Trip to Vihigaon !

This was written for some different purpose, but let me share it over here !

World today is a panorama of multiple realities. There are the glories of human progress and then there is the pervading ubiquity of human miseries. The two extremes ironically, have for long coexisted and continue to do so. The contrast sometimes makes us wonder and raises intriguing questions. The answers might elude us but it lends us an important insight. The poor are incapacitated and not incapable. If we create similar opportunities for them, their potential can indeed be manifested. NSS IIT Bombay aspires to be a contributor to such an endeavor and to this end we hold “knowledge” as our beacon. We, the team of this organisation believe that small contributions can help make big strides towards that cherished goal of mankind.

As said,Necessity is the mother of Invention. We shall know what is to be done only if we actually see the problems being faced by the poor and needy. Few years back,at a village named Ranshet on a hill near Pen, Maharashtra,NSS students helped the villagers in accessing water using a motor that pulls water from a lake at the foot of the hill. We, at NSS believe Field trips are a good means to expose the so-called best brains in India to few of those rural communities living far from technology,development and minimum facilities.These trips are organised as part of course for first year undergraduates,but then anyone with zeal to make a difference is a priority.

In order to get some exposure of rural village life, this semester we explored two neighboring villages, Vihigaon and Tara. Tara, near Panvel on Saturday 23rd October and Vihigaon near Kasara on Sunday the 24th October.

Vihigaon, is a small adivasi village having 12 padas, situated at about 15 km from Kasara, in Shahapur taluka, Dist. Thane in Maharashtra.We were a group of 90 who left for the trip on 24th October .We started at around 7 AM and it took us 4 long hours to reach the place. Prof. Prasanna Gandhi from mechanical engineering department accompanyed us.

After reaching Vihigaon, we tried to explore the village. We divided in small groups and distributed in entire area. Every group visited and surveyed 3-4 families and tried to informally interact with them. Groups documented the current conditions of families in regard to their earning capacity, education level, and their position in connection with basic necessities of food, water and shelter. Major occupation is Agriculture. Few of them own land while the rest work as labour. During off season, they work in nearby town and on railway tracks. It is a good to see that few of them send their children to kasara for higher education. The adults were grossly illiterate.

Most of villagers could not even afford to pay electricity bills and have no access to electricity since last 6 years.Over here in campus even a 6 min power breakdown would be so chaotic. Imagine what 6 years of darkness would mean! Some houses had some small solar panel to light up their home. Solar Technology can be a very good alternative in many villages of India. We strongly recommend innovation and research in solar technology could be of great significance.

Inspite all such difficulties, the villagers were happy and cherished every moment of his/her life. That village had one school upto 7th grade. Villagers responded negatively in regard to any government help.There have been a few women working in groups, making papads and pickles,though .Someone from sarpunch’s place mentioned of ration and free books at local school.

This village had a small dam and few wells. The place had no water problems as such, but we were told it is really difficult during summer. Villagers were generally cutoff from rest of India. We found our cells did not catch any cellular network. This trip was really heart-touching; it gave us an opportunity to understand problems faced by rural people.

There is a social organisation “Vivekananda Seva Mandal” working in this village for the uplift of the villagers.Since 1994, members of the group visit there every weekend.They educated the villagers, innovative ways of organic farming, Primary medical facility and also other advanced technologies.They have been providing business orders to the cooperative groups in the village as well.

Although, one day is too short a time to bring any major impact and change in their lives.But we hope that this unique experience might have twinkled and motivated few IITians to wonder more about the problems rural India is facing today.

It’s sad to see kids working in farms and not attending school, to see people living in so pathetic conditions, to find unemployed youth wandering around, to hear business of illegal wine production in village, to find some families earning only Rs 60 per day, to see houses without even a bulb to light up. There were a few cases of malnutrition and deaths due to lack of medical facilities on time .

May be, we IITians can still spend lakhs a single night and enjoy porcupine tree or party all the night. May be we can bunk all our lectures and disrespect the so called best educational facility of country. May be we still can waste as much electricity as we want. May be we can even light up all our labs, rooms, mess and SAC ground ,double the requirement. May be still we can enjoy glory of playing football or basketball on the darkest of nights. May be, you are a champion, no one can beat you. You can hear rock music on best speakers and single handedly waste as much electricity as that can light up an entire village.

But we still believe there is hope, we, a group of few passionate people working with Prof. Gandhi continue to organize such trips and wish that this endeavour will impact hearts and minds of future batches. We wish IITians will respect facilities and fantastic opportunity given to them in this wonderland and be responsible citizens. May be the students will take their role more seriously and carry the same henceforth to make this institution proud.

The trips were memorable. We came across the village lifestyle and enjoyed it very much. We learned a lot from this trip; we do have a lot more to learn from the villagers. Being brought up in cities, we don't realize what are we doing to our environment. We need to use eco-friendly technologies as much as we can and use our resources efficiently to be in harmony with Mother Nature and leave a clean and beautiful planet for posterity.

We all thank villagers for their generous hospitality. We also welcome your feedback and suggestions, so that we can contribute better and strive for development of Indian Villages.

(Gaurav Khamesra is a fourth year student of the Mechanical Department and Phani Padmasri is a third year student of the Energy Systems Engineering. They can be contacted at gauravkhamesra@iitb.ac.in and phani_padmasri@iitb.ac.in)