It was 10th august, 2012! I was at the Chaupal of
the village which is a familiar and informal bus-stop in every village of India.
There were children from the school, standing and amazed to see me with the two
heavy bags!
"Didi, athe
rahisi, didi athe rahisi, didi athe rahisi" was the loud excitement and
everybody on the streets knew that 'didi is going to stay here!' We
started walking towards one of my new home stay during village
immersion.
Twenty days before this day, I was standing at the same
bus stop, knowing nothing about the village except its name. Twenty days before
this day, I was walking in search of the school which I was expected to reach
to, knowing nothing except the name of the headmaster. And then the journey
started with this village, with these people, with these children and with
myself.
A townie, who was craving for rooted experiences had landed in the village with presumptions. I started to live
with these people and the conflict began between my conceptions and the reality
in front of me.
I started to explore everything from socio- political dynamics to heritage and monuments in the village. The
journey began, deepening the thought process.
An entire month was freakish and crazy!
Now, when I am back from a village named Loha situated
besides the state highway 7 in Churu district of Rajasthan, I must say, I am certainly
enriched with the lifetime experience of staying in the village and gasping the
beauty of it in every sense.
The first amazing concept I encountered was Goga, a
folk-lord. Devotion of every villager irrespective of his caste and religion
towards Goga was highlighted in the community celebration of the festival on
the Goga medhi, a temple of Gogaji maharaj situated in a village. The fact
amused me because I was a witness to caste and religion based social structure
in the very same community.
In context to this, I was also privileged to come across
a magnificent concept of ‘dharam-relatives’ where people from different castes
& religions establish a relation between each other as a symbol of emotions one shares
with the other person. I was touched by their affection and warmth when folks
initiated to be my sister, brother, mother and father as I
was further immersing with them. Truly being one of them.
I think these evolved traditions are somewhere a cause of
harmony amongst these people when one can see widespread rivalry and tensions
between various social divisions.
I was also a spectator of celebrations at the
village level. In one of my family from village, bhaiyaji was going to go to
Muscat for work as a labourer. The ladies from
village were invited to sing traditional Marwari songs and to perform rituals
to wish good luck to him.
I, being a person
from technologically progressive area, couldn’t ever imagine celebrating such
occasions but thinking of the celebration as exaggeration. Here, I could
understand the need and exact reason behind celebrating every little occasion so explicitly. I could understand the sanctity behind their emotions.
Being “socially educated and aware”, I was very ambitious
about dynamic change. Here, the prejudice was challenged. ‘Early age marriages
and superstitions are the setbacks for development’ was a statement I had
studied in my textbooks, certainly they are hindrances to the progress but one can’t
just think about dynamic reforms to abolish such evolved customs, in fact, one
should not attempt that. There is a lot to understand other than just thinking
about being radical. The tradition of early age marriage is provided with the condition that a girl can go to her in-laws’ place only after she becomes mature
enough. Not to deny the fact that awareness has been tremendously increased due
to measures taken to prevent these kinds of social obstacles; people knew consequences
of early age marriages since long time before we started propagation about
them.
To state the point further, once Didiji from my other home in
the village was pregnant with 9 months baby, on a rainy night, she was in
labor. Her husband was not present at home because he has migrated to a city to
earn wages from which it takes more than a day to come to village. A compounder
from village was not confident to do anything because of the complications and
the hospital was approximately 2 hours away from the village. There was no one
educated in the family except me but I was of no use. Nobody was able to
provide a facility such as hospital or at least a required medical support. The
only person to take care of a mother & a child was Daai, traditionally an
old village lady to take care of deliveries in a village and having no formal
medical training. With her help, didiji was sent to the hospital. Meanwhile,
didiji’s mother-in-law was praying, offering something or the other to God,
tying a sacred thread on everybody’s hand, and much more to gather strength.
I would have been upset and angry if my grandmother would
have done that back at home. Here, what else did she have to rely upon? How
could I tell them not to believe in such superstitions? They were trying to adapt
to the technology, they were trying to adapt to this “progressive world”. They
didn’t check the sex of the baby before it is born. They were ready to let the
baby born in a hospital though it was far away. But without facilities provided
in such circumstances what else do they have to rest upon except their God and faith
in it? I could understand reason behind the extreme belief in God.
Yet another aspect of village for a city person has
always been an inhalation of richness of nature. For me, sitting under a tree
in the farm in a cloudy weather, sitting on the only bench in the evenings at
the lonely railway station, exploring devastated historical monuments in the
village were moments of an absolute solitude. Many indestructible thoughts have
been built during this time.
I was back from
my village after month, overwhelmed with the fact that I have a home in a small
village of Rajasthan. I have families out
there. It seems a dream. Certainly it is.
