The plan that day was to visit the Dausad gadhera, an area where Grassroots had made considerable progress.

After breakfast we got into a cab and picked up Girija at Kalika. Then we drove to the Dausad Manch office where we met one of the representative’s of the Manch. He told us a lot about the work that was done in the Dausad region and that though the Manch office was originally set up in association with Grassroots, it was now run entirely by the Manch.

We also visited a farmer, Lakshman Singh who has a biogas plant which was installed by the Kumaon Artisans’ Guild. It was pretty cool, he told us he had four buffalos (apparently their dung is better for the plant than cow dung) and from that he got enough biogas to cook his dal/chawal three times a day. He also had an LPG cylinder which he used as back up. The bio-gas flow is pretty good through out summer, but slows down during winter. (The rate of reaction is temperature dependent). So he said that roughly, one LPG cylinder lasts him about ten months and that he very rarely uses firewood as a cooking medium.

The problem as we could clearly see was that there was very little water. The field was parched and the plants that he’d planted were on the verge of drying up. We asked him where he got the water from and he said from an infiltration pump that Grassroots had built. He said there was enough water for drinking and washing, but not enough for the fields.

We asked him a whole lot of questions and he answered everything very patiently. Finally at the end of it, I wanted to know: did he have any trouble at all with the biogas plant? He thought a bit and then replied and occasionally, if he didn’t close the connecting pipe from the plant to the kitchen, it would fill up with water. But he hastened to reassure us, that that happened very very rarely!

We got back into the car and drove a bit more. We drove up to the top of a hill and then all of a sudden – with absolutely nothing in sight, Mehraji tells the driver to stop the car and we get out and start trekking down a hill. It wasn’t particularly steep or anything, but I was wearing my (infamous) pink chappals, and I had a bit of trouble climbing down the hill.

Aside:

Why I wore the pink chappals: I’d lugged along a heavy pair of sneakers (yes, they’re heavy when you carry everything on your back), but the previous day, we’d visited a village and the pink chappals proved perfect. They’re really comfortable to walk in, and now and then, the slopes were fairly mild, so no trouble there. But the best part was that when someone invited us into their house, I could just kick the chappals on and off while the others had to painfully unlace and lace their sneakers.

So when I heard we were visiting the Dausad village, I thought we would drive up to the village and then walk around, talking to the villagers. That seemed to be an activity the pink chappals seemed most suited for. So that’s what I wore. Little did I know that Mehraji had in store for us, ardous treks up and down hills. The others in their sneakers climbed up and down with ease while I tripped and slipped all over the place.

After a longish bit, we met an old man climbing down the hill and walked with him to his village. There we had a looong chat with him about all the different things that were happening in the village. His village has played a big part in the reforestation of the hills around the Dausad gadhera. The women from the village run a small nursery where saplings are grown. These are later transplanted to the hills.

After lunch (which Meena didi packed for us) we trekked up another hill to see the reforestation work done by the village. It was incredibly hot and part of the way was along the dry Dausad river bed, which struck home forcibly just how bad the water situation there is. We were relieved to finally find some shade under the tallest tree there; 8 feet tall, a little more than a sapling. We sat on the grass under the tree and the women told us how this tiny oasis of shade had been three years in the making.

The interesting thing is that although there was still so much more work to be done, (a forest is grown over several lifetimes) the women were already feeling the impact of their work. They said that the trees under whose shade we were sitting contributed to a significant change in their society.

Grassroots works on three levels with the people of Kumaon. The most granular level are the women’s self help groups that all come under the umbrella of the Umang Mahila Samiti. These SHGs are involved in pickling and preserving local produce (we couldn’t get enough of the yummy plum chutney!) and produce a lot of hand-knitted warm wear. All of us left Ranikhet with woolly hats and mufflers.

The next level is the village council where all the people of the village get together to make decisions collectively. Grassroots was instrumental in getting the villagers to collaborate for their common good. Decisions like who will run the nursery and which areas will be set aside for reforestation are taken here.

The third level (and possibly the most influential) is the Manch. The Manch is a body that represents the entire gadhera. It has two representatives from each village fed by the gadhera. The representatives are ideally supposed to be a man and a woman, but given that so many men work outside of Kumaon, there’s a larger percentage than usual of women. The Manch is a much bigger deal than it sounds because traditionally, the interaction between the villages was extremely limited. This way they discuss problems that affect them all and together are able to approach the government and forestry department to make changes that will affect the gadhera and ultimately the entire Kumaon region.

We were fortunate enough to meet a wonderful woman, Radha Sati - or Radha didi as everyone calls her. She’s the adhyaksh or head of the Manch that represents the Dausad gadhera. What really struck me about her was her vision. We were at an impromptu meeting and while I was probing to find out how exactly the village council worked, an old man took off on an unrelated tangent. The discussion, about something trivial, got a little heated, but Radha didi didn’t get involved. She waited for it to run its course and then continued with the things that were important.

Later she invited us home and over a cup of tea told us about the water situation in her village. It was particularly bad at that point of time and the naula was kept under lock and key except for an hour in the morning when each family could come and collect their ration of water.

We took a (poignant) picture of the locked naula and headed home. It had been a long day and we had a lot of stuff to digest.