This is the first blog being published in ViDAL CMS. I am Rajeswari I am a social development practitioner, and work in some remote villages in Mahbubnagar District. My stint with social work is not new but social work in developmental context is very new, just about five years.
I thought hard and long about what I should write in the first blog. To make it easy for myself I thought I would write about one of my recent experiences and about harmonium keys and tanpura strings.
I was on a shopping expedition recently and chanced meeting two young girls in famous Hollywood Shoes in abids (by the way, I live in Hyderabad in India). I felt cheerful to meet these two girls who were very courteous and offered me a seat by adjusting a little bit each. One can never find place to sit in this shop. I always wonder, from where so much money is coming for people to shop all those fancy chappals etc., Some of them are costlier than an average income of a poor family. I sat next to them and got into a conversation as the assistant took forever to get the kind of sandals I wanted. I got to know their names. One of them is Sitara and the other is Anju. They work in a BPO doing medical transcription and took a day off for shopping. They actively participated in selecting sandals for me, as I openly expressed that I feel like a fish out of water without my daughter helping me shop. They shared some common feelings like I do, and said it is hard to find people with whom we can talk and relate, especially in a city. That led me to talk about villages and I said I don't find that problem when I frequent to the villages and I can actually get to talk to village people much easily. Sitara then said something very profound, she said "my music teacher says, people in towns and cities are like harmonium keys that make sound in isolation and people in villages are like strings on a tanpura, sound from one sting carries on to the sound from the other string..". This simple yet powerful analogy stayed with me now for more than 20 days, and I keep thinking about it every now and then.
I think that this analogy means urbanites are indifferent and rural folk have a sense of connection with each other. To a large extent it feels true, but I think it is mythical too in today's context.
I remember going to Appareddypalli (one of the villages I work in) in 2003 when the Director of Stanford Reuters Program came to visit "Computers on Wheels" project in field. By the time we went to the village square, there was a small gathering of people and an auto rickshaw was standing in between. We could hardly make out what was happening. Even before we could comprehend what happened the auto rickshaw left the village carrying three or four people tightly sitting inside. I enquired what the matter was from one of the onlookers. He said one of the persons from their village is axed by another person from the same village. They had a quarrel about politics and one axed the other. Within no time, the place settled to normalcy and people were very casual about what just happened. I do the same thing in the city, when I see violence. Initially, my blood pressure shoots up, and then I settle for being an onlooker, meekly watching without trying to stop.
We held our meeting under the tree near the temple after some time and asked about COW project and came back to Hyderabad. Looking back, I feel, all of us over there were so indifferent with the issue of violence. Where is the sense of connection that Sitara spoke about? I guess I went to the villages in search of that connection having been raised in a small town in a close-knit large family and community. I am still searching for that sense of connection that will work, not merely exists when all is well.
Violence triggers feelings of fear, and it is easy to detach than protest, whether it is a day-to-day issue or bigger problems like a war. In small communities generally the reaction is expected to be different, where protection of theirs falls on majority of the crowd. But that too seem to be changing. I guess our perceptions of issues like justice are changing rapidly. Going into situations of risk and saving fellow human beings is becoming more a story than one of the norms. Is it the sheer frustration of numbers for people living in populous countries like India or it is general apathy all over the globe? There are more questions than answers.
I wish I could talk to Sitara and Anju a little more. But, dumb I was that I have not even taken their contact details.
It is an abrupt ending, but believe me I cannot write anymore, I am overpowered by feelings of sadness. I wish tanpura strings analogy is true and we can protect them from becoming harmonium keys. This is the first blog being published in ViDAL CMS. I am Rajeswari I am a social development practitioner, and work in some remote villages in Mahbubnagar District. My stint with social work is not new but social work in developmental context is very new, just about five years.
I thought hard and long about what I should write in the first blog. To make it easy for myself I thought I would write about one of my recent experiences and about harmonium keys and tanpura strings.
I was on a shopping expedition recently and chanced meeting two young girls in famous Hollywood Shoes in abids (by the way, I live in Hyderabad in India). I felt cheerful to meet these two girls who were very courteous and offered me a seat by adjusting a little bit each. One can never find place to sit in this shop. I always wonder, from where so much money is coming for people to shop all those fancy chappals etc., Some of them are costlier than an average income of a poor family. I sat next to them and got into a conversation as the assistant took forever to get the kind of sandals I wanted. I got to know their names. One of them is Sitara and the other is Anju. They work in a BPO doing medical transcription and took a day off for shopping. They actively participated in selecting sandals for me, as I openly expressed that I feel like a fish out of water without my daughter helping me shop. They shared some common feelings like I do, and said it is hard to find people with whom we can talk and relate, especially in a city. That led me to talk about villages and I said I don't find that problem when I frequent to the villages and I can actually get to talk to village people much easily. Sitara then said something very profound, she said "my music teacher says, people in towns and cities are like harmonium keys that make sound in isolation and people in villages are like strings on a tanpura, sound from one sting carries on to the sound from the other string..". This simple yet powerful analogy stayed with me now for more than 20 days, and I keep thinking about it every now and then.
I think that this analogy means urbanites are indifferent and rural folk have a sense of connection with each other. To a large extent it feels true, but I think it is mythical too in today's context.
I remember going to Appareddypalli (one of the villages I work in) in 2003 when the Director of Stanford Reuters Program came to visit "Computers on Wheels" project in field. By the time we went to the village square, there was a small gathering of people and an auto rickshaw was standing in between. We could hardly make out what was happening. Even before we could comprehend what happened the auto rickshaw left the village carrying three or four people tightly sitting inside. I enquired what the matter was from one of the onlookers. He said one of the persons from their village is axed by another person from the same village. They had a quarrel about politics and one axed the other. Within no time, the place settled to normalcy and people were very casual about what just happened. I do the same thing in the city, when I see violence. Initially, my blood pressure shoots up, and then I settle for being an onlooker, meekly watching without trying to stop.
We held our meeting under the tree near the temple after some time and asked about COW project and came back to Hyderabad. Looking back, I feel, all of us over there were so indifferent with the issue of violence. Where is the sense of connection that Sitara spoke about? I guess I went to the villages in search of that connection having been raised in a small town in a close-knit large family and community. I am still searching for that sense of connection that will work, not merely exists when all is well.
Violence triggers feelings of fear, and it is easy to detach than protest, whether it is a day-to-day issue or bigger problems like a war. In small communities generally the reaction is expected to be different, where protection of theirs falls on majority of the crowd. But that too seem to be changing. I guess our perceptions of issues like justice are changing rapidly. Going into situations of risk and saving fellow human beings is becoming more a story than one of the norms. Is it the sheer frustration of numbers for people living in populous countries like India or it is general apathy all over the globe? There are more questions than answers.
I wish I could talk to Sitara and Anju a little more. But, dumb I was that I have not even taken their contact details.
It is an abrupt ending, but believe me I cannot write anymore, I am overpowered by feelings of sadness. I wish tanpura strings analogy is true and we can protect them from becoming harmonium keys.
