A walk in the countryside

On our last day in Tumbagarah we decided to take a walk outside the Nav Jivan Hospital campus.

I had wanted to see my old friend Jitender Singh. A dozen years ago, I had made my first foray to Palamu district - to see the work that the folks from the People's Science Institute from Dehra Dun were helping to foster among the drought-prone villages of Palamu. The first arrival was memorable - early in a grey dawn, getting out at Daltonganj Station - seeing the place swathed in this ground-hugging coal smoke. The whole place pungent with the smell of black coal being used to warm up thin figures.

By the time I met Jitender the first impression had faded - especially since we were bouncing around in a jeep, visiting villages and looking at check-dams that had been made. Jitender showed me a local mission hospital on this trip - from the outside. It was on the road head to his village of Chetma, a 10 min walk. Little did I know that I would end up working 4 years at that self-same hospital - Nav Jivan Hospital - a year later.

And so it was Jitender that I wanted to meet, when we set out on our last day at Tumbagarah.

Some things remain blessedly the same - the village scenery around the hospital is just as it was a decade ago. Enoch wandering over some rocks has behind him a set of fields which have at their boundary an earthen check dam. This area usually has some water in the dam - but this year the rains were especially poor. The trees are the familiar lopped ones.

We were delighted to be walking outside in the cool October air. The sun was shining and all was well in the world. Ok, Asha's chappal broke - but we decided it was too far from the hospital to turn back now - and anyway - she could manage. The wayside trees provided a welcome shelter for the intrepid walkers to rest under!

A man came up from a field and was walking towards his house. I asked him if he could direct us to Jitender Singh's house. I knew it was close by.

The man answered that Jitender had been seen leaving on a motor-cycle that morning and was unlikely to be home. I was disappointed. In talking with the man we realised that we knew each other. It was Balram Singh - the cousin brother of Basmati Devi - one of our star community health volunteers from our days of working at Nav Jivan Hospital.

Balram welcomed us to come into his house - which we happily did. As we came in, his two adolescent sons were rummaging through a mound of papers that they took out of a plastic suitcase. The family safe. They were looking for a certificate for their admissions, but could not find it and so gave up after some time.


Balram had recently built the house. But had clearly made it in the old style. The doors were clearly ancient - and so was the design - the standard village house with no windows and high mud-plastered walls and a tiled roof.

As we sat talking, Balram told me how he had gone for work in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Both places he had worked in a factory, but finally decided that his world was the village and had returned.

In the corner I saw a beautiful wooden yoke. I asked him if he had made it, and he said yes - that it was made in 1992 (if I can remember correctly). The wood was smooth and strong. He had clearly used it and yet it remains an object of beauty.

Balram had noticed that Asha's chappal had broken and called for it. Taking some wire and a set of pliers, he started repairing the chappal, and soon it was fully functional again.


Sheba and the kids had gone into the kitchen and were talking with Balram's wife and daughters. The girls were both in school, and seemed not to be pressurised to marry. The topic of marriage did, of course, come up, and Sheba asked if their mother would allow them to marry an alcoholic. But everyone drinks here, said the mother. Does your husband? asked Sheba. No, she replied. Well, that's the kind of man you need to search for your girls.

Cooking is done using wood over a mud stove. Life goes on in this beautifully clean and cool home.

We did not want to say goodbye to the family (Left to right - Balram Singh, his wife, a relative of theirs, and 4 of his 5 children - the youngest was in primary school that morning).

On our way back we saw kids from Balram's daughter's school waiting for their midday meal. This is one thing that has started since we were there - and it has wonderful effects on school attendance in rural settings - to say nothing of the direct benefits to the children's growth, development and performance.

What will these girls' lives be like? We would love for Asha to be their friend and grow up with them.

It was hard for us to leave Nav Jivan Hospital in 2001. We still feel the pang when we come back and see life in the village - something that Sheba and I both felt a strong leading towards as we studied and prepared ourselves for ministry.

But then we had the unmistakable call to come to Mumbai and work with people with HIV.

Our short walk in the countryside reminded us of the wonderful simplicity that so many have - and also how much the apparently rural is interconnected with our cities.

Life is hard work in the rain-fed agricultural communities of Palamu and Latehar districts (the hospital is very close to the border of these two - now finding itself in the more recently formed Latehar district).

At the same time - the opportunities for change - and for living out a quality of life totally different from the slime-pits that most of our cities are - are rife in these villages. Would that there was a genuine peace and rule of law instead of the wide-spread hooliganism, almost non-existent police and many civil society structures - and the strong Maoist insurgency that continues to rumble in the background (and in the foreground too.).

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After we returned to Thane, an upset Jitender got through to me on the phone. He is very busy this time, because he is a candidate for the State Elections taking place on the 25th of November. He wants to represent the people of the Manika assembly seat.

Last week the current sitting MLA from the same Manika seat was kidnapped by a local Maoist group (a.k.a. the Naxalites) At the time of posting his fate remains unclear.