-days. They are only good at sleeping beneath fans. And what is this excessive laad (love) for one’s own body? They want to bathe with soap every time!” The men were indignant.   This was in Ajmer district of Rajasthan. We were talking to a group of men in the evening near the village temple. Women could not join the meeting. Completely our fault! We organized it at a time when for the womenfolk it was time to cook and feed the whole family. Children were dozing already after a hard day of playing in the mud. The women would also get ready for the work in the fields at night alongside their men or make some extra arrangements of food and tea for workers in the field, which they would

"We are poor when elections are here. When it is time to count the BPL (Below Poverty Line) families, we are not poor at all"! added Anarsi with a sarcastic smile. her simple analysis stumped me! She was explaining how the Gram Sabha (open meeting of the village council) meetings take place. Women in the meeting explained how they protested there against the Gram Pradhan and Secretary smoking country cigarettes ( birhi ) and passing time. They actually asked them to stop fooling around and conduct the open meeting of local self governance seriously. Ramratti was quick to add, "The Secretary then told us, had we been so vocal and upbeat about the Gram Sabha processes, there would not have been so many wrong BPL cards! It was I, who said then..", she emphasized, ".. mere bhai (my brother), I was not there for sure but were you also not there? Was it not your work to ensure the deserving ones get the cards?" (Gram Sabha) These are leaders of Pra

We spent the night under open sky in Kusumkhet. They gave me a string cot. There were many more cots around. We were still waiting for the rain in May end that year. You will remember the bus stand was 3.5 km away. Villagers had informed us that night, the only bus for the town leaves at 8 am.  Shivaji bhau,  my colleague and I hence woke up by 6 am and were ready to go after our morning cup of black tea. Most tribals in India do not take milk from animals and hence a cup of tea with milk is almost non-existent. We started by 7 am, well in time for our bus. The path was full of ups and downs both literally and figuratively. On our way, we discussed tribals and their relations to the forest. Forest department and their role figured into our discussion and the nice discussion soon turned into hot debate with facts and figures and global trends. It was Shivaji bhau's turn to present his set of arguments as we reached the top of a small hillock and that caused an end to all our deba

"If the grass is to mean anything, a time comes when you have to get up, brush the ladybugs (he actually said "ladybirds") from your shirt and trousers and proceed to your desk to write"....so says Ruskin Bond. And here I was...trying to sell the same species showing how essential she is to make sense of what is there on the grass! Now, making sense of things comes to you quite naturally at times and not so naturally other times. And it never ever comes to you however hard you might try in certain cases. Gosh! While trying to make sense, I am sounding a bit nonsensical myself!  Lets take an example. I was walking with Parama Sabar in hilly terrain of Gunupur, South Odisha (that is, he was walking and I was huffing and puffing!). He talked as we climbed a long and winding road to reach his village for a meeting at night. We were talking about the (in)famous " Ambatakua"  (seed of a mango) statement by a state minister of Odisha. When people died of

Memories of two incidents are bugging my mind today. I will be short though not so sweet here! Thakur Ranh Singh walked across the main village lane. He was silent but his walking stick filled up the silent streets and conveyed the necessary message. No one turned up in the meeting that was planned long ago. We were in a village in Jaisalmer to hold a meeting against sex selective abortion and female infanticide. Ranh Singh is a member of the Village Health and Sanitation Committee. Technically he should have been the one organising the meeting with us. But that was not to be. His granddaughter had died within days of being born . The villagers' eyes changed colors when one enquired about the reason. One could hardly keep the news hushed...the baby was killed with a high dose of opium in the very home that she wanted to call her own. Asking for a home for a women in India? A sacrilege indeed! We organised a training for women of Uttar Pradesh on health. Participants were in th

The Census data is out and a development sector colleague heaved a sigh of relief looking at the Child Sex Ratio (CSR), “It s not as bad as I thought it would be.” This is when the Child Sex Ratio has plummeted to 914, the lowest ever in the history of Census in India, none of the northern states except Himachal has a CSR above 900 and almost all the states in India has recorded a drop a CSR. How much worse were we expecting it to be? Ms. Sonia Gandhi the declares in no unclear terms “In my own country, most worrying of all is the declining sex ratio of females to males”. Declining sex ratio has no doubt taken the centre stage of discussion and with marginal increase in the Sex Ratio, I am watching with complete disgust how we are losing sight of the bigger picture. Are we so shortsighted to realise that this low CSR will soon reflect in sex ratio sooner than later? Sex selection takes place not because one has anything against a child but it takes place because a female is comple

"Why do you think poor are poor? Simple, because they can not manage their finances well. Not only that they also make bad choices, they are greedy and to top it all either alcoholic or a drug abuser". I got this whole new perspective in Europe this January. What an insight to begin the year! And when the social security money that is provided is not enough (these poor fail to manage their finances again), the large  hearted, retired people of repute provide them food from the "Food Bank" in various parts of the country. They are large hearted indeed. What else can explain why they serve those they know as ignorant, greedy, drug and alcohol abusers! The volunteers work hard to put together a basket of food. What do these baskets contain? Food leftover from the local groceries that are nearing their expiry date or are past these. The kind of food, chocolates, candies, biscuits, cookies, condiments, bread and at times milk and yoghurt (ofcourse past their expir