My conversations with Malika Virdi

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These are some of the many conversations that I had the privilege to have as I saw Malika Virdi's many facets - as a woman, as a person from a minority community, as a mother, as a mountaineer, as an artist, as a leader, as a last-minute project manager, as an agony aunt, as a farmer, as an activist, as a former Sarpanch, as a teacher, as a grandmother (to neighbour's kids), as a volleyball player, as a cook, as a strict task master, as a pet-lover, as a friend.. as a person living life to the fullest.

 Photo courtesy: Diba Siddiqi

I am scared of you!

Malika Virdi: It was nice of you to offer to take a back seat while working with the German researcher and let the locals get some visibility.

Lavanya Keshavamurthy: Thanks. I was not sure if I did the right thing. I am scared of you!

MV: It is because of the competitiveness that we are taught in the corporate world. It is refreshing to see that you are different. We'll see if this leads to our friendship. But, you can be scared of me if you want.

I want to die only once

MV: (Recollecting a conversation she had with a local during her Himalayan trek) I asked the person who lives literally on the edge, if he doesn't get scared of jumping off trees and cliffs. He said, “I do not want to be scared and die a 1000 times before I die. When the time comes, I will die, and nothing will stop me.”

LK: (repeating to myself, “I do not want to die a 1000 times before I die”)

Farmer or more?

One of the questions I wanted to find answers to was whether one can make a living as a farmer. We were trying to scare away some monkeys when we had this conversation. When I joined the fight, she had given up on a catapult and was trying to use a bow and arrow.

MV: It is a tough life if you want to make a living off farming. Look at those langurs (monkeys). They destroy half the crops, if they haven't already been eaten away by pigs and porcupines. And then, there are jealous neighbors who let their cattle graze in our fields.

LK: Also the unpredictable monsoons. Which is why my parents fear when I tell them I want to be a farmer.

MV: They are right. You should have an alternative source of income.

Leeches are better than humans

LK: I want to leave around May 15^th.

MV: You cannot leave before you finish all those items on the board. Or, do you have someone waiting for you in Bangalore?

LK: :-) I am told that leeches start appearing around the last week of May. I am scared of leeches.

MV: People are far more dangerous than leeches. We will ensure that you will not be bitten by leeches. (I was overwhelmed when she said this)

LK: I know. I have met some really creepy people in my life. Coming back to leeches.. I have this awkward scary feeling towards creepy crawly worms. It is similar to some people being scared of spiders.

MV: No, you don't know. You only know psychologically that some humans are bad. You haven't seem them all.

LK: hmmm..

Generalist or Specialist?

It was a few days after I had driven a taxi in Munsiari. By then, I had also done some basic carpentry fixes, built a slow sand filter, cleaned my room before vacating it, looked after goats, cooked for the family, etc..

MV: (addressing the women of the Sanghatan (women's collective)) We have to know everything and we will. We will drive a taxi, we will grow food, we will clean our house, we will cook, we will knit, we will use the internet, we will repair solar lamps, we will also be carpenters and plumbers if need be.

LK: I always had this fear of not being a specialist. To make matters more confusing, people told me 'you should not do this or that because you are an engineer/woman/team leader/inexperienced/etc..' But, now, I feel I had always been right.. I mean, I believe there is nothing wrong in learning and doing any kind of work; no job is big or small.

MV: You are right. Cities tend to make you grow vertically, forcing you to be good at one skill and ignore the rest whereas most of these other skills are life skills which we ought to know. Being in a rural setting makes you grow horizontally, forcing you to learn the much needed life skills and making you more complete.

How do you decide what is important?

LK: I made this list of pending items. There are some things which I may not be able to complete and there are some that I can continue from Bangalore.

MV: Hmm.. the fish pond is top priority. The kids have been waiting too long to see fish in their pond.

LK: (I was surprised because I expected something more 'important') Fishpond?

MV: Basanti's kids were the first to learn to bake cakes in a solar cooker and also teach others. They deserve to have the first fishpond in their village.

LK: But, there is so much work to be done.

MV: How much? Will it do if all the women in the collective work for a day?

LK: What? May be. I don't know. I am not sure. We'll try.

(I seriously was not confident of completing it, but eventually, we did complete it.

There was another (cement) pond already built by a well-off family in the same village, but Basanti's kids were indeed the first to get fish from Malika's pond. Oh, were they happy that day!)

These stones are God?

During 'Creative Edge' – a week reserved for artistic work, my art project was to sketch the story of the pond at Malika's place.

MV: Have you seen where the Jal Devi is (Water Goddess)?

LK: No, you have a Jal Devi?

MV: Yeah. (pointing to few irregularly shaped stones) You see those stones there? When we started creating our pond here, we did not know that this place was originally a water source and that the villagers worshiped those stones as the water Goddess. I am not religious, but the villagers believe that we got water in the pond because of the Jal Devi.

LK: I am not religious too, but I respect their belief. Their beliefs are so much simpler and non-intrusive compared to that in cities. Also, these people here are so open to others' beliefs and non-beliefs and are pretty modern in their thinking.

MV: I am glad you could see beyond their simple lifestyle. Some of these women just go along and treat religious events as inevitable social gatherings.

(We both knew who we were talking about.)

Do you mind moving?

Apparently, I was sitting in Malika's place in the office.

MV: If you don't mind, could you please move to a different place? I already have so many of my documents here and it would be tough for me to move.

LK: I moved to 5 different homes and you ask me if I mind moving 10 feet? :)

MV: :-) We knew you would understand us moving you to so many different homes.

LK: I did enjoy the love and hospitality of 5 different families.

Real world learning

We were discussing about my MBA course..

LK: Oh, we had a bit of accounting, a bit of economics, a bit of leadership, etc..

MV: OK. Here's some real social entrepreneurial learning opportunity for you. You need to create financial statements for our collective and also suggest an organizational model for us.

LK: I was planning to relax after the research project...

MV: Relax, huh?

(At the end of my stay, we had the template for the statements and 2 accounting classes conducted for the women in the collective to take it forward. I also got an opportunity to learn and share what I learned about producer companies as a possible alternative to co-operative societies.)

Competitiveness is good, no?

MV: (During my end-of-term appraisal) It is refreshing to see an urban woman be so non-competitive. You even let Ola wear your best sari during the mela!

LK: But, I would get numerous other opportunities to wear a sari. Wait a min. Did u say being non-competitive is good? During my corporate life, I was always asked to be more competitive and more visible. Thank you for bursting this myth.

20 years are not enough

LK: (looking at my TODO list) 2 months are not enough to do all that I want to do.

MV: 20 years are not enough. (20 years is the amount of time Malika has been in Munsiari)

It is not about 'who you are' (man/woman/outsider/local), it is about 'what you do'

One of the other questions that I had asked was about how local people (especially men) react when outsiders (especially women) try to bring about change in a community.

MV: I will not answer this question for you. I am sure you would have found the answer yourself.

LK: Yes, I did.

(Over numerous kitchen conversations, I saw that everyone (man/women did not matter) who had been touched directly or indirectly by Malika's work, had a great deal of respect for her)