Impressions of Alwar (cont.)

Cities in India are a study of contrasts - high rise buildings beside dilapidated slums; latest cars beside bullock carts; six-lane flyovers go hand in hand with pot-holed lanes; children begging at streetlights while flabby children of rich parents munch on a packet of Lays and a coke. All this and more exist side by side in the cities. Villages, it seemed to me, more a study in lack of contrasts. The mud houses and the concrete buildings of the schools and the panchayat had the same look of hopelessness. Although the mud houses were the more flimsy of the two (since it looked like they could get washed away with a one good downpour), at least they were well-kept and spotlessly clean. The concrete buildings, on the other hand, were dark, dingy and dusty. The children could barely read, if at all. The dry ration kept at the Anganwadi Centre as part of the Mid Day Meal Scheme tasted like saw dust (as Raghav, being 6 years old and not inhibited by any kind of political correctness, very aptly put it, "no taste"). There was one female teacher present at the first school with whom Priya and I spoke to after inspecting the loo (that kind of broke the ice)! She drew a pretty sad but I think accurate picture of the state of education there. According to her, the school had a high drop out rate, especially for girls. Social vices were rampant such as drinking. Children were pulled out of school for months during harvest season or if parents had to leave in search of employment. When or if they were re-enrolled they had to start from scratch. Boys were sometimes pulled out and sent to better schools or for higher education (the school was only till Class 8). No such luck for girls. College was a distant dream for them since even among the boys only a handful went to college. Therefore, the stranglehold of poverty and social attitudes seem to be the biggest hindrance to progress of any kind. I also think that for these people education (or the mechanical way it is imparted in our schools) does not hold value because it does not translate into jobs or a better way of living.

I came away with a feeling that things would not change for these people until something drastic was done. The place is a few hours (3 hours) from Delhi but seems like a completely different world and era. Except for the teacher, an Anganwadi worker, and an ANM we did not speak to any village woman. As we walked through their clusters of houses, they just stared at us with expressionless faces. Some of them would return a smile shyly if we smiled at them. It reminded me of our annual visit to the zoo as kids. The difference here was the animals did not show half as much curiosity as we did for each other even though we were all the same species!