UDAIPUR DAIRIES 2008

Train Journey-Mewar Express

This was the first time I actually went to Nizammudin Station to board the train to this wonderful and picturesque place called Rajasthan, which until now, I had only seen on the back of postcards, calendars and Travel magazines. I was really looking forward to this trip.

It was sleeper class- Coach No.S6. We started from Delhi at around 7:00 pm, 20 Jan 2008. Most of the time was spent playing Uno cards and telling scary and ghost stories. My seat was just next to the coach’s exit door, so every time the train stopped at any station, the passengers would come in or leave through that door, letting the chilly winds sweep through my already cold feet. Towards the morning whenever the train stopped at any station there would be chai wallahs screaming “chai.. chai…chai” .. in perfect rhythm- like beats in a music, following the same pattern every time. It was quite amusing. When I heard it for the first time, my eyes fluttered open and I was a bit shocked but pretty soon I was smiling and couldn’t help giggling. This thing surely woke me up and I felt it was actually more effective than my alarm clock. This was the start of my new refreshing journey…

21 January 2008

On reaching the station, again I couldn’t help but compare the cleanliness and management at that small station with that of Delhi stations. Everything was pretty neat.

Aastha training centre was about half an hour ride from the station, which we traveled through a mini bus. There were seven-eight people staying in one room like a dormitory. There was a common bathroom where their were 3 washrooms and 2 toilets, which had a kind of rotating flush near the tap…definitely something I had never seen before!

After getting ready we went downstairs for breakfast where we were served ‘poha’ and hot tea. Afterwards we washed our dishes at the room next door and went for the presentation/ class.

The classroom was actually a multipurpose room where they also conducted workshops and training for the rural people. It had mats and gaddas arranged on the floor with beautiful red and black traditional motifs printed on them. After the introduction with Ms Lakshmi Murthy, we started the day with reciting Sanskrit slokas and prayers, which made me a bit nostalgic and I was reminded of my school days.

But soon I was bought back to the present and was pondering upon the role of communication designers in the society-our social responsibilities. Hearing Touching Tasting Seeing and Smelling are the basic tools for communication. We discussed about visual perception and visual literacy that basically means that people from one social context have almost same opinions. The way they read an image. Then we also discussed about IEC: Information to inspire, Education to empower and Communication to convince you to take an action – development.

I also got to know about the MANTRA’S of SOCIAL COMMUNICATION, they are:

Maidan - research and understanding the playing field.

Dhyaan + kaan – pay attention to your audience and keep ear to ground.

Pehchaan – identify strategy that will be best

Jaan - put passion into playing

Abhiyaan – design the campaign

I saw many posters and works on Dowry, Female infanticide, Sex trade, Anti human trafficking, against drug abuse and Violence.

What I remember is that, It is important to know your audience before deciding your text or using images/pictures as they could have different meaning and perception than what you actually want to

convey. “It’s not how nice the picture looks but how clearly it speaks”

Evening we went to Shilpgram in a mini tourist bus. Shilpgram is situated 3 kms west of Udaipur near the Havala village is the Centre's Shilpgram - the Rural Arts and Crafts Complex. Spread over an undulating terrain of 130 bighas (70 Acres) of land and surrounded by the Aravallies,

This Rural Arts and Crafts Complex is conceived as a living ethnographic museum to depict the lifestyles of the folk and tribal people of the West Zone. Within this complex, huts of the member states are constructed incorporating traditional architectural features of different geographical and ethnic groups within the West Zone of India. I saw huts of Rajasthan, representing weaver's community from Marwar.

There are 2 huts named after the two sand bound villages of Rama and Sam from the desert region of western Rajasthan. From the hilly region of Mewar, is a potter's hut from the village Dhol, 70 kms west of Udaipur. Two huts represent the tribal farmer communities of the Bhil and the Sehariyas of the Southern regions of Rajasthan.

There was also an ornately carved wooden house from Pethapur near Gandhinagar and many other huts from the state of Gujrat.

Besides that there were pottery stalls, textiles, miniature paintings and swings. There were some cultural performances in the evening too, where we all sang, danced to the garba beats and also enjoyed the cultural songs

and dance performed by the traditional singers and dancers with ‘manjira’ twisting and turning in sync with the beats and tunes of folk songs along with hot Pakoras and tea from a small canteen down the road in the shilpgram.

Soon we were back in ashram and by around 8:30 pm, ate ‘roti and sabji’ washed our plates and settled down. I was quite tired and was the first one to go off to sleep in my room that day!

