We all know Life is a journey but what about a journey of a life time! All of us have/had our own dreams of travelling across the world or going on a Bharat Darshan yatra. Have you ever thought in your bad dreams of travelling through India not seeing India gate, Minakshi temple, Puri Jagannath, Dwarka or Gateway of India??? The answer is a clear NOOOO! But we did….we went on a ride through India, a train ride through almost 20 of it’s states and UTs but visited neither of these sites.
We were on a trip to understand our own people, explore our own country and learn from our own motherland. We carried a rather heavy and unusual message of ‘Enterprise led Development’ on the 18 days train journey. The yatris were 400 of them…. They were the representatives of a billion dreams, a billion heart bits and a billion citizens of a country which is standing in the middle of development and poverty. Development that takes it to the top of economic achievers and poverty that is worst than Africa in many of it’s states.
We need a change! We need a country of billion smiles! We need a country of billion proud Indians…. Not only 100s of billionaires! A change that is progressive, a change that is positive and a change that reaches the last Indian in row. Taking the responsibility on their shoulders these 400 started a journey from the city of dreams, Mumbai.
After almost 2 days of train journey we reached Thiruvananthapuram, where the yatris, whom I call the fantastic four hundred got inspired by Vijayraghavan, the founder of Technopark. Technopark is the first IT park in India and still is the 3rd largest. Vijay Raghavan was not the owner, he was simply a Govt. officer on duty to develop Technopark from scratch. But the entrepreneurial spirit he showed is on full display today…. He proved how important is to take ownership of something that you are responsible for and how honestly you should implement it. He taught us the idea of not getting corrupt! He says ‘ if you make a small compromise today, you will have to make a larger one tomorro’. We were not convinced! As we know in this world of corruption, if you don’t pay you stay there for ever….. but his views were different! He said you need to be smart enough to get your work done without paying a single Rupee! I think I agree to some extent…. Many of my fellow yatris didn’t.
We met Usha and Jay Kumar of Thanal at the same place who showed us how empowerment of women and farmers can make this country a better place for many.
Then another overnight journey took us to Kanyakumari, the Vivekananda rock memorial, a personal favourite of mine. I always had a portrait of Swamy Vivekananad in my room during school days along with Netaji’s. These two were I believe the true icons of Indian youth and to some extent still are. Being at the place of highest importance in Vivekanand’s life, it felt something different. I felt energetic and felt like taking a untold oath of serving my country and my people till I have the strength in my body. Sounds dramatic but this was what going on in my mind when I was standing infront of the huge statue of swamiji.
Forgot to mention another Swamiji, ‘the pilot Swami ji’ from Bangalore who was originally a catholic then converted to Sikhism and then become an acharya in Hinduism. His life changed during a aircraft crash which he survived and he was trying to lite up some already burning young Indians both at the Railway station at Kochuveli and at the Rock memorial at Kanyakumari.
The sangam of Indian ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian sea was simply beautiful…. The atmosphere became more energetic and patriotic with “Yaaron Chalo badal ne ki root hai….” and a group picture with the white Jagriti yatra Tshirts. Most of my time though went capturing the beauty of the place and the other beautiful things around in my camera J
Madurai arrived after another overnight travel from Kanyakumari where the most awaited Arvind eyecare were waiting for us. 11 buses taking 400 of us reached the hospital where the outer room was stinky like hell as 400 shoes were removed…. Somehow everyone managed to go through it and settled down to listen to Dr. Arvind and to watch the documentary of Arvind eyecare. Its an enterprise that inspired most of us…. The way they have grown and served the poor in last 30 years is simply brilliant. Then we were devided into teams and my team visited a vision center where we were shown how technology and process innovation can be utilised to optimum in providing quality eyecare to the rural and poor communities via a sustainable business model.
