Junagadh and Diu
On Monday night i took an overnight bus to Gadu, which is where the AKI 'cluster office' for the Junagadh (south Gujarat) region is located. The bus was modified to hold bunk beds, with each level of the bunk accommodating two people. N. and I shared a level--slightly cramped. The bus rocked back and forth the entire journey, and i couldnt have slept for more than an hour.

We arrived at Gadu in the early morning. The village was covered in thick fog, and the air was clean and coolish--a pleasant change from Ahmedabad. Although Junagadh gets a medium amount of monsoon season rain, inner Junagadh does not have enough water for irrigation of crops and drinking, so AKI is raising awareness among villagers about water conservation, and also helping them to make efficient use of the water they do have--most of the work here is micro-irrigation, which involves distributing water (pumped electrically from wells) in small amounts directly to the roots of plants. The coastal areas of Junagadh suffer from different problems, namely salinity ingression (sea water gets into the aquifers and makes water salty and unfit for drinking, and harms agricultural productivity).

Breakfast (ghatia, chili peppers, spicy cabbage--what a weird combination) was served in the guest house bedroom with tea and biscuits. I later met Sailesh, who drove me out (motorcycle) to a village to look at the micro-irrigation system one farmer has setup with AKI's help. The micro-irrigation has enabled the farmer to grow pre-monsoon crops like brinjal, which he sells for a better-than-monsoon-season margin in the markets. By this time, I was starting to feel a bit ill from having drunk the well water that morning (my stomach went for a six, as they say--a six is a home run in cricket, basically), but managed to keep a lid on things, so to speak, until we got back to the office. After a couple of immodiums, coconut milk and some antibiotics and a few hours of sleep i was back to 80%--my first and only sick experience so far. Lesson learned: well water is no safer than city tap water, drink mineral water only in future.

Gadu has only one place to eat, and it serves the most unappetizing food. I had kicheri and Khudy (lentils, rice and a yogurty sauce) that night, 'light and simple food' on N.'s recommendation. The next day Pankaj drove me to another village, Moti Dhunej, to see the beginning of work on a check dam and deepening of a section of river (a tributary of the meghal river, which is a monsoon-season river that feeds the village) that will trap water and hold it for long enough for it to percolate down into the acquifers and recharge the groundwaters. Pankaj estimates that the water table will rise by 10 feet (about a 100% rise) during the monsoon season with the check dam's help. This means that agricultural productivity will increase and there will be water to drink.

That evening I finished my book (India: a wounded civilization by VS Naipaul) and played cricket with the kids who live on the cluster office campus (AKI worker's families)--it was fun. I am good at batting but suck at bowling. The kids (three) were very cute and friendly, and very smart. They asked me about 10 times how long i was staying and why, showed me their roller-skates and taught me to count in Gujarati. One of the boys was especially sweet, and hung on my every word, often repeating what I had said, but turning the esses in to 'sh's (as they do in Gujarati), so after I said my last name was Sunderji, he said, 'Ah, Shoonderji' while slowly nodding his head in approval and contemplation. He reminded me a bit of Yoda, actually, except 300 years younger.

I was also constantly entertained by the family of puppies living in a corner of the garden, whom i played with while the mother was away. Between the kids and the puppies, and the fresh air of Junagadh, it was a pleasant visit.

On Thursday I got a ride down to Talala, close to the Gir national sanctuary, where the last asiatic lions still live. I met the cluster office staff (only three), had an excellent lunch, and got a ride out to the sanctuary, where i did not see any lions. Unfortunately, i didnt have enough time to visit a village that i had wanted to see (a Siddi village--Nigerian Africans who were brought to India a few hundred years ago), but it was interesting to see what that office is working on: helping people who have lived in the Gir forest to become less dependant on the forest resources, and develop alternative livelihoods. Their work is much more social and political in nature compared with the mostly NRM (natural resource management) work of the people in Gadu.

So concluded my visit to Junagadh, and my lasting impression is of the hospitality of the field staff--I truly felt like some sort of visiting elite dignitary--along the way everybody was mindful of my security, health and comfort, and i think they tried to teach me a lot in a very little time.

I caught an evening public bus to Diu, which was painful. The whole bus shakes and rattles as it plods along, with the driver honking the VERY LOUD horn every ten seconds, and almost killing many things on the road. i wanted to explain to him that might is not right, but i think the language barrier would have been a problem, not to mention the thick metal seperating driver from passengers. I made some earplugs from toilet paper, but they didnt work very well, so i just moved to the relatively peaceful back of the bus.

Diu is a small island in the Arabian Sea, seperated from the Gujarati mainland by a thin strip of marshland.

Santosh, one of the staff at Gadu, had told me stay with Nasrubhai Jiwani, and Ismaili, who owns two hotels in Diu. I guess Santosh had called ahead, as they were expecting me when I arrived, and I was ushered into Nasrubhai's modern office by a throng of servants. It turns out that Nbhai is the president of the Ismaili council for Saurashtra, one of ten Ismaili districts in India, which means he has met the Aga Khan at Aiglemont and is what Grandpa would call a 'big man'. He is revered by his staff of 80, who call him a 'great man' and extoll his virtues, including honesty, shrewdness, generosity and loyalty. When Shah Jehan (head waiter at the hotel restaurant, alias Babu) speaks of his boss, his eyes get misty and he looks off into the horizon. Husain, head of staff, says Nbhai's hands-off managerial style makes him a pleasure to work for, and Husain estimates that Nbhai rakes in 15 million rupees a year, which is 300,000 USD, and is a heck of a lot of money here in India, yet he lives in a humble house just behind the hotel. Anyhow, i dont know what is truth and what is not, but Nbhai commands respect of a magnitude that one doesn't see in Canada, especially among employees towards their boss.

MORE ON DIU, JAMATKHANA, BEACHES & FRIENDS, POLITICS, THE MEDIA AND ECONOMICS TOMORROW
- posted by aziz @ 11:15 a.m.