Epilogue

Brigadier Ganesham Pogula

Finally introducing to you the driving force behind us Brigadier Ganesham Sir... He is the most dynamic and inspirational personality one could ever meet. One of the remarkable features about him is that given a situation, he critically analyzes it in every possible direction and infers a great deal of information from it. Every word from him is either from experience or by his analysis...which greatly affects our thought. One can gain an experience of years by spending 2-3 days with him. Every moment spent with him was enlightening.

And this is the whole team of pioneers who took part in this Odyssey

Pratap,Meraj,me,Shanti,Pavan,Ram naresh,KP,KG(Rakesh,Venki,Bala,Jeshurun,Joy,Subash and Tarun were missing)

The saga continues.....

On 13^th of June, we were back at NIT Warangal and all the teams shared their experiences. All of us faced more or less similar kind of funny and cryptic incidents. The next day we had a feedback session with Ganesham sir analyzing our pastoral experiences.
15^th morning, we continued our mission touring the next set of villages around Mulugu namely, Kamalapuram, Bussapuram, Jangampalli and Kasimdevpet of which we were assigned Kamalapuram, an agency area farthest from Warangal. Our accommodation was in the house owned by a woman,Jaya Lakshmi.

We can call her the Mother Theresa of Kamalapuram. She runs an NGO named Shakti Seva Society that basically works for women empowerment and eradication of child labour. The NGO has adopted about 20 villages and initiated about 30 SHG’s around Kamalapuram. It has eradicated child labour to a large extent, and there a lot of poverty alleviation done through well designed and coordinated social programmes that has brought down unemployment drastically in this area.

 

Moved by the pathetic condition of the adivasis in their village and with the burning desire to stand on her own feet, has started this NGO. She is an altruistic and selfless woman who relentlessly works for the betterment of the rural society . She runs a rural bridge camp for school dropouts providing quality education and inculcating good conduct.

Fine, let’s get back to our adventure. As the places we had to visit here were quite far from Kamalapuram, me and meraj were a JayaLakshmi Mam. (I have never driven a bike past my neighbourhood and now dirving doubles, on a main road at 40-60Km was little scary to me. But I shrugged off my fear instilling confidence myself saying, come on Teju not a big deal…you can easily do it.) We were accompanied by Bhaskar sir, (Pavan was the pillion rider on his bike) who is an employee of SSS.

The first place we visited was Thondiyala, 15 km from Kamalapuram. The village is the home to adivasis named Koyas (tribal community). Here, we find no house made up of bricks and mortar. You only find thatched roofs made up of mud and wood. We met a tribesman named Kanthayya here. Till this day, we find very few people from scheduled tribes who have completed their graduation. It is his sheer persistence that enabled him to complete matriculation in those days of Nizam’s rule when it was a rarity to find a school in your vicinity.

He has excellent grasping power.He explained us very vividly about the traditional agricultural practices and the culture they followed. 


Though we are in our early 20’s, the inertia in us always dominates the agile nature but, it was different with this octogenarian, he had the nimbleness of a young kid and moved around so quickly showing us the artifacts of his days. He explained us the preparation of Ambali and Gattika (staple food of the tribals made primarily from corn and barley) in great detail and he demonstrated the preparation of oil manually. He was a shrewd interpreter too. His mellow wisdom was quite influencing. He said, “Don’t go just by words children…take the opinion of others also and analyze, test and confirm the information u get before u proceed to do anything”. Aah! I thought this person is a masterpiece.

Malluri Ghutta Temple

Our next visit was to Malluri Ghutta , a small hillock. I had a wish to go to Tirupathi on a bike. Somehow my wish was partially fulfilled through the uphill bike trip to Malluri Ghutta. It is situated in the midst of a dense forest and has a temple of Lakhshmi Narasimha Swami. The priest in the temple narrated to us the story behind it. Legend has it that a king named Dilip Karna in 200 A.D got a dream in which Narasimha Swami asked him to construct a temple for him. In the similar way he told us a mythical story behind the incarnation of other Gods too.

