To Earn a Dollar.....

I don’t remember her name any more but couldn’t forget her weak aged lean wrinkled structure from my visit to her small tribal hamlet in Odisha ​almost 15years ago.  I heard she had ​lost her children to some unknown disease…. “It is a malaria prone zone. Tribes prefer to trust the local healers​ who claim a chicken or a goat with some money to perform rituals rather ​than going to the health center which is miles away where the poor hardly get any service”, said Amulya bhai.  To give you a background, Amulya and his wife Geeta worked​ tirelessly for the rights of tribal in the unknown forgotten areas of Odisha​ for years. 

The old lady used to live in a hut made of dry sticks and leaves that she could collect from the jungles she walked to and from everyday. Her every day chores included walking miles to reach the foothill to collect few chunks of granite. She used to carry those back on her head over a big oval shaped aluminum pot to her very own hut and had a designated naturally​ shaded place to sit. It used to take her the ​whole day to turn those chunks​ into small chips with a help of hammer in her hand. I would like to point that the summer temperature in that region officially reaches 48-49 degrees in Celsius. Government weather channel doesn’t go above that, as they need to declare emergency and take adequate measures to protect its citizens in case they declare the temperature anything above 50-degree Celsius or 122 degree Fahrenheit. Be it rain or shine, this old lady used to repeat this​ daily chore for at least 25days until she could make a pile of chips, which a middleman used to buy from her at​ Rs.50 or less than a dollar. No weighing, no negotiations. A heap of stone chips at Rs. 50.​

This​ personal experience made me realize the life of millions in my own country, to which I had turned a blind eye till then. I told myself that day, “Anddddddd…… I had inhibitions about ​how would I manage myself especially with ​my city washroom habits in this jungle when I started.” Can we all take some time to visit these people at least once in our life time before we even think of talking about various government schemes, plans and acts in the comfort of our home with a glass of wine in our hand? And be a bit more respectful to people who have done so for years?