In first few days, I was kind of trying to mix with people from other groups than my own group (I) and used to land in buses with all unknown faces at times. During the vision center visit the only groupmate I had in the bus was Ashok, a guy from Haryana who revolted against the English culture in the group even when we didn’t need to use English. This time I had 90 + 90 minutes with Ashok and I wanted to understand what he thinks and why is he on the yatra. He explained…. The story was inspiring and the guy was carrying so much of responsibility on his young shoulders and now there is one more addition… the responsibility of the country! But he is upto it….he is probably form the very few ones who kept quite in most part of the yatra but the silence said it all….as the silence of common man in this country says it all! Its sign of a BIG change that’s coming our way…. I am glad that I was in the same bus with Ashok that day.
We headed for Chennai to see Kuthambakam, the village transformed by R. Elango. He has made it possible for the Brahmins to live with the dalits in a society which still regards caste system as part of it’s culture. Elango is a live example of love for own village and sacrificing career to bring in a change. A change that is not against the Govt. system, rather utilising the Govt. system. He left his lucrative job after IIT and became the village sarpanch. During the visit of Kuthambakam I tried to sneak through to another part of the village to see some enterprise and was joined by another yatri Devika. Walking 2 Kms which we were initially told very closeby with my Jodhpuri leather juti without shocks was too painful… but we made it to an anterprise run by women and managed by panchayats making burners for kerosene stoves. The burners are best of quality and are marketed by Servals, a Chennai based company. We were late and didn’t have strength or time to walk back 2 KMs to catch our bus. We were told incase we miss our bus, it will be next morning when we can get a bus to Chennai. On repeated request we got 2 guys on Luna super to ride us to the bus….somehow managed to get into the last bus.
Hyderabad was the next destination…. We were almost 8 hours late into the city. Straight from the station, we were headed to ISB campus for the 2nd CNBC Panel discussion on funding India’s entrepreneurs. This was the discussion that my groups was suppose to make presentation on. We didn’t get to talk to any panellists except Nandini Vaidanathan who was also in a hurry to get her lunch and leave the place. Next came a visit to Naandi foundation in the evening where we were shown the huge mid-day-meal program they manage and met the people who are actually behind the scene actors. Though we missed meeting Manoj Kumar the founder, the visit to Naandi was useful.
It was the night of 31st December and my group wanted to taste the local Hyderabadi biriyani J As a facilitator I was suppose to stop them from moving out of the station and eating out but I was the one leading the group finding restaurants and packing biriyani for them…. We were formally welcomed by the Hyderabad railway station with a special announcement about us on the PA system. Finally we started for the next destination , Bhubaneswar …. But before Bhubaneswar there was something big waiting…the new years party! It was around 11 when few of us gathered in the AC compartments and started preparing balloons and started decorating the compartment. We were continuously joined by crazy yatris who started blowing the balloons up and then came 2011…. With music masti and dance! All were going crazy dancing, singing and hugging every body coming their way and wishing New Year. Both the organisers and board members including Shashank, Swapnil and Ashutosh joined us….Sashank even sang a bhojpuri song for us….then we got a msg that the two bogies are swinging dangerously and may derail at any moment, so please slow down and those dancing on the seats please come down. But by that time already many seats were uprooted and many were taking bath in sweat…. The night ended at around 3 with Swapnil’s tactic action. This was probably the best new year I can ever have….with 400 young Indians on a train somewhere between AP and Orissa which is the most affected naxal area of India.
Then comes Orissa my home state…. We were suppose to stay at Bhubaneswar, so I tried to arrange something for the yatris over phone and was suppose to meet some friends at the station. To my bad luck we stopped at Jagannathpur, a station 4 hours far from Bhubaneswar. The started a visit to Joe Madiath`s Gram Vikas an NGO which he is running from last 30 years to uplift the quality of life of the tribals there. After an inspiring speech we headed for village visits followed by a visit to the GramVikas school. The students were truly inspiring…. After soooo longgg I got to sing the song of Orissa ‘ bande Utkala janani…..’ was remembering my school days when we use to sing this song in all programs and festivals especially during the Utkal Divas.
