Rakhi Paliwal

Rakhi Paliwal is 23 years old, she has been the Vice President of her Panchayat since 3 years. She manages the sanitation of her village by taking a round of her village on her bike at 4 AM to see that no one is going towards the farm with a mug in their hand. If they are she tries to stop them. She has been telling people that it is unhygienic to poop in the farm as many diseases spread. She has been putting up public toilets but no wants to go to the toilet, they say we don't want to go to a closed room. She tells those people to at least pour some mud on their poop as it stops it to spread diseases.

She has been into politics since she was in class 5 when she became the Vice President of her class. In class 9 she told her father I want to contest elections, he said you are too young right now. Se finally came of age and asked her father then. Her father said "no, you will not be able to concentrate as you have to get married." After that she held a meeting with her Panchayat members and told them " I will not get married until my term ends, please vote for your daughter". People did give her votes. She saw in college that a man was troubling a girl, she reported it and that person was sent to jail. Since then all men in her village have been away from women, especially Rakhi. She has been studying government schemes to help the villagers.

Her daily routine is, she wakes up at 4 and goes for a ride on her bike around the village to see to the sanitation. Then she comes back and leaves for her college which is 50 km away at 6 AM. She rides her bike till her college. She comes back from college at 2 PM and talks to people to see their problems. She then studies for her exams in law. She has exams right now and she said it is good that you came today because yesterday I had an exam.

Rakhi Paliwal is the first female Vice President of her panchayat. She is also the first female bike rider of her village. She is the first woman from her village to go to learn law and that too 50 km away!

When she was asked what gave you the motivation to become a politician, she said her father was also the Vice President of her panchayat but he was not eligible any more after he had two children. She said she was fulfilling her fathers dream. When she was asked what she wants to do ahead in her life, she said politics. She also added in India politics is not supposed to be a good word but I want to help people's problems that is why I want to get into politics, not to earn money.

Kalbeliya Dancers

Today we met Sua, she is a Kalbeliya dancer. She is 32 years old. She has 5 children, the eldest is 18 years old and the youngest is 4 years. Sua has gone outside India 85 times! Mostly she goes to France. She has also gone to several other countries, that is ho great a dancer she is.

Kalbeliya is a tribal group which is on the move at all times. They go around with many animals like donkeys, dogs, chickens etc. when the Kalbeliya people go to any village, they are soon kicked out. This is because their animals sometimes go to other peoples farms and eat all the fruits and eatable things. This is why Sua and her family moved to Jodhpur city in Rajasthan. Their family is one of the few who are not on the move at all times.

This tribal group concentrates only on one day. How they an survive for that day, they do not worry about the next day. Sua says "kal ka kal dekhenge" it means let today pass we will see how tomorrow goes later.

Till 30 years ago the earning for the Kalbeliyan group used to be daily wage labourer or similar works. As many people today know Kalbeliya dance is a great form of art. This tribal group did this dance only in their celebrations like a marriage. Sua said during any festival or celebration time, they would celebrate for the whole month. The mothers of these dancers teach them and that is how this ance is still present through so many generations. Sua also said that she creates new dance steps often but the Bollywood stars rob them from me, so I have to make new dance steps more often.

30 years ago Komal Kothari held a meeting of these great dancers and told them to spread this great art work, it would earn them a lot of fame. That is when Kalbeliya dancers performed on stage and were acknowledged.

The name Kalbeliya (meaning).

These people had a great relationship with sankes, they would first take out the poison of the snake and after that they would keep the snake with them for sometime, controlling it. They knew when the venom would be back in the snakes body and they would release it then, Sua also said they release it because they get old and it is not said to be good if the snake dies in your house. Ad you believe it or not, the dancers say they also learn their dance from the snake, you will see similarity in Kalbeliya dance steps and how the snake moves. If the snake has bit someone, the Kalbeliya people know how to cure them. So coming back to the name, Sua said snakes are black and the Hindi for black is kala so kal comes from that. Kal also means time and Beliya means friend or helper. So Kalbeliya is the helper of someone in their bad times.

Sister Mariola

Sister Mariola has been working with the jail inmates of Ajmer central jail since 1997. She is also a teacher in Sophia college in Ajmer which is right beside the central jail. She goes to the jail once a week. While our interview with her she got very emotional saying some of the prisoners have very good hearts. When asked what is the best thing of the job she replied "I love to help the wrongly convicted prisoners". She said she has been making handicrafts for them. A student of hers from the Sophia College has been providing all materials. She sells these handicrafts in the market. On the first occasion when she sold and came back to the jail with the money, the prisoners said please give this money to a poorer and more needy prisoner.
I wish there were more people like Sister Mariola who has a completely different thought even for prisoners.
Hope to see many such women.

Norti bai

Norti Bai, age is unknown as she has been saying she is 65 since ten years! She is the sarpanch of her panchayat harmada, harmada has two villages harmada and naya gaon. She learnt how to use a computer ten years ago. She did not know how to read and write in English but for the computer, she memorised all the letters and she uses Hindi font. She knows which letter is Hindi in the English letters on the computer. When asked what her favourite website is she said "I look at the different Panchayats that are progressing so that she can learn from them", when we asked her if she is on Facebook she said "no work comes first, I don't have the time to go to Facebook, and time is money".

She was talking to us very calmly, sometimes she would get excited and start talking loudly and happily, everybody loved it!