It was an amazing experience going around the forest relishing in the verdant greens. It was so dense and beautiful, completely covered by branches, climbers, roots and trunks of big trees and they don’t even allow a single ray of sunlight to enter. We saw a tree trunk which has a circumference of 8m. And there was a small stream of water called Chinthamani. It is considered as a stream of great medicinal value as it flows down the mountains that are a repository of several herbal plants. We were not sure of all those, but the water was so tasty and our taste buds tempted us in going back to stream again and again to savour the elixir of life.

While returning we were very happy and thought every student has to surely go for such an internship. I felt this job to be more exciting than being just a traveler, more charged up than being a journalist and more knowledgeful than being a scholar. It was an experience that has made us aware of the plight the rural India faces and also about the diminishing culture of the ancient India. Conversing about all this with Meraj, I saw the speedometer and said, “Wooh…we are travelling at 60..65..and 70 km/hr.” For boys crossing 120km/hr is a great thrill but, for me crossing 60km/hr itself was an achievement.

That evening was one of the best remembered and treasured one of our lives. We went to a place named Regula Gudem, nestled in the thick forest, 5km from kamalapuram. There is no road connectivity to this place and we set on an adventure into an unknown territory!!! I will put down the verses of a beautiful poem by a friend regarding this journey…

BhanuTejudu Bhaggumantunna,

Karumegalu Kammukosthunna,

KatikaCheekati alamukontunna,

Kaalasarpalu tirugutuntunna,

Kaaru adavilo saagina ee sahasa yatra..

Vesindhi ee jeevithaniki o cheraganimudra..

It was an eloquent sonnet. Anyways this wasn’t by me…J Ok..Let’s continue with the saga:

I am not sure if the road is visible or not…But this was the way in which we travelled. We were driving on a Hero Honda and a Honda City and unfortunately half of our time went into dragging them in the sandy road. It was a very narrow road, sufficient for a bullock cart to travel and if we skid off the road, it would take 10 min to lift both of them and travel. And we slipped around 50 times in our to and fro journey.And a more horrifying thing was that the place is inhabited by a lot of snakes. It was a harrowing experience we would soon like to forget.

After the painful struggle we reached our destination-Regula Gudam. It’s a tiny village consisting 38 families in it. Not even giving us time to think about the unwholesome experience, it started raining. Adding to our woes was the fact that the village has no electricity. We were afraid and confused about how we would return. But, soon all those worldly pains subsided and we started our job of interacting with people knowing about their culture, tradition, food, livelihood and medicinal practices.

These people rely on hunting and the 170 acres land distributed by the government to grow food crops. (but the downside is that they don’t even know how to cultivate properly). There is one small govt school in the community and a tube well was constructed by Jayalakhmi Aunty with her own interest.

We looked outside and the rain hasn’t stopped yet. We were scared that we would have to stay the whole night there. They offered to play hosts for the night serving us their local delicacies, consisting of the just hunted wild boar ;).The very thought of it sent my head spinning ,and we politely refused. Their hospitality was very pleasing though.

People over here are so innocent and primitive, you will get reminded of Early Man seeing them. The women here wear a lungi and a jacket. And they don’t have access to basic medical care. Two kids succumbed to snake bite due to the inadequate medical facilities and they couldn’t even take them to a nearby doctor as they don’t have any transport facilities. SSS and government officials urge the locals to migrate to nearby cities and the government has promised to provide housing for them under the state government’s housing welfare scheme ( Indiramma Illu Pathakam). But none of them is ready to leave the forest land they are accustomed to and would want to find subsistence in their own forest with better government oversight in providing better education, health care and empowerment. What do you infer from this, Friends?? I think this issue qualifies for an interesting conversation that can lead to some purposeful initiatives for this ignorant people.

