Life, seen through a different lens.

Some of us from the General Management Program actually presumed that the Rural Exposure Program at XLRI, would be a relaxed affair with plenty of time to catch up on our overdue rest and sleep. Little did we know that our minds and hearts, hardened by the hustle and bustle of a life in the city and in the corporate world, would undergo a profound transformation.

A mind blowing metamorphosis!

Every year, XLRI together with NGO’s functioning in the villages of Jharkhand arrange for batches of students to be sent to different villages, accompanied and guided by rural development societies. The objective of this program is to ‘expose’ us to a lifestyle, that very few of us have witnessed firsthand. We, the students, get to see the cooperative functioning of a village, the hardships and struggles faced by the residents, the aspirations of the next generation within the village and the ideas supplied by an enterprising few.

On a damp Friday morning, 15 of us left for the Tagore Society of Rural Development located at Patamda, East Singhbhum district. The village was originally a part of West Bengal and the local language was Bangla. Luckily, we had a couple of Bengali colleagues with us, which proved to be vastly useful. Though Patamda was only 50 kilometers away from the XLRI campus, rains and bad roads played spoilsport and it took us a good 2 hours to arrive at TSRD’s gates. Mr. Akash from the NGO passed on a copy of our itinerary for the next 3 days to us, and the realization that the visit was not about fun and sleep, sunk in slowly.

Visit to Patamda Village, by the GMP junta at XLRI (Collage by Venkatesh Iyer)

Mr Akash had an infectious enthusiasm which roused us as well. We started by visiting the Dhadkidih village which had a population of close to 800 people. The school was our first point of visit, and we spent time talking to children and their interests. It was also obvious that the schools found it quite difficult to attract children to come study. The midday meal scheme was very much in existence and played its part in ensuring that the children stayed until lunch.

To TATA Steel Rural Development Society (Collage by Samarjit Mazumdar)

There were two things that struck us almost immediately when walking through the village. One was the lack of electricity, and the other was the prevalence of mobile phones (despite the unavailability of electricity) and the occasional Airtel Dish TV connection. We later understood that the village did fall under the electricity grid, but the availability of electricity was dismally sporadic. To our disappointment, there was just one single determined lady from the whole village who was pursuing her Masters at Jamshedpur.

The day progressed with meeting the Village Panchayat and also understanding the economy of the village. The highlight of the day was the inauguration of the Kisan Club. The Kisan Club is a perfect example of the cooperative system in the village. Members of the club pooled in money and resources to procure equipment of better technology which could be used on a need basis by all members. The day ended with all of us analyzing the supply chain followed by the villagers for their vegetable and poultry produce trying to see if there were options that resulted in better margins for the villagers.

The next 2 days were spent in visiting the Public Health Centre as well as the village of Sundarpur. During the time spent there, Kharkhand experienced torrential rainfall and the Suvarna River swelled threateningly. Interestingly, none of us felt compelled to stay back because of the rain. Contradictory to our original plans, our inclination to rest and watch the raindrops was cut down by our curiosity to visit every nook and corner that the surrounding villages had to offer.

Other eye openers were visiting the farmers market (where one could get anything from vegetables to local liquor and open cooked chicken), meeting the school teacher and the Anganwadi representative, walking one kilometer into corn fields that were destroyed by the rains, understanding the NREGA system and its problems, and finally the talk with Mr Bakshi who spearheaded the activities of the NGO.

The change that had come over us at the end of the visit, is hard to put into words. We left TSRD with reluctance, with a feeling of leaving a task incomplete.

Days after, the feeling still lingers on.

The end result is that each one of us have turned more socially conscious in one way or the other. We had always been blinded by our wants, while the needs of many deserving people have gone unfulfilled. The urge to bring about a change in the system, finally awoke in us.

Thanks to XLRI and selfless organizations like TSRD, our eyes have finally been pried open.