After the absolutely fabulous program at Malay Mukherjee’s place (more about this later) and having pissed off the fathers and nuns at Dashari (more about this later too), I woke up late to the sound of one of the nuns knocking at my door. She had kept breakfast for us even at 9.30 in the morning. Brush. Chana. Bread. Tea. Bath. Nishtha at 11am. Shruti was unwell and so was at home in Calcutta. Tapoti di, Phani and I thus set off for Umarpota, a small village which took us around an hour by auto to reach. We were basically to explore the various projects Nishtha was involved with.

First came the youth group. It has a bunch of youngsters who are educated and try to spread awareness amongst the villagers wrt issues such as health rights, child marraige, education etc. They perform plays and each person who has undergone training is responsible for educating at least 10 others. One of the boys had been inspired by the communist ideology and so became part of this group. They sang us some songs in their language. Even called a kid who sang Himmesh Reshammiya for us..made me sing too

One of the guys at Youth Group

Youth Group

Then there were the grannies who had been abandoned by their children, some of whom were even beaten by them, and were trying to live their last few years peacefully. They all crowded around us hoping we’d bring in funds I think and started narrating their tales. The brutality of the conditions they live in was heart rendering. Only Bengali was difficult to understand so Tapoti di translated the gist to us all the time. I sat on a swing made of rope and spoke to them

After this the mahila mandal, which is a powerful organization of women spoke to us. I was really impressed by their leader. She was extremely animated and a really strong woman with a sparkle in her eyes. From her came stories of injustice to women and how the mandal protested, talked to the authorities, tried to empower the females using the power of a group. We even visited her house. Some young children came in and performed a folk dance for us :). We visited a place, where they were doing zari work on the sarees ( that was the prime occupation in that village.) I tried my hand at making designs on saris and sucked at it big time 

There was another house we went to where all the houseware was under one bed! The per month income of a family is approximately Rs.1000 including the goods they get ‘in kind’. They live a really hard life. But what touches you is that they still offer you moodi and coconut because you are guests in their home.
Well all in all it was an interesting day. Lots of rural bengali culture, their troubles, their lives..
By the time we got back it was quite late and we ate and we crashed…Shruti was to join us back the next day

All this is under her bed!