Where CRY means smiles :)

It was the end of November and it was ‘that time’ of the year. Every year I would save up all my holidays for my annual visit to my home country, India. As expected, I had a full agenda during my visit. Meet all the relatives, eat street food everyday, attend a friend’s wedding and do lots of shopping, the regular roster. This year however, I had another item in my to-do list. Ever since I started working for CRY in Seattle and learnt that they have a project in my home state Chhattisgarh, I had made up my mind to visit the project, the next time I went to India and now was the time. I was really looking forward to the visit!

So having coordinated all the plan with my friends at CRY, I was all set-up to visit Gram Mitra Samaj Sevi Sanstha (GMSSS) project in Kartala block of Korba district in Chhattisgarh, Here is what I expected my day would look like and how it actually turned out to be

	EXPECTATION	REALITY
Leave the origin	7:00 AM	7:00 AM
Reach Champa (first destination to pick up our guide to the project site)	10:00 AM	Noon
Reach project site (~60 kms from our first stop)	Noon	3:00 PM
Stay at the project site	4-5 hours	2.5 hours
Reach back home	10:00 PM	1:00 AM

While I kept cursing the dejected condition of Indian roadways for this delay, little did I realize I was going to witness a whole new world where the set of problems are much more grave than ours and life and happiness still find their way to persist there.

We reached the project site at around 3:00 PM and were greeted by the project leader Dinesh and some workers of the project. CRY office was a rented house in the village with a nice garden at the backyard and some Charpais laid out. Oh! That soothing and nostalgic rustic village feeling!! Having finished initial introductions, famished as we were, we quickly sat down to eat. We were served food prepared by the village workers using the vegetables grown in house at the backyard of the office. I have not had food as delicious as that in a long time. Rice never tasted so good and never in my life have I had a second serving of string beans curry before. The food more than made up for our roller coaster, angst and frustration filled journey to the place.

After our lunch, we set out to visit the village where CRY has been working with GMSSS towards enabling basic facilities to the children. We were told that our car wouldn’t be able to wade through the hills and troughs of the villages so we took their mighty jeep to reach a village with a population of 45. 45!! My B.Tech class size was more than that. When we visited them, I found this adorable shyness and hesitation in the village ladies and kids. The men were out for work, kids still in their school uniforms and few women sitting together having conversation. I could easily see how difficult life would be in these conditions where access to the village is limited by the hilly paths, where electricity seemed more like a luxury than a convenience, where kids have to travel to another village about 15 kms away to study any further than middle school and where the whole village gets cut off from the outside world post 4:00 PM because a herd of wild elephants blocks their only pathway to the external world.

While trying to mingle with the kids, I was listening to the stories how the life was before GMSSS and CRY helped these villagers and how their lives changed for the better since. CRY and GMSSS struggled hard to open an Anganwadi center (which they showed me very proudly as a badge of honor) in the village and recruit an Aanganwadi worker there. She took care of expecting mothers and infants in terms of providing them healthy food, providing medical facilities, taking care of required vaccinations etc. This helped in bringing down the infant mortality to a great extent. With much struggle CRY was also able to start construction of a new school building for the kids who were hitherto studying in a dejected building which felt like it could collapse like a house of card just about anytime. The villagers talked to me how the CRY workers sat with them and educated them in healthy practices, on the importance of education and sending their kids to school and also helped them in learning vocational training for women to productively use their time. I was so amazed and happy to see that some of the women were actively pursuing their education.

Since it was getting close to 4:00 PM, we had to leave so as to not get hindered by the herd of elephants. We came back to the office, had some tea and wrapped up the visit with some closing comments.

On my way back to my home, the roadways were still the same but now my frustration on them was all gone.  All I could think about was the quality of life I just witnessed and the contrast it was with what we have. We live in cities and complaint about things life traffic, pollution, noise, hectic work schedule while in just another part of the same country, same state, there are people who are facing first world problems like accessibility, availability of proper food, electricity and education. Since I joined CRY almost two years back, I’ve always heard in bits and pieces, the commendable work CRY has been doing for rural India but this visit was a cathartic experience for me, and, without a doubt, the highlight of my India visit this year.

I realized the impact of all that we do, when a ten year old kid from a village in the remotest location, when asked, ‘Aapka naam kya hai?’ (What’s your name?), responded back in English ‘My name is Anil Kumar and I study in class 6^th’!! Those few magic words made my whole trip to the village and all the efforts we put together as volunteers, worth every mile.

Sharing some pics from the visit.

P.S. The kid in the pic is Anil Kumar who studies in class 6^th. What an adorable smile!