Village hospitality truly warms the heart with recollections of when this used to be 'Indian hospitality', before we all got so busy in our city lives.
We started with customary visits and sweets at the village elder's homes: Kalidasji's 'didi' (elder sister) and Subhashji's homes. Some women brought samples of their handiwork to show us, skillfully and lovingly made on waste materials.
And different from us techno-literates, we experienced the word of mouth communication mode, as our students went from person to person, home to home explaining what we are setting out to do. Word began to spread gradually and they also began to get challenged with thought-provoking 'what's in it for me?' questions, particularly from adults who will take time away from their work and who are essentially skill focused. It helped us refocus and reconsider to design for a more customer-centric delivery.
And Kulwant strove to recruit young as you can see.
Some also asked us the pertinent question of what had come of the projects we were to work on last time, like the Sarkanna. We decided to take our revised design to show them, when we come next time.
On my past visit and just on a hunch, I had taken bits of jute and threads with me as you see and handed them to interested people there, asking them to create something on their own by the time we came back again.It was wonderful to see on this visit their inherent talent and creativity in some of their handiwork, the brown piece in particular, made with both artistic expression as well as completeness.
We next scouted for the right location where 4 workshops could be co-located yet apart.Vinodji took us to their Babaji's ashram area. Babaji (on left) promised to get 4 areas cleared and prepared for us to sit in our 4 groups. Prashantji had done some legwork on enrollments and Subhashji offered to complete it.
Interest in the upcoming activity had started gathering by now.
We completed our discussions and planning of our next steps. Specifically, we felt the need to tailor the adult men's workshop better to connect with their respective professions.
We returned back via the police station, seeking permission to conduct our workshops at Rasulabad in 5 days time, as well as to stay there overnight on the night of 30th April.
We all feel very positive about this unique venture and I am personally very heartened to see the team getting immersed with a 'can-do' sense of involvement. It is my belief that they will themselves grow in the process and also spread the belief so aptly expressed by Nobel Laureate Herb Simon that says, 'Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones'.
As we realized that day, we are there as much to learn from our villages as to teach. May we all grow in this spirit of collaboration.
25 April, 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment