On #ChildrensDay , we bring you stories written by rural students for PARI in Schools- our initiative to build a better understanding of rural India among urban children. We aim to show our children that rural India is not a pathetic, poor & singular entity, but a vibrant, & 1/n
fascinatingly diverse place with many lessons for us. Kids are disconnected from what happens in rural India, where 2/3rds of India lives. It is important for their cultural & emotional growth that they understand the complex inter linkages in our economic & sociological fabric.
Our young reporters, Nia Chari and Akil Ravi talk to 83-year-old Sukhlal Suliya, who looks back on life in his once fertile village in Madhya Pradesh, when bicycles were a luxury, crops were plentiful and machines were rare. ruralindiaonline.org/articles/i-lik…
Manasa Kashi and Namitha Muktineni bring you the story of Gangay Sodhi, a Gond Adivasi in Chhattisgarh, who spends her days busy in the rhythms of farming, cooking, fetching forest produce, and making mahua liquor for the haat.
Sidh Kavedia from Sirohi, Rajasthan reports on the life of Jhujaram Sant. Jhajaram is employed by a local group to collect leftovers from households and feed hungry langurs in the nearby forest, especially in the summer months when food is scarce.
In a small zari workshop in Mahim, Mumbai, Mohammed Shamim has worked for a decade sewing plastic pearls and petals on fabric, to send money home and save enough to sometimes visit his village in Bihar.
‘Who knew the lack of rain could kill my art?’ (a thread)
Three decades ago, no one wanted to teach a young Sanjay Kamble how to work with bamboo.
Today, when he wants to teach everyone his dying craft, no one wants to learn.
“It’s ironic how times have changed,” the 50-year-old says.
With the bamboo that grows in his one-acre field, Kamble mainly crafts irlas – a kind of raincoat used by paddy farmers in this region in western Maharashtra.
“My lungs feel like stone. I can barely walk,” says Manik Sardar.
In November, 2022, the 55-year-old was diagnosed with silicosis – an incurable pulmonary disease. “I have no interest in the upcoming elections,” he continues,
“I am only worried about my family’s condition.”
Naba Kumar Mandal is also a patient of silicosis. He adds, “elections are about false promises. For us, voting is a routine task. No matter who comes to power, things will not change for us.”
“I reach here by 8:45 a.m. and we start work by nine. By the time I am home, it is 7-7:30 in the evening,” says Madan Pal. ‘Here,’ is the tiny carrom board factory in Suraj Kund Sports Colony in Meerut city, Uttar Pradesh.
Karan, 32, who has been working here for 10 years, inspects each stick of wood and segregates those that are damaged and will be returned.
“It is not difficult to make a board, but it is not easy to make the coins glide on the playing surface.”
Lenindhasan, or Lenin– as he is called – and his friends, are trying to replace modern rice varieties and resist mono-cropping. Their plan is to restore lost diversity. And to germinate a rice revolution.
It's a different kind of revolution, led by another kind of Lenin.
Lenin cultivates 30 varieties of rice. He sells another 15 raised by fellow farmers. And he conserves 80 types of paddy seeds. All this, in his family’s six-acre farm in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvanamalai district.
It seems as if he’s been farming and selling paddy for decades. But it’s only been six years.
Before he became a farmer, Lenin was a corporate employee in Chennai, with two degrees and a good salary.
Life has only become harder in the last 10 years (A thread)
India's poorest homes continue to rely on minor forest produce like mahua and tendu leaves, along with the assured Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) programme.
As they prepare for voting today in the General Elections 2024, Adivasi villagers here in Arattondi village say their lives have only become harder in the last 10 years...