Udaipur Diaries

UDAIPUR DAIRIES 2008Train Journey-Mewar ExpressThis was the first time I actually went to Nizammudin Station to board the train to this wonderful and picturesque placecalled Rajasthan, which until now, I had only seen on the back of postcards, calendars and Travel magazines. I wasreally looking forward to this trip.It was sleeper class- Coach No.S6. We started from Delhi at around 7:00 pm, 20 Jan 2008. Most of the time was spentplaying Uno cards and telling scary and ghost stories. My seat was just next to the coach’s exit door, so every time thetrain stopped at any station, the passengers would come in or leave through that door, letting the chilly winds sweepthrough my already cold feet. Towards the morning whenever the train stopped at any station there would be chai wallahsscreaming “chai.. chai…chai” .. in perfect rhythm- like beats in a music, following the same pattern every time. It was quiteamusing. When I heard it for the first time, my eyes fluttered open and I was a bit shocked but pretty soon I was smilingand couldn’t help giggling. This thing surely woke me up and I felt it was actually more effective than my alarm clock. Thiswas the start of my new refreshing journey…

21 January 2008On reaching the station, again I couldn’t help but compare the cleanliness and management at that small station with thatof Delhi stations. Everything was pretty neat.Aastha training centre was about half an hour ride from the station, which we traveled through a mini bus. There wereseven-eight people staying in one room like a dormitory. There was a common bathroom where their were 3 washroomsand 2 toilets, which had a kind of rotating flush near the tap…definitely something I had never seen before!After getting ready we went downstairs for breakfast where we were served ‘poha’ and hot tea. Afterwards we washed ourdishes at the room next door and went for the presentation/ class.The classroom was actually a multipurpose room where they also conducted workshops and training for the rural people.It had mats and gaddas arranged on the floor with beautiful red and black traditional motifs printed on them. After theintroduction with Ms Lakshmi Murthy, we started the day with reciting Sanskrit slokas and prayers, which made me a bitnostalgic and I was reminded of my school days.But soon I was bought back to the present and was pondering upon the role of communication designers in the society-our social responsibilities. Hearing Touching Tasting Seeing and Smelling are the basic tools for communication. Wediscussed about visual perception and visual literacy that basically means that people from one social context havealmost same opinions. The way they read an image. Then we also discussed about IEC: Information to inspire, Educationto empower and Communication to convince you to take an action – development.I also got to know about the MANTRA’S of SOCIAL COMMUNICATION, they are:Maidan - research and understanding the playing field.Dhyaan + kaan – pay attention to your audience and keep ear to ground.Pehchaan – identify strategy that will be best

Jaan - put passion into playing Abhiyaan – design the campaign I saw many posters and works on Dowry, Female infanticide, Sex trade, Anti human trafficking, against drug abuse and Violence. What I remember is that, It is important to know your audience before decidingyour text or using images/pictures as they could have different meaning and perception than what you actually want toconvey. “It’s not how nice the picture looks but how clearly it speaks”Evening we went to Shilpgram in a mini tourist bus. Shilpgram is situated 3 kms west of Udaipur near the Havala village isthe Centres Shilpgram - the Rural Arts and Crafts Complex. Spread over an undulating terrain of 130 bighas (70 Acres) ofland and surrounded by the Aravallies,This Rural Arts and Crafts Complex is conceived as a living ethnographic museum to depict the lifestyles of the folkand tribal people of the West Zone. Within this complex, huts of the member states are constructed incorporatingtraditional architectural features of different geographical and ethnic groups within the West Zone of India. I saw huts ofRajasthan, representing weavers community from Marwar.There are 2 huts named after the two sand bound villages of Rama and Sam from the desert region of western Rajasthan.From the hilly region of Mewar, is a potters hut from the village Dhol, 70 kms west of Udaipur. Two huts represent thetribal farmer communities of the Bhil and the Sehariyas of the Southern regions of Rajasthan.There was also an ornately carved wooden house from Pethapur near Gandhinagar and many other huts from the state ofGujrat.Besides that there were pottery stalls, textiles, miniature paintings and swings. There were some culturalperformances in the evening too, where we all sang, danced to the garba beats and also enjoyed the cultural songsand dance performed by the traditional singers and dancers with ‘manjira’ twisting and turning in sync withthe beats and tunes of folk songs along with hot Pakoras and tea from a small canteen down the road in the shilpgram.