The rain receded… And we made our return journey. We were involved in similar exotic activities, this time in darkness.Even if we stumbled across a snake we would never know. Somehow our adventure was a pleasant success as we came back alive :P

This was a saga where in we embarked on an unprepared and aimless journey identifying our aspirations and dreams and to an extent were able to realize some of them with some impressive deeds.

And the journey was..

Knowledge is a journey. And our journey in search of knowledge was not to libraries, labs, etc but to villages where scarcity and poverty lies.“Scarcity is the mother of invention” and "Poverty doesn't make a person uncreative" Our journey was following these principles.

Fourteen of us reached NIT Warangal on June 10^th and we had an orientation session with National Innovation Foundation, Honey network about the kind of work we would be doing in the villages by Brig. D Ganesham Sir (Honey network AP co-ordinator).We were shown videos of the many ideas incubated by villagers.

Want to have a look at the rural innovations- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_ho7xhgWV8

We were then divided into 5 groups and sent to 5 villages around Thorrur mandal namely Dubba Thanda , Hachu Thanda, Chityala, Chinna Vangara and Madipalli. We had to stay for 3 days in our respective villages exploring them.

P.S: Thanda is nothing but a community or a small hamlet.

Myself, Meraj and Pavan went to Dhubba Thanda and were received by a warm welcome by Mani, son of a librarian and got accommodated in the same library for 3 days.

The first day we were looked upon like foreigners in the village and everybody were staring at us. We went around the Thanda, enquired few details, came back, read the newspapers in the library and slept. With the help of Mani, we befriended several kids in the village. Mani, this boy has just completed 10^th standard but, you must get to know him to understand how mature and intelligent he is. He has got the brains which we seldom find even with a sane graduate. Regarding his communication skills, this chap can persuade and win even Anil Ambani in just 10 good minutes. We conducted a small biodiversity competition for the kids to collect different varieties of plant species and to narrate their uses.

Here is Mani,Pavan,kishore

We met Mani’s grandfather named Somaji who is well above 90 years. You can call him as the Nelson Mandela for this Thanda. He studied till 4th standard in those hard old days of Nizam’s rule. This person fought with the tyranny of the Nizam’s and distributed 300 acres of land to all the people in his community who rightly deserved the entitlement to the land. To this day, everyone in the Thanda praises his selflessness and shower utmost respect on him. We learnt from him and few other elders about the tradition and culture of Lambadi's.

This is Somaji and his Wife

It was eccentric to get to know that their marriages used to take place for 6 long months. And their marriage tradition is quite interesting and hysterical. It seems during the engagement the bridegroom is beaten by the bride’s brother four times at the same place. And the bridegroom has to stand till his father in law asks him to sit. Finally the bride is sent along with the groom after 6 long months,on a cow :). Girls what do you say???...Kaarsh...:P ...the tradition should have continued everywhere. Right?

13^th June, it was the last day in the Thanda and we were very much disappointed that we couldn’t gain substantial information, or find any viable innovations or herbal medicines. That afternoon we met a person named Vinay Kumar. This bloke is an all rounder. He is a teacher, businessman (real estate and hotel business), innovator, Ayurvedic Doctor and an expert at Yoga.We sat with him for 2 hours. And the whole conversation was rather more interesting than a movie,that our focus remained undiminished listening to him. Unfortunately we forgot to get a recorder the same day. I will narrate u the highlights of the conversation that took place:

It seems his grandfather learnt this cryptic art and dedicated his whole life and wealth trying to convert Copper to Gold. Finally he made it, but met an untimely death without revealing the alchemy he mastered. This person is now continuing the same job reading the books written by his grandfather trying to unravel the intriguing art. He said it took him 25 days to read one page. He also made it a point to mention centuries old ayurvedic treatments which included healing a person who has suffered cardiac arrest. It goes like this–

Ø A heart attack patient should be made to sit in blistering sun. Take two lemons and extract some juice and inject required quantity of mercury into it according the height of the person and place them in front him. He said the lemons would fly up to his chest and dance till the heart attack is cured.