Leaving Orissa behind, we started for Jamshedpur and then there came the time to prepare for our group presentation. Though we had put some thought in last few days we really had to rush through it and get our acts together as our presentation was scheduled the next morning at 9.30. I was intentionally keeping myself out of getting too involved in it as I wanted the young guys and girls to take the ownership…..and they did it. We just devided the group into few and then came brilliant ideas from each of them to get a survey done withing the yatris present on board about financing India’s entrepreneurs. Creative team came-up with some awesome stuff and the survey team presented a very useful database. Kriti and Lipika the two beautiful young ladies put the PPT together and my contribution was only in the example section and some summarising part. Next morning we were all up n ready by 8 in the AC chaircar and finally the presentation started at 10.30 with some delay as people were sleeping till late…. All our previous presentations used to be in the evening , so we were the first culprits to wake people up in the morning for serious stuff. Mayank started in his own style (liked by many) and then others took over…. Abhimanyu the cool guy of the group acted as a VC flying strait down from NewYork for the presentation (I wonder whether his flight landed on the trainJ) presented from the VC`s point of view. Dhanush added some crisp comments and Ravi and Kunjan tookover the survey results. When I got up for my part , the scene was not pleasant …. I saw exactly 4 people in my boggie having their eyes open and others are still enjoying their sleep in warm AC chaircar JWe took a bit long but concluded whats called one of the most useful and resourceful presentation of the yatra though little boring J
We were suppose to reach Jamshedpur in the morning but finally arrived in the evening with the CNBC panel discussion waiting for us in chilling winter. It was our first encounter with real cold and it was BAD. The discussion started with much delay and the panellists went completely blank at some questions by yatris. The discussion was on Agri enterprises and to everyones`s disappointment the discussion led us nowhere. After beating a long queue to get food, we finally were entertained by some folk dance organised by the TATA Steel. Sambalpuri dance by kids and chhau dance by a tribal dancer was really amazing. The program ended with Marathi dance and all of us were asked to head out to our night stay place…. It was the only place where we had to stay outside the train during the yatra. All of us were sure of getting a good accommodation as the TATAs had organised it…. To mush of surprise we landed at a pathetic tent house. It had a huge dormitory with 5 beds and around 200 used mattresses. First come first serve rule was applied for people to grab a little cleaner place and closer to a charging point. I got one of the bed but realised that we are 10 to sleep on the 5 beds…. Some took out their sleeping bags and tried to sleep and some talked through the night about how bad the place is. I was preferred to join the later and slept off without thinking much…. At 6.30 when we got up with some whistle blows by the volunteers there was a long queue before I ask anyone somebody said your number is 180 to use one of the 4 toilets meant to be used by 250 of us. That was it…. Thinking about a bath even seemed like luxury. My EDI experience of dry cleaning at least helped in looking fresh and good for rest of the day without a bath….
It was also the only laundry time in the yatra and I had given 10 of my clothes for washing. When I got those back I realised I have picked up somebody else`s denim and even after trying hard didn’t get back mine.
The next day started with a bus journey through the TATA steel and practically ended with that. Wasting time energy for 2 days and staying at such a pathetic condition the yatris were fired up. Some were wondering it was deliberate to give the city chaps an experience of lifetime! Even the next facilitators meeting the same night was full of questions on the same and realised that the girls had even a worst experience. They even didn’t have blankets or mattresses.
