The questions around the purpose of life brought me to Jhabua in the third year of my college. Since then, I have worked in Jhabua with Shivganga — a social organisation working on Holistic Rural Development. Here I shared my experience after working for two years — originally published on the Facebook page of Shivganga in May 2020. — Two years ago, when I first came to Jhabua, Shivganga was initiating the concept of Incubation Centre. I was part of the two-day program, which hosted people from different backgrounds like academia, corporate, social work, entrepreneurship and, of course, students. Then it felt like a distant dream. After all, in…

A movement in tribal Jhabua begins on April 28. It goes at an incredible pace to cover 900+ villages by June 10. 3000+ volunteers across the villages come forward, takes training and reach family-to-family in villages. Jhabua, which stood at a catastrophic collapse around April 28, had a less than 1% infection rate on May 24. The ‘Medical Kit distribution & Awareness’ movement becomes a social movement by the end. What makes all of these possible?

We put all blame on the government & system. It changes nothing, other than our attempt to sheath our conscience, ourselves from the guilt. We want to hide our fragility, our inability to take risks. But we can not shrug off that responsibility, the onus of those tearful eyes is on us too. — My dear friends, I am a youth just like you. I used to have the ‘regular’ dreams of a package and recognition until a couple of years ago until I felt my heart aching for something more than me. Something, asking for the attention of youths like us.

For long, we the modern education and its products, have perceived rural and tribal India with our understanding limited by materialism and insensitivity. While we label some traditions as inhuman activities, we impose a sympathy on others. Both equally damaging to these earth-saving traditions and self-respect of those people. The traditions & lifestyle of rural and tribal India are presented to us like an out of world phenomenon. They may seem very dramatic to us, but on the ground, for these people, such traditions are simple and natural part of their life.

Entangled between what’s good and bad what’s cool and sad what’s grey and white Entangled between grey and black I feel I have lost it all. My courage, my morality, my truth. I feel disgusted of what I have become. — Sometime in 11th in a session, I questioned why boys make disrespectful and disgusting comments on girls at their back; everyone laughed at me, all — boys & girls. They laughed at me for making an issue out of jokes. …

The world is witnessing the consequences of the concentrated development model in the form of urbanization. The countries like Brazil and South Africa are facing a dire social, economic and environmental crisis. India, aiming high for development needs to draft a distributed development model where there are prosperous villages millions of small economic centres. The architectural set-up for such a village has to be designed with the approach of responding to the local context. Only the idea of ‘Think Locally and Act Global’ holds a promise of a sustainable future.

यह एक छोटी से घटना भारतीय गाँव और उनके मन के बारे में सबकुछ बता देती है…कमी में छिनना — झपटना नहीं, संतोष से निर्वहन करना, मेहनत करना। निश्चय ही इनके भोले चरित्र का कुछ शोषण भी हो रहा है, फिर भी ज्यादा मानव कौन? ज्यादा दया किसमें? एक दूसरा…

There’s a lot of noise on crackers on Diwali. Some celebrating the accomplishments of their anti-crackers Diwali campaign along with Delhi govt. They should. They have managed to stop a leakage in a sinking ship. However, we don’t see this raised consciousness throughout the year. The educated young revolutionaries seem to be completely ignorant of what’s degrading the environment. And so, these pseudo-animal-lovers are nothing but flag-bearers of hypocrite and illusioned class. The point is, they must be shown the mirror, they must be questioned for their allegiance and above all their pointlessness of being educated.

Climate change is real. It’s happening. Now that we realise it, we can’t keep on shouting on the streets asking it to slow down. Even crying after a tree has fallen won’t help. Planting another 10 will. We need to make a behavioural change. And it starts with the individual. We need to give up the luxury of selfish living for our future, for the next generations. As not caring is no more an option, we have to choose between protesting and doing. And we know that the latter will make us better ancestors for future.