of cold wadas, empty rooms, long rides...

reached brindaban by the 10 am in the vehicle ferry...

waiting for us was dashing dadi and few creche kids... and of course sukhada, the bijli... before amit could get depressed, i started training for rachel, alam, amit, sukhada... two women who look after the creche, insisted that they would learn only when others come... another one, samaan's (means sam- aan, allah ki sunanevala) mom was convincingly cynical... the others of course never turned up... but to bank on the brighter side of things, seeds team learnt recording, editing, putting things on cool edit...

then ammini, a panchayat member, strolled in.. plaster did the trick again.. she felt bad about the conspicuous-by-absence situation and learnt things from sukhada... heard her interview on cool edit intently...

by then samaan's mom had warmed up and we discussed issues like alcohol, relief, lucknow ki tehzeeb, how alcohol is prepared at home and how everyone - men and women - have a list excuse-like-occasion to drink, fatigue, wedding, death, birth, salary (pretty much every evening...)

it was 230 and while we waited for our vehicle, our in house shayars, rachel and amit, "procured" some vadas, rotis, sambhar...well established truth - hunger makes anything taste good... even rock-like dal wada and soggy cold "ched vada." samaan's mom got some lovely lucknow style semiyan sweet for us... needless to say, we hogged... alam's head and my hand and everyone's mood - painfully heavy...

try listening to "tujhe dekh dekh sona, tujhe dekhkar hai jagna... tujhme basi hai meri jaan... hai.. jiya dhadak dhadak jaye" as u bump n swish through rotting coconut trees... thinking about the bar that all moms are worried about... remembering that look of school going kids as they follow "five star cycle ice cream"... in a half surreal tired sleep i dreamt of teenage boys with the same look following the "dhinchak" bar... i woke up to shayri of amit, rachel, and giggles about my sleep swaying...

samaan's mom has promised to bring one woman on monday for an interview about poverty, shelters and old age... did i say convincingly cynical???

kya karen? tujh mein basi hai meri jaan... jiya dhadak dhadak jaye...

wild wild wandoor...

training in wandoor...

by the time we reached wandoor via g b pant hospital and a medical check up, we were a good 2 hours late and sunita was pacing up and down... several people had left and we were left with around 15,20 people... gulping the lump of guilt... i started... plastered hand gets sympathy, gives health related ideas and everyone wants to do everything for you! so all in all an ok deal!

anyway, panchayat secretary and pradhan were both interested and so were other 4,5 members... they were quick to suggest ideas, which were not tsunami related (surprise surprise!) and were receptive to the livelihood programme... we discussed ponnalagu's story... how she and her husband rebuilt their chai-naashta shop out of nothing... impressive story impresses everyone... no exceptions here...

five groups have been formed... sukhada recorded some mock interviews (another benefit of being plastered... everyone learning super fast...) some goof up in playing and some candid conversations were played... good fun...

most of them are bengalis... they asked if they could make programmes in bengali... i said of course they could but perhaps broken hindi would reach more... tourism related employment, women's options, infrastructure, fisheries, were some of the subjects...

then an interview session with me - marriage, work, marathi, malayalam, cooking, hospital, hand, hmmm... inquisitive, i say... and of course they arm twisted (ouch!) me into speaking bengali (and of course had a good laugh!) kintu tumi amake jani na.. ami bangla khoob jani...

i visited one intermediate shelter... heard about their past glory of house with 4 bedrooms, cows, poultry, coconut, fishing... sitting in the oven-like tin box house... it had a fancy tv with cable but no fan... people swat flies literally as they watch remix videos... perhaps representative of the way "development" is developing...

storms in tea cups times

last three days have been... hmmm... tough...

first training session in wandoor got cancelled because of a rally and MP visit...

then the book with my interview notes disappeared (it reappeared just now... a sign of sunrise...)

then disagreement and disappointment with AIR and angry depression with my bambaiyya outbursts... i must mind my colourful language in front of innocent coconut-fish people...

then i dislocate my elbow and now in silly plaster for 3 weeks... my embarrassing 2 hour howling "nautanki" will be imitated by rehman and rakesh in due course of time... they were the cutest though!

the devils will have to try harder... time to crack my whip on the forces of unknown!!!

we resume tomorrow... one session with seeds staff already done... ha ha ha... we are making a funny programme on nick names...

the answer my friend, is blowin in the wind... listening... believing... living...

shuruvaat...

day one of training...

as we reached brindaban my heart which was somewhere in my "sukha gala" popped out for a second... there were tiny kids who come there to play and 10, 12 curious-but-at-the-same-time-skeptical women... thought of the domesticated deer eyes on ross island who look at tourists a bit mockingly as if we are the weird ones (quite right too!)... hmmm...

alam introduced the programme as amit set the laptop and the speakers. rakesh spoke to dadi i.e. janakidevi, president of mahila mandal, (she is a verrrry old and rock solid mixed with tadka tongue)... initially i was fidgeting restlessly but once it started, it went off smoothly most of the time...

gist of what i said -

community radio is radio productions made by a commnunity for the community, ways of broadcast can differ, AIR, worldspace, internet, narroawcasting, a separate station, all of this...

local issues which may never be addressed by the mainstream media can be tackled...

even if the community cant reach the authorities, their voices can... people who obviously matter, and others who may not but why not reach them too...

they would have learnt an additional skill of programme producing...

they can talk about good things (a kid topping ssc - couldnt think of anything better), bad things (so many - electricity, funds allocations, water... ), information and awareness (health, disaster management, education related)...

then i played a programme on livelihood for about 10 minutes... [arif later pointed that any english anywhere in my talk or in an interview in the programme is not understood and so not appreciated! it is an illusion that people speak hinglish... they dont... point taken... ]

i asked about possible subjects... two oldish women complained about not getting their houses after tsunami... we discussed possibilities of making a programme on the subject of sheltering...

people here are weary of outsiders coming and handing out doses on development... as soon as someone said, "bahar se na jane kitne log aakar wapas chale jate hain.. kuch badalta nahi hai..." for a fraction of second thought this is clean bowled! but someone up there intervened in my head and i said, "isi liye to aaphi ko seekha rahe hain... taki aapko kisi baharwale ki jaroorat hi na pade!" (PHEW in my head with one trickle of sweat...) some nodding smiles from the audience...

then we divided them in groups of four per group... by this time few more women had arrived and we had four groups of four members... when i asked them to pick a subject for their group, the group with those two women complaining about shelters said they would do a programme on electricity... (question mark feeling is right!) and what i did not expect happened...

one of them was annoyed... argued with sukhada... that we dont want to do a programme on her shelter problem first... sukhada being our spunky sukhada argued firmly with a sweet smile... that it was HER group members who picked the subject... i tried intervening with a promise that we make tsunami programme before electricity one... and that we all would make many more programmes together... wagera wagera... (small phew again!)

as i sat among them and discussed different topics like water, possibilities for educated women sitting "khali" at home, poverty, tsunami (of course!), electricity (also!) i started hoping that they would turn up on wednesday... sangeetha and four others have promised to...

tomorrow a repeat of this in wandoor... but the crowd is co-ed i.e. guys and girls... i still have enough butterflies in my tummy to keep me on high alert all of tomorrow... and perhaps longer...