Day 14

2nd May, 2011

The day was dedicated to Panchputhewadi! I mentioned in the posts before about the village. The water condition is really really bad there. They get 5 Matakas per family per day. 1 Mataka could be approximately 7 litres. So thats 35 litres of of water per family per day. Thats all they get in all for everything. I suppose we flush more water than this per day!

Jared and me went to Veruli - thats a village on the top of the hill from where Panchputhewadi gets water. Now let me try to explain the system. There are a few underwater streams that have been flowing for years. There was a drought situation in the area and the wells in the villages went dry. They were in the search of the new sources of water. They knew about the springs on the top of the hill. The government helped them in creating the boxes near the springs.

These boxes would collect the water from the spring and supply it to the village dow

nhill through a pipe. The picture shows

one of the stream boxes in the working condition. There are around 4 to 5 stream boxes with panch'vadi out of which only 2 are in working condition. Rest of them have got some or the other problem and they don't supply water to the village.

Grampari is helping the village in reconstructing those stream boxes, repairing some of them and finding a few new streams for the village. In addition to that, Grampari is also planning to do some watershed activities so that the ground water does not dry up.

Grampari stands firm on its policy that we would not help in only sucking out the water, we also

need to help in replenishing the springs. Watershed is a must thing for this system to sustain for a longer time. So we took the measurements of the spring boxes and the required pipes. I must say that it was quite dangerous. We were working on a downhill slope of the small foot tracks. The other side was quite a deep valley.

After the measurements we had some discussion with the villagers who came along with us and then the lunch. They brought for us some rotis and sabzee.

While returning, I was astonished to observe that the villages who did not have proper sanitation facilities, nor did they have even proper doors to their huts, had antenna dishes on the top of the houses. Look at the penetration these DTH service has got. Now I really do not understand, if there can be DTH penetration to this level, why not the toilets. For a matter of fact, only 21% of the rural India has access to proper Sanitation (Source: http://www.wssinfo.org).

Similar penetration is of the Gutkas. You can see the packets of Gutkas all over around even in the remotest places. I really do not understand the market dynamics here.

If private players - with the limited resources- can have a penetration at this level, why not government with a hell lot of resources! A lot of resources are available;

I learnt a lot of stories from Jared where a lot of money was being dumped into the projects of water supply and then the whole lot projects have failed. All the farmers are now in debts of crores due to those projects. And then we talk about farmers doing suicide! Come on! We need to give some thoughts on that.

-SD

Day 12

30th April, 2011

Start of the weekend. Though there is no such concept of weekend here, but being from IT industry I always wait for the weekends. I planned to see a lot of movies during this 3 months and read a lot of books too. But the schedule here is really a bit hectic. So I thought of taking this weekend off again. But could not do so.

I tested the network connectivity of the lab which I could not do yesterday. All was in mess! Tried clearing them all and by 3 I was able to complete it.

Then made a document about what had happened in Grampari in past few months. Jayashree Aunty helped a lot in that. We had to circulate it among the friends of MRA google group.

The day ended with a visit to market. It was great loitering around doing nothing there. Panchgani is a cool place :P

-SD

Day 1

I thought of keeping a track of the days spent here. So that it helps me out in the final version of my report. And in addition to that, it would help me in examining and understanding the time spent here. Though it is the 4th day, here it starts with the first day. Best of luck Saurabh :)

Day 1:

After a wonderful journey on my bullet, enjoying the meadows n the mountains, I reached yesterday on 18th around 6 pm to Panchghani. I got my room and got to know my room partner - Tamim - from Kabul. The next day, I met a lot of people. I met Dr Jayashree Rao who would be my mentor during this program. I met Mr Shah, who is professionally an architect and provides his services to MRA voluntarily. I also met Mr Jared and Mrs Sowmya.

I was introduced to what Grampari did by Jared. The morning was spent in that. Then I was introduced to some of the other interns here. I spent the evening with them having ice-cream in Panchghani. For dinner, Jared invited me to accompany him to a social visit to a village called Ambeghar. We had Mr and Mrs Poonawala from Pune and Samual from Canada accompanying us. The Road to ambeghar was amazing. I had wonderful time chatting with Jared, Sam and Poonawalas. Jared and Sam knew a lot of things about India. Now see the irony- I was sitting with 2 foreigners - one canadian and other american - who knew more than me about my country!

We were visiting Mr Prahlad Yadav, a farmer and a friend of Jared. I was amazed to hear Mr Yadav conversing in English with us. We received a warm welcome from Mr Yadav's family. It was a typical maharashtrian village and a typical village home surrounded with his farms. I learnt a few things about farming and water conservation. Jared is working in this areas since last 15 years and is a graduate of geology. Quality of the soil can be observed through the patterns of it. Soil with larger lumps has more microorganisms and hence is more fruitful. I also learnt a way to increase the underground water level (sand filling method). Then we had a wonderful dinner and returned.

What a day! a lot of new people and a lot of new experiences.

- SD

Grampari

We have a summer internship program in the course. I chose of not opting the normal corporate internship and came to grampari. It is in Panchghani. Grampari is an NGO working for development of rural population. This is my third day in here and I must say it is a wonderful place to be. I have always lived in a city and rarely got a chance to live in a village. And this is that long awaited chance.

The mornings are very similar to what we read in the stories during GOD (Good Old Days). The music of birds and the subtle sun rays waking you up for the wonderful day ahead. The nights are dark and quiet with only the stars twinkling in the sky and moon showering its milky rays on the earth. The sound of silence and the music of wind trying to sing a lullaby for you - that is how it seems. The sleep too is a satisfying one here. No honking of vehicles, no buzzing of machines and no noise of the electric machines. And hence it feels so fresh in the morning as if I slept for 20 hours.

I am really looking forward to a lot of things here. Hope it goes good.

Thanks,

SD