Trained headed to Gorakhpur from where we were suppose to reach Deoria, the place from where it all started and the headquarters of Jagriti sewa sansthan. Gorakhpur was freezing at 2 degree celcius and the fog was even making it worse. We were told to leave the train at 5.30 am and at 5 am in the morning a guy with a dhol entered the train beating dhol like crazy practically inside our ears…. The impact was heavy! Everyone was up n running to the bathroom in next 2 minutes…. Some started dancing with the dhol to reduce the effect of cold. We got into the buses and started a 2 hour drive to Deoria with the fog increasing by time. A grand welcome at Barpar village with elephants, drums and folk dancers welcoming us. The villagers looked little disconnected though! Yatris started dancing like crazy in thick fog to fight with cold. After 2 hours of dancing we discovered our names written on a stone wall very similar to the ‘Saheed smruti stambh” or the Amar jawan jyoti…. I left wondering whether we deserve this at this point of time in life! We really have done nothing to have our names somewhere…. Then came the BIG rally with people brought in auto rikshaws and other vehicles which seemed like a political one. We were suppose to work on Business under a banyan tree in the village and I was facilitating a group working on energy. Let me talk a bit about that as well. We were divided based on area of expertise and interest to work on seven issues including energy, education, health, tourism etc. The teams were reshuffled and when I met my team (I was facilitating a group of 18 on energy along with the guy from US called Patrick) I was surprised to see all new faces. That meant I had not met so many people in last 10 days…. The groups took over the empty compartments and the intense discussions started on what can be the possible solutions to the problem of the people without practically knowing the problem. I was bit uncomfortable with the approach and tried to give a practical prospective to my team. After a long discussion we came up with some possible solutions. But we were given just 90 minutes in the village under thick fog to discuss with the villagers, understand problems come up with solution, business plan etc. We realised our solution doesn’t fit into the need of people…so we had 10 minutes to come up with another and we came with a nice one. We presented well as well but some other people own it with a solution which we rejected the last night as I personally had worked on it and knew it will never work in a village context but anyways, the juries got impressed by it.
Heading back to Gorakhpur station was taking more time. The bus I was in was with my original group mates and we decided to make the journey enjoyable by singing and dancing. Others were not interested to join but we continued till few of us lost our voice. We reached Gorakhpur after 2 and half hours drive and were asked to get down at the station and the bus left us behind. After 30 minutes of wait we realised that we are the only bus that has come to Gorakhpur main station when our train was at Gorakhpur cantonment around 15 Kms far from there. Getting 47 people and catching the train on time sounded tough but we got all together including some catering staff. Fire fighting started and the train was allowed to come to the station and pick us up from there after 45 minutes. As a facilitator few of us bought some tea and snacks for the group mates and distributed when I looked at the catering staff freezing in cold with practically no warm cloth. I went and bought some snacks and tea for them and handed it over not that I felt sympathetic but I thought it was my duty as part of the train…. They were feeding us day and night probably waking up 3 hours before we get up and sleep 3 hours later we go to bed. So itna too banta hai na….
Finally we were picked up and left for Delhi. Delhi was suppose to come around 730 the next morning but it came at around 8.30 in the evening….. 13 hours late! People at Goonj , Anshu Gupta the role model we were suppose to visit were waiting since the morning. Safdarjang station at Delhi and we started moving towards Goonj in our buses…. Eight of my group mates escaped to the nearby market to explore some hot snacks and get out of the boredom that was taking over the train as winter progressed. I went to Goonj thinking that if they are caught I will try and protect them …. But then I realised these people missed a really impressive visit. Anshu Gupta was brilliant. The guy who got us realised the importance of being honest to what you believe in and importance of clothing for the poor. The same winter kills the poor when we enjoy having warm cup of team at home… its not the winter, it’s the lack of clothing that killed the poor. He spoke from heart about the corruption in 2G scam, commonwealth games and over all issues that India is facing today. Many of us thought what are we doing??? Just getting inspired or really doing something….probably we will do! We had the confidence, we got the strength in this yatra, the strength that makes a common man a responsible citizen and a responsible citizen a problem solver.
We left Delhi meeting the huge team of Goonj who were more than inspiring. They changed the way we think about NGOs these days. There is hope till we have people like Anshu in this country and Anshu says there is hope till we have people like us the 400 yatris who took 18 days off for the nation. I agree.
We headed for Tilonia the same night having aalu paratha that my groupmates got from market and gazar ka halwa + chocolates that Kriti`s parents got for us. Next morning we were at Kisangarh station close to Tilonia and were welcomed by Joukhin chahcha the puppet character at the station. After a 1 hour talk there and few interviews to CNBC people, we left for the village. The experience of Tillonia was not very new to me…. Solar panels and barefoot doctors and electronic post office all made me remember the experience of Auroville where I lived for few months during my internship in 2006. After an enjoyable time there, we headed for Ajmer station where our train was parked. After dinner we realised that we will not be leaving the station in next four hours as 2 of the boggies of our train have malfunctioning breaks and we need to get new boggies from railways which was not easy at all. The engine room club and organisers put a lot of effort to get the boggies and the yatris started settling down in the station with my colleague Nikhil playing drums with singing and dancing girls. It was a time when we all had started missing home…. Due to cold and tiredness!