22 January 2008

We went to Sadhna Centre and saw a presentation on what it is about and its history. Earlier Sadhna used to be a part of Seva mandir but after it’s success it decided to branch out and started operating as a separate unit.

Its main motive is to empower the rural Indian Women by training them and providing them with work. Most of the work they used to get earlier was outsourced e.g. FabIndia, freelancers..Etc but now they have opened there own brand and shop. It has 618 shareholders who are also members/workers of the organization and 70 urban women working under it.

Sadhna has come a long way since it’s inception and has also learned valuable management lessons and learned the importance design expertise and design codes over the years. They also explained the whole cycle of how the raw material is distributed among the group leaders and who are responsible for distributing the work and later collecting the finished products from there group members and submitting the finished goods to the sadhna centre.

Then we saw a movie called ‘Mahu lage’ which means ‘acha lage’ /‘feels nice’. It was directed by an amateur and compared the socio-economic conditions of three different villages by interviewing the people living there.

Villages like papamaal and angoor ki bangal had some serious caste differentiation where Rajputs and Tribal refused to consider everybody as equal creating lot of disharmony. I learned about ‘muster rolls’ where a person (contractor) is responsible for a certain number of people and takes money from organizations like govt., NGO’s for private projects to pay the people under him. In these villages what is happening is that the contractor takes money for more people than actually employed by him. He would write the name of all the tribals in the list but won’t give the tribals any work or money. Therefore what is happening is that the contractor is getting richer whereas the poor people/tribals are becoming poorer.

The movie also showed the contrasting life of another village where everybody was treated as equal members of the village and how progressive was the development of the village and community people discussed every problem together and worked together to overcome it. In the film they showed ‘Anicut’ being constructed by the villagers. An ‘anicut’ is a small dam.

Another very important issue that arose was that of women empowerment. I was really touched by the video when they showed an evening get-together in the village where both men and women got together and discussed that its important for women to earn livelihood and stand on their own feet and they also deserve equal respect from males in the society. It felt nice to see women in the Rural India stand up for there rights.

Then we went to Sadhna shop which was just next door and I bought some lovely earrings and anklet. The products and prices were almost like Fab India. From there we went to the factory where women sewed, stitched and finished the products with proper labels and packaging.

Later that day we also went to Sisvi village for a field trip. There we sat on the floor and chatted with a group of workers from Sadhna, who were busy doing embroidery on a mat. They all worked and supported their families while their children went to school. Some of them even took work to their houses to do it whenever they got time.

They had two group leaders and one of them had been to China. Her perception of the outer world was expectedly different from others! She was very impressed by the way women dressed and worked there. According to her women out there didn’t have to waste much money to buy bindi or kajal or jewellery and they mostly worked in shops and carry

suitcases. (loved her observation!!!) She was the most outspoken one in her group and had a friendly disposition unlike others who would pull a pallu over there face when we tried to speak to them. She said that not all village women’s family would allow them to go abroad like that and I realized how much difference that China trip had made to her personality. She even convinced her friends to sing few traditional songs for us. Later we sat down and had spicy aloo poori for lunch. The aloo sabzi was red in almost colour. It was an unusual and

lovely experience!

That evening we went to ‘Apni Dhani’ for dinner, which was a truly traditional Rajasthani experience! It was culture treat I bought lovely key chains, enjoyed camel rides, magic shows and rope walking show while enjoying hot ‘chhanch’ and papads ..It was amazing. Then we went inside the hut and sat on floor mats and were served with the traditional dal- bati-churma and yummy Desi ghee jalebi’s. The food was served with so much love and affection that everybody couldn’t help smiling and laughing and some of us had to literally run outside to stop from being overfed!!!!!!!

23 January 2008

Today we got to learn about vermicompost and it’s uses and benefits over chemical fertilizers. I learned some interesting facts like how earthworms produces 60 cocoons in one lifetime, lives for about 6-12 months and it can produce 10 tones of manure in 2 months. Interestingly not many people are aware that the crops from chemical fertilizer

cost Rs160/kg in the market whereas crops from vermicompost manure cost only Rs 16/kg. The vermicompost unit is 2 ft wide 10 ft long and 1 and ½ ft deep. This measurement is scientifically researched and is most beneficial for earthworms to produce manure. People can create ‘Nadap’ (which is a kind of mini- vermicompost unit) in their houses by dumping all the biodegradable waste in a pit which will eventually turn into manure. This manure is natural and far more healthy and nutritive for soil and crops both than chemical fertilizers.

