Sangrun Village Part 2: May 13 to May 20

On the 13^th, I took a morning walk through the village alone. One of the first chores of the day is washing clothes; most of the people I saw were women were squatting outside their homes over buckets filled with clothes and soapy water. I made my way down to the river via a street I had not walked before; on the way, a man sitting on his porch offered me to come for tea. I declined politely, continuing my walk down to the river. As soon as I had passed his house, I realized I should have (for many reasons) accepted the tea. I returned up the same street and invited myself in for tea. The man who had invited me to his home was named Maoli Kaka (Kaka means “uncle” in Hindi) and was picking small stones out of the rice he had harvested from his field previously. The rice was still inside its husks; I had never seen rice like this before. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to see the de-husking machine, which he had inside. We chatted for a few minutes over tea until I had to go back for breakfast. Our conversation was in broken English/Hindi, but we understood each other fairly well. Maoli Kaka invited me to come back to see his farm later in the day.

Aayush, Aparajita, and I took Maoli Kaka up on his offer later that morning. We went to his farm and saw the mango trees, eggplant, tomatoes, and other crops he grows. He picked a green mango from his tree—often used for pickles and chutney but not often eaten plain—and gave it to me. I munched my way through it and by the end it felt like I could scrape the enamel off my teeth with a toothpick because of the acidity. Aayush and Aparajita were impressed that I had eaten an entire green mango; this may have set a poor precedent, as every time we were offered green mango in the future, the response was “Tavish loves them” and I was thus obliged to eat another piece of the sour fruit. Maoli Kaka also took us out in his boat briefly onto the river; it was even more peaceful out on the water than in the village—a tough feat, as the village is already very peaceful. In the evening there was a village-wide celebration for a woman turning 105 years old. We were a little late to the celebration so did not get to meet the woman (she went to bed early), but we saw pictures. She looked pretty good for 105!

May 14^th was the weekly street-cleaning day, Sunday. We swept some of the main streets of the village with about 10 other villagers, including Sarpanch Madam. The sweeping turnout was lower than I expected, considering Sangrun’s status as one of the cleanest villages in the region, but the work party was big enough to make a noticeable difference after about one hour of sweeping.

Later in the afternoon, we went on a tour of Vijay Kaka’s family farm with one of his nieces, his son Ajay, and his daughter Rinku. On the way to the farm we ate boiled peanuts, tamarind, green mango, small “apples” that were not ripe, and some wild berries with a white gummy interior that we had been served a few days earlier at Sunil Sir’s house. The salt-water-boiled peanuts were delicious—I wonder why no one eats them in the US in this form, because they were great. I was still craving more by the time I finished my handful. The family’s farm is mostly sugar cane and eggplant. Ajay was proud to show the one small banana tree he had planted, still many years away from producing fruit. On the way to and from the farm, I picked up some mineral-filled rocks, of the type that people pay good money for in museum gift shops in the US, from the basalt landscape. None of my Indian counterparts were impressed with my rocks. A couple days later, Rinku came into the GP office to chat with us before dinner. I showed her one of the geodes I had broken in half using a pipe wrench; her response was not “oh, that’s pretty,” but instead mimed striking the crystals together to make fire. Aparajita thought this was especially hilarious. For my Seattle readers, don’t worry—I am bringing a couple beautiful rocks home from India to put on display.

Varad, Professor Sardeshpande’s son, arrived on the 15^th to stay with us in the village for a week. He brought a large home-cooked lunch of chole, poori, and masala rice, sent by his mother. As usual, her cooking was great. The four of us ate all we could and still did not finish everything. In the afternoon we had our first meeting with the women’s self-help group to introduce spice roasting as a possible livelihood activity. We made a small batch of masala from spices I had bought in Mumbai and looked at the costing of ingredients as a simple business analysis. Unfortunately, this entrepreneurial activity did not work out for the village women, but it was a good learning opportunity to see their reasons for enthusiasm and interest in the activity.

In the evening, we went out fishing with the family of Sunil Sir’s brother, a couple dozen small fish in a net. This type of fish is usually used for bait, but today it was cooked in a stew called russa and served with rice. In addition to eating these small fish, I was served a couple larger fish (about 6 inches long) and asked if I had eaten fish head before. The group of 10 or so people who had gathered in the front room of the house now all watched me intently as I ate two fish and their heads. The food was great but the timing was poor; after filling myself on fish and rice, it was time for a community dinner in the village. We ate a meal with the villagers, sitting cross-legged and barefoot on the concrete in rows while men and young boys carried around buckets of food, serving in shifts. This was to the be first of many days when we ate multiple dinners.

The highlight of the 16^th was watching Sushma Madam and a neighbor cook pooran poori, a type of Indian bread stuffed with a sweet jaggery-gram flour mixture. They were mixing the jaggery and gram flour on a flat rock, using another rolling pin-shaped rock to mash the mixture. In the evening, we returned to try it—it was even better than it looked during the cooking process. The sweet bread was served with spicy sabji and with a sweet dipping sauce also made of jaggery. If I daydream about it, I can still taste the sweet bread dipped in an even sweeter sauce. This one looks difficult to make, but I might try because it was delicious.

On the afternoon of the 17^th, Sunil Sir taught us how to catch frogs in the idle pools at the river’s edge using a stick and a piece of string. We were not successful, but the challenge was planted in my brain for a later date. In the evening, there was another community dinner as part of a marriage celebration. At this dinner was my new favorite dish, bangan sabji (eggplant curry). I generally do not like eggplant so much, but each of the three times I have had this dish it has been impeccable. Spicy, flavorful, and served with chapatti and rice.

The last couple days in the village mostly consisted of continuing to survey households. These demographic and livelihood surveys are part of the course requirements for the CTARA village stay and consist of questions related to occupation, land holdings, power availability, and water use. To conduct the surveys, we split into two groups—Aayush and Aparajita each took one of the non-IITB students (me and Varad) to survey households. Varad was a helpful survey partner, as he spoke Marathi, the local language of the region, and I was simply moral support.

On my last evening in the village, we again went down to the river to try and catch a frog. After many minutes of attempts ranging from close to futile, I finally caught one! As soon as the frog had latched onto the small ball of string at the end of the stick, I jerked it out of the water. Neither Varad nor I could grab the small frog before it wiggled its way back into the pool of water near our feet, but the “fishing” had been successful! We returned triumphant to the GP office, where the villagers had gathered to give me a gift, a picture of Shivaji, the famous defender of the kingdom of Maharashtra. The gift was very thoughtful and the outdoor gathering was a nice way to spend my final evening in Sangrun. I am very glad I had the chance to meet the wonderful people in Sangrun and witness their daily lives. I will return to the US with many stories to tell of what life is like in the village.

In the morning on the 20^th, the four of us piled into the local bus and headed back to Pune. Aayush and Aparajita were to return to Sangrun in the evening after picking up some items they needed for their work. Varad and I took another bus to get to his house, where his mother made us some fresh mango juice and sent me with a packed lunch to eat on the bus back to Mumbai. After some confusion on the boarding of the bus, I ended up on an AC sleeper bus with my own bunk for the ride back to Mumbai—better than the seat on a normal AC bus I had planned to take! I returned to campus via local train and rickshaw, where I proceeded to eat a coconut from the fruit stand for dinner and head to sleep early, exhausted from 10 days in the village.