"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 eating mango seeds in this area, the minister wanted to pass off the death due to hunger as death due to food poisoning. He said, after all these tribals are habitual eater of of mango seeds! They have done so forever! Therefore, the death by eating pest infested mango seeds is not death due to hunger. But then the idiots like me would still ask why would a human being eat a pest infected mango seed? Can't they see its uneatable? Parama was discussing their food habit. They are Lanjhiya Soura, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribe Group (PTG)http://www.fra.org.in/newspaper.htm.
Parama pointed towards a small plant and said, "As children we ate a lot of these leaves. Our mothers used to mix this with our daily portion of rice. It gave us dysentery and diarrhoea. We used to hold our tummy and cry. Inspite of these bad episodes, we always mixed these leaves with our rice. I wonder why did we do that? Were we really that stupid? When I grew up I realised we never had enough rice. Almost never. You could tell it by the quantity of leaves that we mixed in our rice." I heard him. I had no words to respond. The road looked a little hazy afterwards.
I kept on thinking, as Parama finally could make sense of his community's behaviour, did the Government of India do so too? Because "A study by the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau says that more than 60 per cent of Scheduled Tribes have a body mass index (BMI) of less than 18.5. According to the World Health Organisation, if more than 40 per cent of the population of a community has a BMI of less than 18.5, the community can be considered to be in a condition of famine." Does this perpetual famine make sense? Will we ever be able to make sense of this uninterrupted condition of hunger for particular communities in this country that claims food sufficiency year after year and boasts upon green revolution? And a complete denial by government that people are dying of hunger? I don't think the ladybug can help you much here. May be you should then do what Mr. Ruskin Bond asked you to...get up, brush the grass off your shirt and pants and proceed.. Do so...they are waiting.
"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!
date: 1st march 2013
ReplyDeletedear nayana ji,
after reading your blog post around the issues of entitlement/right to food; I am surprised that people in India still eat pest-infected mango seeds and grass leaves and severely suffering from it. They do not have food grains to eat and on other hand; our govt. talks about rhetorically about the right to food. With these facts, today in morning I was contemplating and framing our views (to send you my comment on your blog post) in my mind with ‘Tea and ToI’ and going through union budget 2013- highlights and views of different persons on it. And thinking that how far our govt is serious about the food security.. Incidentally, my eyes reached on a column of page 11 “view from the ground by Aruna Roy ji, Member, NAC. The heading of this column is “lip service for hungry mouth”. hope you may have also read this nicely and precisely written column today. Of course budget are one of the most effective ways to evaluate the political priorities of a govt. this one demonstrates little/ almost no concern of govt. for neglected, discriminated and deprived people like in Odisha who eat mango seeds and grass leaves. Budget outlay for rural development has fallen for NREGA over the last three years. The insignificant increase in allocation for food security really demonstrates lack of seriousness to increase food entitlements. A question always strikes in mind; that how can civil society intellectuals/organizations influence effectively to govt. for making the budget pro-poor?
jagdish giri