First Rains, Farewells

Yesterday was my last day traveling down the winding road of rubble into Nanegaon. I leave later this week to return to Saratoga, a world apart from India, a universe apart from Kolwan Valley. With all the time I've spent here, I expected to be a little nostalgic. So in the late afternoon, I put my bag aside, and sat out in the porch overlooking the farm.
The chickens had just been released from the coop, and were frantically socializing around me. A couple birds stirred in the trees above, and Sarjaa, the dog with notoriously high BP took notice with the raise of one ear. In the background, I heard the bells around the cows in the shed ring as they nestled into the Napier hay.
And I realized, its really quiet. Even the distant whirr of a scooter engine couldn't disturb the stillness. A swift breeze dove into the trees above me, almost to counter my thoughts. I looked up, and saw the clouds rolling in in the distance.
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While working for Gomukh, I've had the opportunity to not only be involved in the renewable energy project, but also gain exposure to the organic vegetables project. The NGO mode of operations can just like that of a corporation, but at the grassroots level, it can often be like a family. Tasks are assumed and shared, hours are not counted, eating together is a priority, and the line between work life and home life is indistinct. My trips to Nanegaon were thus often like going home.

As the rains came in, I felt this strange sense of excitement. I was excited partly because these would be my first rains in India during this trip- I was worried that I would leave without seeing any. In India, rains have a positive connotation- they mean humidity, the smell of wet dirt, damp clothes, and a welcome cooling. Well, at least positive for me.
But I knew that the excitement was not only because of this anticipation. I think that in an agricultural area, inevitably, the rains mean something much more. It means free irrigation. My own germinating Napier grass aside, being in Nanegaon, I feel like some of the unsaid hopes and desires of the locals rubbed off onto me. Maybe it was the buzz in the air that infused that feeling, as the slow, light drops started to dot the soil. The feeling was magical.

The relationship of the villagers with the rain is also interesting. Rain is revered, but at the same time, seen as a bit of a tease. Even as the clouds rolled into the valley, they insisted that it would be a short rain, a passing sprinkle. It was only when the drops started to splash on our skin that they sprung into action, pulling out tarps and covering their bales of hay.
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When the rain passed, and the clouds started to migrate, we were finishing the work on setting up the digester. Finally, I felt like I was leaving after completing a significant part of the project. This digester had taken a long time to get going.
The sun, which had not quite set yet, was shrouded by the misty remnants of rain clouds, and actually looked like it was rising. The roosters about, and the freshness of the air, created this really amazing pseudo dawn- at 6:30pm. As the dawn gave way to darkness, I looked at the lights in the distance. I asked Jalender dada whether they were the lights of Pune, he laughed and said that they were the lights of the neighboring village.

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As we rolled over the Pirangut Ghat and into the lights and sounds of Pune, I wondered what my next visit to Nanegaon would be like. Change is unquestionable. Being a part of it for the last five months has been special.

-Nikhil

Labor

I don't think I've been back in India long enough to title this post 'Labour'.  American spellings persist. In any case, I recently publicized this blog to more people, and I've gotten some great feedback and responses in the last week or so. Thanks and keep them coming!  Interestingly, I got a couple questions about people who work in the village itself, and although I did my best to answer those questions via email, I feel like there's enough to say about the subject to post about it. So here are some thoughts. 

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A couple months ago, when our project in Nanegaon was in its early stages, a couple of us at Gomukh sat down to discuss the variables which would be included in defining sustainability criteria and making energy calculations for the project.   Land, water, and expense were an obvious few, but what struck me as slightly odd was labor. Mentioned in the same breath as the first few factors, it sounded like a measurable and quantifiable commodity.  The term 'Man-days'; the unit in which this variable would be recorded, added to the feeling that labor was a natural resource like any other on the list.  It didnt sound right. In the months since, I've seen that there is both validity, as well as great incompleteness to this perspective. 

Let's talk about the validity first.  In this great country of more than a billion people, there are a great number who are young, enterprising, and in need of a job. It is a diverse pool of labor, with a range of skilled and unskilled, educated and uneducated Indians.  But it often means that whatever the job, if you are willing to pay, then there's someone willing to help.   If you live in the city, and need carpentry or electrical work done in your flat, you can often find someone to do the job at a cheap rate within the building you live in. If you are a farmer in Maharashtra, you often no longer work your own field, but rather hire nomadic laborers who migrate from the tribal areas, and live in small tents on the fields during harvest season. And if you are an NGO like Gomukh, working on environmental projects in rural areas, much of your on-the-ground work is done by uncontracted, temporarily hired youngsters. It is an accepted fact, an automatic which goes without much saying or planning. 

Now lets talk about the incompleteness. First of all, I don't know about you, but to me, the term labor is slightly demeaning (recent moms...you're reading this wrong). It seems to imply very little value addition, which is quite often not the case. But more importantly, treating labor as a commodity or natural resource is incomplete because unlike other variables, people are a highly non-static, dynamic resource.  Not just in availability and number and other quantifiable indices, but the behavior of the variable is also highly dynamic. 

Now this wouldnt be very important if India was truly the vast labor pool it's made out to be, but in reality, this is a slightly simplistic view.  Labor- people- shift based on job availability, on earning potential, on quality of life, and on a variety of other factors, making it a little less reliable than it is made out to be. 

The situation in the Kolwan valley is a great example of this phenomenon.  Recently, it has been incredibly hard to find labor for Gomukh projects in the valley.  When asked why, the locals will often blame it on a one-off excuse- such as a religious holiday, or the 'baazaar day', or the heat.  Sometimes they'll just say something like "Well, it IS the second Thursday of the month", and you just have to nod your head in understanding, although you know there is nothing special about the second Thursday of the month.   But this belies a larger truth- that the youth of the valley are leaving for the cities. 

Why does this happen? Well, for one, Kolwan valley has a unique problem because it is situated closer and closer by the hour to the amoebic cities of Mumbai and Pune.  The other potential reasons are plenty- factories offer reliable wages, the city often promises a higher standard of living, the huge amount of respect earned.  I believe that the most important reason has to be the lack of meaningful opportunities for advancement, and the boredom in the village. No educated youngster is highly motivated to do hard farm work, especially when they see their parents generation contracting this work out to other laborers.  So unfortunately, while the unedcuated youth fall prey to alcoholism, the educated leave for the promise of the city- making 'labor' a very unsustainable resource. 

Is it a rational move? Not necessarily. The standard of living in the city as a rickshaw driver, as a factory worker, or as part of the informal economy is not high, and I would bet that most people would live longer if they remained in the village.

But at least they're doing something. 

That is why I believe that it is not only rural education which will spur the progress of rural development through locals, but also alongside the creation of diverse local income generating activities.  This will have to be championed by NGO's at first, who would train workers, promote businesses, and set up saving groups and microfinance banks. Eventually, one would hope that the area would be brought to a self-sustainable level. 

This way, instead of the cities sucking away the village's best, brightest, and youngest, some of that hope can be retained locally.  On the macro level, this will also mean that India's growth will happen  in a more inclusive and less polarized fashion. 

Remember the famous Youth that I posted about a while ago?  It's not just a Labor Force, its a Force in a total sense.  It just needs some marshalling. 

-Nikhil