Later that day we went to ‘Shuchi’, a Vermicomposting Unit, It was 5 minute walk from Aastha training centre. Many of us even bought some manure packages.

After lunch we went to Handmade paper factory where we saw the whole process right from making (80%hosiery with 20% wastepaper)paper pulp mixing to spreading the pulp on mesh and pressing the sheets and finally sun drying them. We even bought many sheets as there was so much variety and it was cheap too.

Later that day we were briefed about group presentations, the whole class was divided into groups and given a place like Aastha training centre, sisvi village etc. I was in the Aastha training centre group and we sat down later night and discussed the design opportunities at that place.

That night we went to this restaurant called ‘AMBRAI’ for dinner which was located on the outskirts of city palace and in the open with proper laltern lamps and angeethi. It was an amazing experience.

24 January 2008

Today we saw Ms Lakshmi Murthy’s presentation- she showed a lot of her work.

Her main area of niche area is sexual and reproductive health communication for rural adolescents.

Within this:

Design, develop, produce and sell communication products

Conduct workshops for rural audiences on sexual health

Conduct training of trainers and health educators

Why Communication Fails?:

One size fits all Fallacy of participation, Myth of the universal symbol

What makes communication effective?

Audience centered strategy ,Visual literacy, Translation and integration .

We discussed the issue of sexual health in rural areas. The barriers in imparting reproductive health info like ‘ Isn’t it too

graphic for a 14 yr old? Or when does it cross into pornography? Or should it be depicted through pictures at all?? And

such issues.

I learned about Rural pictograms-on social environment and local culture, tradition and health and the effective method of

conducting field surveys. She discussed the challenges she faced as a ceramic designer entering the field of social

communication and how she got scholarships and all to support her vision. It was inspiring and motivating to see her

pamphlets, flip books, brochures,sanitary napkins, take aways- we got a free booklet called “ safai ki jaankari’and story

books with pop outs that were designed to make itinteresting. This also conveyed the message so clearly. The traditional

Kaanwad of Southern Rajasthan. A wooden box with many sets of doors that open out, each surface on the box originally

had paintings of local legends. The Kaawadiya or storyteller moved from village to village with this box narrating stories

of local heros. The same product was used to Communicate for Sexuality issues.

We also saw a movie on Bondage labour and discussed the

issue of Women Empowerment with Mr. Kailash who had done

masters of social work. Later that afternoon the whole class got

divided into groups and was given documents on role of women in vedic ages and middle ages to enact

a play on it!

Not only was this play an eye opener to the contrast in the position, privileges and power of women back in the Vedic ages but also how the politicians and power-hungry Brahmins used their authority to rule and enslave women to their own advantage and introduced practices like sati, purdah system, and other social systems which further degraded the position of women making her powerless and dependent on the men in her life- father, husband, son.

I felt sad discussing this whole issue and to learn that the female infant mortality rate was actually more in urban places like Delhi, Punjab, Haryana etc. was more than in rural places despite the education and awareness was a bit disturbing. Later we presented these problems by enacting a play in groups.

And then we also saw Ms Alka’s presentation that evening, she is from the Art and crafts Institute, Jaipur in the evening.

She showcased a lot of products made from bamboo, Patwa craft, Korai grass in Tamil Nadu. They were very innovative, beautiful and inspiring.

That evening we went to Hotel Jagat Palace, it had beautiful jharokhas and spectacular view of the City Palace.

25 January 2008

Today we made a presentation on Aastha Training centre discussing the whole design process and decided to finally work on the poster for Toilet training for rural people.

Then we went to a ‘pichwai’ painters house. Mr. Rajaram Sharma, where he showed us his work and

discussed the method of making paints by crushing rocks and mixing it with gum and using squirrels feathertail to make a natural brush and tying it up with pigeon feather. I also tried my hand at it. It requires practice and dedication. He told us that this kind of work takes months to make but he enjoys it and also teaches it to other students who work under him. We chatted and had tea as he showed us his awesome paintings with such minute detail that he had placed magnifying glases next to the paintings for us to observe his work!

From there we went to see the Famous City Palace, which was to say in one word- Grand! To me, it is beautiful, elegant and royal. They had secret passages, paintings, sculptures and furnished bed rooms on display. Also the view from the Jharokhas was magnificient!!

It was a memorable experience, not only did I got exposure to social life and culture in Rajasthan but also got to know my

friends better!I really enjoyed this trip. I would always remember Ramneek ma’am and Akhilesh Sir for giving us the opportunity to enjoy this trip to the fullest