Karad

So here I am in a place called Karad, somewhere in Maharashtra! There aren't many bears around. Which saddened me at first, because I wanted to see a real wild bear. But there are 2 rivers, and the scenery makes up for the mosquitoes and the heat.

Why am I here? It all happened this way. I wanted to do a CTARA project in summer.

Sometimes, i feel like my work in IIT is way too sheltered. If I have a question, I just go to the Professor and get my concepts sorted out. There's really no active learning. CTARA projects are different.CTARA deals with real world problems that are complex and multi dimensional. It's not just the technology one has to look at, but the social prejudices, the economics of the problem as well as legal factors.

For example, last year I worked in a slum rehabilitation colony Majas. Majas is huge. There are about 1000 residents living in the colony. These people originally belonged to slums located on the Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road. The slums were demolished to make way for the road and they were thus shifted to Majas.

Majas had several problems. The colony was filthy because the residents has not abandoned old habits of flinging waste from their kitchen windows and continued this behavior in the colony. There were rats the size of puppies scurrying around. The people were so poor that even saving a few Rs here and there made a big difference to their life style. The economics of different solutions to their waste disposal problem was paramount.

In addition, there was insufficient security protection for the women folk. Drunken brawls etc. were pretty common in the evenings. A colony of that size by rights should have had a police chowky. The people of Majas were blinded my caste. They also mistrusted authorities. They were staunch supporters of different political parties with the Shiv Sena dominating the list and many a colony fight had a decided political edge to it.

I went into the field, with my lovely sophisticated ideas of biogas plants and different waste disposal schemes and my broken Hindi. I came out, a different person, though unfortunately my hindi did not improve much :P. I went in chock full of energy ideas, I came out a sadder and wiser person. The people did not want a bio gas plant. They wanted affordable water, which mean a revamping of their inefficient water distribution scheme. They did not want their septic tank to keep overflowing every day. They did not want a water tank located in such and such area because they believed the BMC would snatch the land away from them, and they would be left without a pump. They did not want such and such a person to be in charge of handling an issue and taking charge even if he/she was willing because they belonged to a lower caste. There were so many constraints!

Working with them ,talking to them, coming up with all the constraints and identifying possible solutions was challenging and I learned a lot! As anyone, who knows me would know, my Hindi is atrocious and communicating with former bar dancers and what not really was tough. Luckily, that helped me make a lot of friends as people laughed at my efforts and looked at me as a big joke and were ready to help the poor weak minded girl out as much as possible.

I got to know a lot of kids there my age, and a more determined bunch I have never seen. They were set on rising in the world and supporting their families. Their juggling of working at CCD in the day, studying in college in the afternoon and doing odd jobs in the evening and night was truly marvelous to behold.

In addition I met a lot of interesting adults. One of the women I met had been a bar dancer. She was confused and scared when the MMRDa relocated them and tried to teach them how to manage their cooperative housing societies. She actually had the guts to take up a Social Work course and learned the rudiments of managing a cooperative housing society, waste disposal techniques etc. Even though she was of a low caste, her learning prompted the rest of the society to accept her as secretary of the Union of Majas.

The good experience I had made me want do another CTARA project this summer, but this time in my core field of energy. I accepted a project to do an energy analysis of different types of brick kilns with a class mate. My team member went home and only came back on the 19th. Brick kilns close around this time before the rains begin. I thought we would have to drop the project. I knew I could not handle the survey by myself as I didn't know enough Marathi to save my life. However, we decided to just hop into a bus and try and do as much as possible while we could on the 20th of May.

It was a completely last minute plan.

I had been very frustrated with my other work. I decided to just play along with Fate and go to Karad.

And thats how I find myself here.

It was so hot in the morning, that I felt like lying down on the fiery bricks and let the vultures go at it. It was far too hot to live forget about moving and talking and asking survey questions. So here we are, back in our residence here waiting for the heat to abate before we venture out again.

After all, if all fails at least I can say that Life is an Adventure!