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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 15th.
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)