Soon we were back in ashram and by around 8:30 pm, ate ‘roti and sabji’ washed our plates and settled down. I was quitetired and was the first one to go off to sleep in my room that day!22 January 2008We went to Sadhna Centre and saw a presentation on what it is about and its history. Earlier Sadhna used to be a partof Seva mandir but after it’s success it decided to branch out and started operating as a separate unit.Its main motive is to empower the rural Indian Women by training them and providing them with work. Most of the workthey used to get earlier was outsourced e.g. FabIndia, freelancers..Etc but now they have opened there own brand andshop. It has 618 shareholders who are also members/workers of the organization and 70 urban women working under it.Sadhna has come a long way since it’s inception and has also learned valuable management lessons and learned theimportance design expertise and design codes over the years. They also explained the whole cycle of how the rawmaterial is distributed among the group leaders and who are responsible for distributing the work and later collecting thefinished products from there group members and submitting the finished goods to the sadhna centre.Then we saw a movie called ‘Mahu lage’ which means ‘acha lage’ /‘feels nice’. It was directed by an amateurand compared the socio-economic conditions of three different villages by interviewing the people living there. Villages like papamaal and angoor ki bangal had some serious caste differentiation where Rajputs and Tribal refused to consider everybody as equal creating lot of disharmony. I learned about ‘muster rolls’ where a person (contractor) is responsible for a certain number of people and takes money from organizations like govt., NGO’s for private projects to pay the people under him. In these villages what is happening is that the contractor takes money for more people than actually employed by him. He would write the name of all the tribals in the list but won’t give the tribals any work or money. Therefore what is happening is that the contractor is getting richer whereas the poor people/tribals are becoming poorer.

The movie also showed the contrasting life of another village where everybody was treated as equal members of thevillage and how progressive was the development of the village and community people discussed every problem togetherand worked together to overcome it. In the film they showed ‘Anicut’ being constructed by the villagers. An ‘anicut’ is asmall dam.Another very important issue that arose was that of women empowerment. I was really touched by the videowhen they showed an evening get-together in the village where both men and women got together and discussed that itsimportant for women to earn livelihood and stand on their own feet and they also deserve equal respect from males in thesociety. It felt nice to see women in the Rural India stand up for there rights.Then we went to Sadhna shop which was just next door and I bought some lovely earrings and anklet. The productsand prices were almost like Fab India. From there we went to the factory where women sewed, stitched and finished theproducts with proper labels and packaging.Later that day we also went to Sisvi village for a field trip. There we sat on the floor and chatted with a group ofworkers from Sadhna, who were busy doing embroidery on a mat. They all worked and supported their families while theirchildren went to school. Some of them even took work to their houses to do it whenever they got time.They had two group leaders and one of them had been to China. Her perception of the outer world was expectedly different from others! She was very impressed by the way women dressed and worked there. According to her women out there didn’t have to waste much money to buy bindi or kajal or jewellery and they mostly worked in shops and carry suitcases. (loved her observation!!!) She was the most outspoken one in her group and had a friendly disposition unlike others who would pull a pallu over there face when we tried to speak to them. She said that not all village women’s family would allow them to go abroad like that and I realized how much difference that China trip had made to her personality. She even convinced her friends to sing few traditional songs for us. Later we sat down and had spicy aloo poori for lunch. The aloo sabzi was red in almost colour. It was an unusual andlovely experience!

That evening we went to ‘Apni Dhani’ for dinner, which was a truly traditional Rajasthani experience! It was culture treatI bought lovely key chains, enjoyed camel rides, magic shows and rope walking show while enjoying hot ‘chhanch’ andpapads ..It was amazing. Then we went inside the hut and sat on floor mats and were served with the traditional dal- bati-churma and yummy Desi ghee jalebi’s. The food was served with so much love and affection that everybody couldn’t helpsmiling and laughing and some of us had to literally run outside to stop from being overfed!!!!!!!23 January 2008Today we got to learn about vermicompost and it’s uses and benefits over chemical fertilizers. I learnedsome interesting facts like how earthworms produces 60 cocoons in one lifetime, lives for about 6-12 months and it canproduce 10 tones of manure in 2 months. Interestingly not many people are aware that the crops from chemical fertilizercost Rs160/kg in the market whereas crops from vermicompost manure cost only Rs 16/kg. The vermicompost unit is2 ft wide 10 ft long and 1 and ½ ft deep. This measurement is scientifically researched and is mostbeneficial for earthworms to produce manure. People can create ‘Nadap’ (which is a kind of mini- vermicompostunit) in their houses by dumping all the biodegradable waste in a pit which will eventually turn into manure. This manure isnatural and far more healthy and nutritive for soil and crops both than chemical fertilizers.Later that day we went to ‘Shuchi’, a Vermicomposting Unit, It was 5 minute walk from Aastha training centre.Many of us even bought some manure packages.After lunch we went to Handmade paper factory where we saw the whole process right from making (80%hosiery with20% wastepaper)paper pulp mixing to spreading the pulp on mesh and pressing the sheets and finally sun drying them.We even bought many sheets as there was so much variety and it was cheap too.

