Janoben is a Muslim grandmother who lives in a shack just behind fancy weekend houses of wealthy Ahmedabadis. She is a very good cook and makes food for the wealthy owners. My uncle and his children own a couple of cottages and use the service of Janoben, especially when they feel like eating bajri rotla. Bajri is an indigenous grain and rotla as similar to rotis but thicker. It is a specialty of Saurashtra, the region of Gujarat that I grew up in. We had a good conversation with Janoben and a couple of other underprivileged folks including Arjunbhai, my uncle’s driver. He lamented the fact that there is no way to provide good education to young folks because it is so expensive. The claim by the government that everyone has access to good education is just political posturing. However, they are all determined to make sure that their children get good education one way or another. Janoben’s son has become an electrician and finds work in the community that we were visiting. He was married off when he was very young and already has a son. The family is working hard to get out of poverty. There is hope.
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Baldevbhai was pruning shrubs and trees in a park in Ahmedabad when a friend told him about a company called Uber (or Ooh Bear, as it is called in India), which was looking for drivers. The promise of higher income got this transplant from a village interested in the idea. The only problem was he did not know English, was frightened of smart phones and did not now how to drive a car---he had driven only tractors in his village. No matter. As they say where there is a will, there is a way. He got his son, who was studying to be a mechanic, to teach him how to use a smart phone. He also learned rudimentary English so he could read the names of places he had to go to. Over the next two years he took lessons in driving a car and follow directions shown on maps. Then, he got a loan to purchase his own car. Voila! He was on the road as an Uber driver. His income rose to a level where he could support his son’s education.
We had the privilege of having Baldevbhai as our Uber drive on way to the airport. We were very impressed with his determination and persistence against all odds. “I earn quite a decent income now. If I knew English fluently, I could earn more because I would not be hesitant in taking on assignments that required some additional knowledge of English,” he said in Gujarati. “I don’t plan on continuing this for too many years, because it is a dangerous job.” Given the way traffic is in India, I fully agreed. “I will go back to village and enjoy my life as a farmer.” We wish him luck. There is hope.
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Kutch is a part of Gujarat that was under sea once upon a time. In recent days, one can pump salty ground water and use it to create salt. A solar panel is used to power pump and so the whole system is self contained. (There is a backup in form of a diesel engine so that pumping can continue trough night.) The salty water is deposited in large rectangular pans and sun evaporates water to create salt crystals. That are ground up and sold. One problem is that the pan needs to be raked constantly so that the slat crystals don’t coalesce into giant bedrock. That is where Rajubhai comes in. He is a raker. For 7,000 Rupees (about $100) a month he does that break-breaking job day in and day out. His wife lives in a hut near the solar panel. She is determined not to get her children follow in her husband’s footsteps. A significant part of the salary goes in education their children. They don’t let children come and see what the father is doing, lest they get seduced into becoming rakers. There is hope.
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The Sister Nivedita Foundation does some amazing work. It was founded by Gulabbhai and Ushaben Jani in 1968 with the aim of providing quality education to all. We had the opportunity to meet Gulabbhai in Rajkot, my home town. He described in some detail what they do. They support a number of schools in rural areas and where there is no school, they bring in a school on wheels. One issue they identified is malnutrition among rural students. “If they are hungry, they can’t study,” said Gulabbhai. So they started a meals program. Then they found many had autism, so they created a program for those special needs children. They also started vocational training program in which college students studied computer science and English. For the elderly, they created a program to teach basics of how to use smart phone and manage financing. What we liked about the foundation is the way they are identifying needs of the population related to learning and implementing solutions. Revenues come from donations and nominal fee for services. A lot of experts denote their time to the good cause. My family has supported Nivedita Foundation in several ways and we hope to get involved as well. With people like Gulabbhai around, there is a great deal of hope.
Ashok 1 February 2019
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