Tales from My Home

My last week visit to home was somewhat different from others. Though a very brief one, I have some special experiences. My home is not located in village as there are only 9 other houses near it. We always identify ourselves with a village named Kattavari Gudem(which itself is a small one and does not even have a gram panchayat) that is a kilometer away from our houses.

Most of the people in my village do not know what an IIT is. In many cases I will be forced to say my study in terms of classes(like 15th class, 16th class etc). Many think that I am studying this far in Kanpur because I could not get a seat in the near by college(and since IITs also charge fees, it becomes clear to them that it is a payment seat which means that I am not intelligent enough to get a free seat!!). It is interesting that whenever I say I study in kanpur, they nod their head as if they know this place just to make sure not to reveal that the place is actually unfamiliar(My brother calls it Delhi to give them a feel of what Kanpur is like. Delhi is something that everyone knows). This time I had something special to tell them. I have a job.

The thing that surprised and amused me is the array of pucca houses near my house all identical to each other clearly signifying that they were built by a community effort. There is a semi-nomad community of people living near my home. Their traditional occupation is playing the ox(it is gangireddulata in telugu) at funerals. But they are better known for begging in rural areas. They are migratory people. The adult members of the families migrate to drier areas during rainy season and winter and come back in the summer(I really don't know the reason for migration. The reason is rather obscure). They live in makeshift settlements and way of living is far from a civilized life. In fact their settlements can be called as rural slums. We can see all the characteristics of a typical BPL family like malnutrition, low life expectancy, high birth rate, illiteracy, lack of facilities of sanitation, drinking water, prevalence of unhygienic conditions etc in them. Literacy is absolute zero till 7-8 years ago. Thanks to the Mid day meals programme now some of them are sending their children to nearby primary school(which incidentally is the same one I studied till 5th class. The school was more lively then. Now it was almost deserted with only around 50 students. Now everyone is sending their children to private schools in the nearby towns). It is for them that the Govt. of AP had built pucca houses under Indira Awaas Yojana(popularly known as indiramma illu in AP). Though it is no way best in implementing govt. schemes I always feel proud of my state as many of the govt. schemes like PDS, PMGSY, NREGA were better implemented in my state. I still remember how the all weather road built under PMGSY transformed my village.

My village is relatively prosperous compared to many villages of India in the sense the we have assured irrigation source from Nagarjuna Sagar Multipurpose Project. My grandmother still tells me stories of impoverishment before the water came. The farmers are enterprising enough to produce some of the largest yields in the country. In fact the largest yield reported was around 69 quintolls/hectare which is one of the highest in the world(Average yield in India is around 20.5quintoll/hectare(2003-04)). Last 3-4 years have witnessed large scale mechanization mainly due to labour unavailability. Satellite TV is spreading rapidly(The way the users of DTH services are increasing everyday makes me feel that a revolution similar to telecom revolution is not far in India). It was only Doordarshan till 2 years ago in my home(the near by village was slightly better that it had dish network with 3-4 private channels). Though there are traces of caste inequality, the social atmosphere is more or less equal. The more extreme forms caste discrimination like untouchability are completely absent. This time we have an ST sarpanch. My village and the surrounding villages were actively involved in anti-nizam peasant struggles during 1940s and were staunch supporters of Communists till recent times(Miryalaguda, the only assembly seat held by CPI(M) now, our village was part of it before 2009 delimitation). Another new thing this time is the piped water facility constructed by gram panchayat. Before this the two hand pumps were the only sources of water which used put especially children and women under great physical stress.

Though we advanced a lot towards gender equality, gender inequality is still widely prevalent. Child marriages have completely disappeared, but still the average age of girl at marriage is around 18. Many of my schoolmates were already married and I am sure more than 90% of them will be married in an year. The importance given to education of girl child up to secondary school level is more or less same as that given to boy. But girls are clearly discriminated when it comes to higher education. Amount of wealth demanded as dowry is only growing with growth of literacy. Parents are anxious to somehow free themselves of girl child after completion of intermediate education(17 years). Marriage is generally seen as the end for education. Hence there are hardly 3 or 4 girls in the village who completed post-graduation.

More painful situation is that concerned with migration. Rural areas are gradually losing life. The younger generation is no longer interested in spending the rest of their life in the village. Even though agriculture has become more profitable(especially last year the returns on produce doubled in the span of just one year) in recent years due to scarcity of food grains in the world market, agriculture is generally seen as a low status job. Nowadays every parent is searching for a groom with a job and groom involved in agriculture is less favoured. I have a friend who refused to marry a person involved in agriculture, though he commands a large tract of land in the village. People are migrating in large numbers to nearby towns. The life of the migrants in towns are painful beyond explanation. They feel socially isolated, since the relations in urban areas tend to be formal compared to intimate relations in rural areas. They tend to live in unhygienic conditions due to the disappearance of natural sources of drinking water and sanitation in urban areas. Their social status suddenly falls down in urban areas where the economic inequality is markedly reflected in the social life. The thing is that though there is inequality in rural areas also, the relation between upper and lower sections are mostly patriarchal.

The story of migration is not just limited to my village. It is more or less the same story in every village of India. It is part of the social friction that India is undergoing in these years in its transformation from a traditional and underdeveloped society into a modern and developed society. I always feel my village as a mini India. There is optimism everywhere. Though the present conditions are poor, there are dreams of a secure of and prosperous future. Cellphone and plough exists at the same place. There is an urge to prove ourselves that we are second to none.