Later that day we were briefed about group presentations, the whole class was divided into groups and given a place likeAastha training centre, sisvi village etc. I was in the Aastha training centre group and we sat down later night anddiscussed the design opportunities at that place.That night we went to this restaurant called ‘AMBRAI’ for dinner which was located on the outskirts ofcity palace and in the open with proper laltern lamps and angeethi. It was an amazing experience.24 January 2008Today we saw Ms Lakshmi Murthy’s presentation- she showed a lot of her work.Her main area of niche area is sexual and reproductive health communication for rural adolescents. Within this: Design, develop, produce and sell communication products Conduct workshops for rural audiences on sexual health Conduct training of trainers and health educators Why Communication Fails?:

One size fits all Fallacy of participation, Myth of the universal symbolWhat makes communication effective?Audience centered strategy ,Visual literacy, Translation and integration .We discussed the issue of sexual health in rural areas. The barriers in imparting reproductive health info like ‘ Isn’t it toographic for a 14 yr old? Or when does it cross into pornography? Or should it be depicted through pictures at all?? Andsuch issues.I learned about Rural pictograms-on social environment and local culture, tradition and health and the effective method ofconducting field surveys. She discussed the challenges she faced as a ceramic designer entering the field of socialcommunication and how she got scholarships and all to support her vision. It was inspiring and motivating to see herpamphlets, flip books, brochures,sanitary napkins, take aways- we got a free booklet called “ safai ki jaankari’and storybooks with pop outs that were designed to make itinteresting. This also conveyed the message so clearly. The traditionalKaanwad of Southern Rajasthan. A wooden box with many sets of doors that open out, each surface on the box originallyhad paintings of local legends. The Kaawadiya or storyteller moved from village to village with this box narrating storiesof local heros. The same product was used to Communicate for Sexuality issues. We also saw a movie on Bondage labour and discussed the issue of Women Empowerment with Mr. Kailash who had done masters of social work. Later that afternoon the whole class got

divided into groups and was given documents on role of women in vedic ages and middle ages to enacta play on it! Not only was this play an eye opener to the contrast in the position, privileges and power of women back in the Vedicages but also how the politicians and power-hungry Brahmins used their authority to rule and enslave women to their ownadvantage and introduced practices like sati, purdah system, and other social systems which further degraded theposition of women making her powerless and dependent on the men in her life- father, husband, son.I felt sad discussing this whole issue and to learn that the female infant mortality rate was actually more in urban placeslike Delhi, Punjab, Haryana etc. was more than in rural places despite the education and awareness was a bit disturbing.Later we presented these problems by enacting a play in groups.And then we also saw Ms Alka’s presentation that evening, she is from the Art and crafts Institute, Jaipur in the evening.She showcased a lot of products made from bamboo, Patwa craft, Korai grass in Tamil Nadu. They were veryinnovative, beautiful and inspiring.That evening we went to Hotel Jagat Palace, it had beautiful jharokhas and spectacular view of the CityPalace.

25 January 2008Today we made a presentation on Aastha Training centre discussing the whole design process and decided to finallywork on the poster for Toilet training for rural people.

Then we went to a ‘pichwai’ painters house. Mr. Rajaram Sharma, where he showed us his work anddiscussed the method of making paints by crushing rocks and mixing it with gum and using squirrels feathertailto make a natural brush and tying it up with pigeon feather. I also tried my hand at it. It requires practice and dedication.He told us that this kind of work takes months to make but he enjoys it and also teaches it to other students who workunder him. We chatted and had tea as he showed us his awesome paintings with such minute detail that he had placedmagnifying glases next to the paintings for us to observe his work!From there we went to see the Famous City Palace, which was to say in one word- Grand! To me, it is beautiful,elegant and royal. They had secret passages, paintings, sculptures and furnished bed rooms on display. Also the viewfrom the Jharokhas was magnificient!!It was a memorable experience, not only did I got exposure to social life and culture in Rajasthan but also got to know myfriends better!I really enjoyed this trip. I would always remember Ramneek ma’am and Akhilesh Sir for givingus the opportunity to enjoy this trip to the fullest

Udaipur Diaries

by Kannu Priya Rawat on Aug 11, 2012

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