Her actual story started in 1981. She used to be a daily wage labourer. The daily wage for men was 7 rupees per day and for women was just 3rupees per day. She was very angry at this. She approached barefoot college on this matter and they filed a court case. They won it. But norti Bais agitation did not go. To try and make norti bai do something new, they told her to learn the computer. She said it was very very tough in the starting but she somehow managed it, "ro pit ke" as she said it. For the next 6 and a half years she was the manager or quadrant or of all computer related work in The barefoot college. She became very popular in her village and surroundings. She took permission from the barefoot college to ask if she could be a candidate in the elections. The tilonia based Organization said if you do not use government money for campaign and do not bribe to win you may contest the elections.

Vijaylaxmi Sharma

Vijaylaxmi Sharma, 24, B.Ed from village jhorinda bhojpura in Phagi district Rajasthan was born when her mother was only 14 years old. Kamla Sharma had all her 3children by the age of 19 which is when she had an operation after which she couldn't give birth. The other two children are vijay Sharma, 22 B.Ed and Mahesh Sharma, 20 pursuing polytechnic in civil. When Vijaylaxmi got to the age of 13 she saw her friend (same age) getting married. Her friend gave birth next year and died. Raju (vijaylaxmi's nickname) saw this coming her way as well. She used to listen to her parents talking to one of her uncles about marriage. She used to hide and listen to all this. One day she shouted out "I am not getting married at this age!" Her parents were shocked. They had never seen her daughter like this before. Her mother admits that she cursed her. But she saw the silent support of her fathers. One day she said to her father "please give me your support, I will not dishonour our family". He agreed, that is when her fit against child marriage started. Slowly she got the support of her whole family and now the family together has stopped 15 child marriages in their village and the surrounding villages. Her brother is a tarot card reader so he uses his social identity to convince the brides family. The mother talks to the mother of the bride. The father talks to the father and Vijaylaxmi herself goes straight to the bride.

When Raju started this cause, her mother got threatening phone calls saying tell your daughter to stop this or we won't leave her alone, at a few instances Raju would pick up the phone and tell them "come, what can you do to me?, come". Her mother used to be very scared but she also supported her daughter in this great cause.

Vijaylaxmi Sharma says what motivates me to do this is that she pictures herself in the brides position.

Red Rickshaw Revolution

The Red Rickshaw Revolution is a project in which Laura, Carina and Sunita are driving an auto from Delhi to Mumbai to raise funds and highlight great women. If you also want to donate you are most welcome. You just need to log onto redrickshaw.in

The following posts are all about this trip and about the women involved.

Udaipur to Delhi

Part III

Udaipur city overlooking one of its seven lakes.

...We left for Udaipur at around 2 o clock. After coming down from the hill, when we went on to the highway, I realised that this is the Ahmedabad-Indore highway which is one of the best in the country. We reached Udaipur and found our hotel before sunset. We went in our room and rested for some time and after that we went to Manish Uncle's (my fathers' friends) house. We went for dinner with them to a restaurant called Millets of Mewar. The restaurant is run by the students of Shikshantar. Shikshantar is a non-school school founded by Manish Uncle. The restaurant mostly had organic food. By the time we were out of there, it was very late and so we quickly dropped Manish Uncle and his wife and daughter to their house and went back to the hotel. We slept as soon as we reached.

Flames of the sun fly over the fort (background) to temple. 

Jan 5, 2013, 1735 hrs. Abner Manzar

               Next morning we went to Manish Uncle's house and asked him if he could send anyone with us to the Swaraj University which had the same philosophy as Shikshantar. He went into the Shikshantar building which was right in front of his house and sent a person. We travelled for 15 kilometers on the highway and then took a right. After about 2 kilometers we entered the campus of Swaraj University. One of the students there took us for a walk around the campus and as we started talking she said most of the students of Swaraj University have fought with their parents to come here. Their parents want them to go to a normal well structured college but these people want to realise their real aim in life. For this there is nothing better than the Swaraj University. The students of Swaraj University make food for each other and they also made food for us when we went there. After having our lunch we went back to Udaipur and to Shikshantar. We stayed in Shikshantar till 10 at night because there was a concert from 7. They served dinner to all the people who came. After the concert finished we went back to the hotel.

Sunset in Udaipur is so evocative, almost like a postcard.

Jan 4, 2013, 1750 hrs, Abner Manzar

                Next morning we left for Tilonia. We stopped at a village called Devdoongri where there was an organisation called MKSS. My father decided to help them by putting up a computer center there. From there we went to Bhim, it was about 10 kilometers from Devdoongri. Aruna Roy the co founder of Barefoot College was opening a School Of Democracy there. Any human would be allowed to go there and learn about their constitution and their rights. The buildings were being made so we couldn't see how it would function. After talking to the people there for some time we moved on and finally reached Tilonia at around 8 at night. We had dinner and then went to our room. 
               Next morning my father went to a village called Arain, 15 kilometers away from Tilonia but we decided to stay. Me and Abeni made a puppet each. It takes 4 days for it to dry. So we couldn't paint it. After making the puppet I wandered aroung the campus and met people whom I had met years ago. I got a homely feeling in Tilonia as if I am already at home. The people would talk so friendly I would have just kept talking to them for hours and hours. Soon my father came  back and we quickly had lunch and set off again. This time for home. There was a lot of traffic as we got closer to Delhi and we finally reached home at 1 am. 7th night or 8th morning.
                 I had dreamt of such a journey for more than a year now and as we reached our so called destination, I was dissapointed because for me all this while I was at my destination, journey.