Leaving Ajmer behind that night the jagriti express left for Mithpur at the western tip of India in Gujarat. We reached Mithapur station 8 hours prior to schedule and started moving around the platform in the windy night before Col.Patil forced us inside. It was the last destination of the yatra, so emotions were flowing high and people were roaming with contact books taking addresses and clicking pictures with everyone.
TATA chemicals had made much better arrangements to welcome us there. We were taken to adopted villages by TATAs and visited the salt making units there. The version of the stories that the TATAs gave us and the people gave us were very different though. Making a Kg of salt costs hardly Rs.2 including all expenses and people who are making them buy paying Rs.12 per Kg for TATA Salt.
Understanding them, we a bunch of people from our bus group got into the bus and startedhaving random discussion. Giving company to me that day was a young lady journalist from Mint, Harshada Karnik. She wasn’t feeling well and I was feeling bored, so we started discussing about media, politics and the experience in yatra so far. Another enthu guys the most politically active Sandeep joined in. Sandeep is a student of software engineering but is really interested in politics and have a very strong political view point. Harshada promised of writing about the yatra in her news paper when she goes back to Mumbai. We came back to TATA chemicals for the final CNBC panel discussion on ‘Yes we Can”. With Anshu Gupta, R.Elango and the founder of Super30 on the panel, the discussion was getting interesting. But prior to that we had about 2 hours free and alongwith few other from my group, we started walking towards the Arabian sea…. The sea beach was really awesome….blue water and calm sea! We enjoyed for an hour before heading out to the town for some panipuri and paw bhaji. After the CNBC discussion was the valedictory function, the thanks giving to the people who were behind the success of such a logistical nightmare. Shashank joined us on phone from Mumbai and Raj from Chennai….Revathy conducted the program really in a nice way awakening the spirit of 400 young Indians to go out and start the real yatra of change. Nikhil and Pragya represented the yatris on the stage explaining their experiences….. a emotional time and the last time yarron chalo! We were all feeling the same…. Happy to complete! Sad to End!
Mumbai! Here we come….the final trip started from Mithapur to Mumbai dropping many yatris on the way at Ahmedabad, Baroda and Surat. There were no lights off that night and we started going around to people and getting our business cards and contacts across. I lost my notebook, so instead of getting everyones contact on my own I preferred to work with few facilitators to put together all 400 yatri`s contacts together. Next morning was really calm…. Calm like it was before the Tsunami. A tsunami that has the potential to change the nation in a positive way…. We all started packing our stuff! Never realised how we had made the tiny compartment our home for 18 days with 400 people whom we never had seen our life. The day seemed short and we could meet only few of the yatris before they got off at small stations on the way…. Finally came Kurla station and we got off the train without any announcement by Vibha or Swapnil. We were again welcomed by the high flying tricolour and yaroon chalo by Shashank and team at the station. Few emotional hugs and last pictures…. Gaurav, Lipka and I left in a cab dropping Lipika at Dadar. Spending night at Abhimanyu’s home one by one all left to catch their train to their final destinations.
The jagriti yatra 2011 came to an end but the real yatra starts from here. Now we are more responsible and answerable to the nation as we were the fortunate 400 to go around the country and learn from it. I am sure if not entrepreneurs 400 of us will be responsible citizens of tomorrow and will have the courage to stand up to every wrong that happens before us.
A real huge thank to the Jagriti sewa sansthan and especially to Shashank whose brainchild the yatra has transformed lives of 1000 young Indians in last three years. A BIG thank to Swapnil, Revathy, Raj and Vibha for being the engine of the whole journey. Without you guys I wonder many of us would have been still cynical about the system and discussing the issues of India over coffee table doing nothing. The organisers, volunteers and the catering staff who made all possible luxury available fighting against odds. It will be an honour to be associated with this initiative and contribute in whatever way I can in future.
Yarron Chalo! Badal ne ki root hai….