It’s true that mercury becomes volatile in the hot sun hence, the lemons fly but the concept of curing heart attack this way was something we couldn’t understand and left us with lingering doubts.

Ø To a person who consumed poison, a small drop of ingalikam powder when kept on his tongue would throw up everything present in his stomach and make him fine.

And the list of primitive ways of finding the cure for every illness and health related complications is unending. He said all these ayurvedic plants, saints, etc are present in Srisailam forests. He also told about an interesting climber named thippudu thigalu (swirling creeper). It appears that once if our feet touch them, we will roam around the forest for 15 days without knowing ourselves. In between he said, “If you are interested to talk to a soul I can make it possible. Are you ready?” We didn’t have any answer. Suddenly we shivered for a while and it took a while for us to shed the fear. All this would seem as sheer superstition and we may find no good enough a reason to believe in it.

He said every person has an aura surrounding him which tells his nature and he also told pavan that if he took bath and did meditation for sometime he could tell pavan’ s future too. Poor Pavan, he said he didn’t want to know. He told us that there is some kajal (the same one which we see on the eyes of katikaparlu) when applied to the eyes we can scan everything i.e., the land, the past and future of a person, etc. Once he had unearthed the treasure which lied in the underground of a person’s house. And it was no surprise that he works for the archeology department. Finally, while leaving as we took his phone number in a book, he said that the book wouldn’t reach its final destination. We didn’t understand and went away bewildered. Then he called me back and asked if my defective eyesight was 6.5. I said its 8. He suggested me some herbal medicine. Of course, he poured out suggestions on how Meraj and Pavan should grow fat.

I don't know what's running in your minds now friends..But after the conversation, I was bit excited and felt like visiting Srisailem and the forests over there once.


Thus the whole conversation was like the narration of the telugu magnum opus, Pathala Bhairavi, the yester years sci-fi movie and we were in a confused state of mind about what to believe and what not to believe.

This is how it started......

A cliché that all you people have been repeatedly hearing-This is my first blog. I had been wishing to write one from long time. Finally, the day has beckoned...

I am doing B.Tech, 3^rd year in Bits-pilani. From my first year, I always aspired to do an enterprising internship that would match my career interests. So as intended, I applied to many prestigious institutes like IISc, E4SI, ISB, IIIT, IIM A and also a few start up companies. And a day arrived when I was left with much disappointment for I was deprived of a positive reply from everyone. But much to my amusement and surprise, I received 2 mails the same night, one from Anil Gupta Sir, (IIM A) blessing me with an opportunity to do a social internship in Andhra Pradesh villages with a motive to uplift the grass root innovators (www.sristi.org) and he said I can also include my friends in this great initiative. The other one was from a start up firm named Daily Dump which was ready to provide an internship with a stipend of Rs.6000 and the task was to market their products in the nearby villages.

Now I had to choose…

My friends and my mind said, “Teju, enough of social service till now. Concentrate on your career.” Whereas my heart said, “Teju com’n working in villages where the real and exotic India lies, uplifting grass root innovators sounds like a more exciting job than marketing some mundane products. And as Sir was willing to allow my friends to partner me in my social initiative, I sensed an amazing chance for our juniors to get well acquainted with the knowhow of the social conscience and this experience would help them in understanding the villagers and the way to go about dealing with them.

Akash(President, Nirmaan) and my friend, Bala Phani Chand appreciated my idea and encouraged me. Somehow I managed to convince 13 of my juniors and friends for the internship with the help of many. But the dismal thing was the fact that I was the only girl among them. As the project was conceived by me, I had to start even though my father was not interested to send. The day before I called my intermediate friend, Meraj and mentioned about the internship and she said she would love to join me. Thanks Meraj, this journey would not have been possible without your wonderful company :) Thus started the odyssey….