Hu-Tu-Tu

Today, the entire village of Dharnai in Bihar had gathered in the small ground in the centre. The newly elected Sarpanch, Shree Omprakash Singh, who was a qualified professional in Botany, and had achieved a Ph.D in that subject, rose on the podium and told the villagers to settle down. The main Sarpanch had grown old; therefore the committee had elected his elder son to be the head of the panchayat samiti.

“Today I am making a very important announcement.” All the villagers straightened their ears to hear. “We all love this game of kabaddi. This has always been a good medium, to bring people together and to play for their respective villages. Inspite of having less of resources, we did a good job of being the runner-ups of the interstate kabaddi championship last year." All the villagers clapped their hands. “Last week, I had gone to the quarterly meetings of all the panchayats and their along with our zilla parishad committee, we decided, that we are hosting the next interstate kabaddi championship !” The Sarpanch, uttered the last three words loudly, expecting a huge response from the villagers.

No one responded. All of them appeared dumbstruck.

“The current situation of our village is very bad. No proper hygiene, no roads, no education, not even a proper toilet. All of it is very haphazardly done. But most important thing, we have time of around 12 months, almost a year. I think, we can try our very best. But, to do this, I need your support.... "

"Sarpanch ji, what you are saying is right. But currently looking at our village, how are we going to solve all this?" one of the villagers pointed out.

"I know, it's difficult. But, let's start doing it. Just imagine, if we won't do it now, what are we giving to our future generations? What will they see when they grow up? No proper employment, no education, no garbage management, no roads, no toilets, no infrastructure, nothing! Is this the future we are giving to our kids? Is this the knowledge and wealth that will be passed out from our generation to another?” Folding his hands, he pleaded to all the villagers, "Please help me in doing this. Everything is possible if we have the determination to make it. Remember what Mahatma Gandhiji had said "Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness." We can no more gain God’s blessing with an unclean body, than with an unclean mind. A clean body cannot reside in an unclean city. Let's follow his teachings and let's create an environment friendly village, not just for us, but for our future generations as well. "

"I am not convinced with the idea...!" one of the elder villagers, who opposed everything, said to the group of villagers seated under the tree to discuss the matter that night. “Who will clean this village? It’s all disorganized..! No development happened in the last so many years; so what magic will happen now?” hearing this, some older people agreed. But Mohan, the captain of the village’s Kabaddi team, was convinced that he will help the Sarpanch & bring about a change. They never had a ground in their village for playing kabaddi. They had practised in the neighbouring villages and been the runner up’s in the previous tournament.

“We first have to make our village sustainable.” Omprakash was explaining his plan of action to Mohan & his 12 teammates, who were ready to help the Sarpanch. “Every villager should have proper access to education & jobs. This fairness is not a luxury; it is normal to everyone. This fairness lasts to provide opportunities for future generations.” Mohan & his team agreed.

“Now to do this, our Government has launched SSA (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan) making free and compulsory education to children between the ages of 6 to 14 as a fundamental right. I’ll meet the minister of our state and get this movement working in our village too.”

“We’ll help you to develop this,” Mohan promised. “We’ll also have to convert the primary school to Secondary one.”

“That will be done from the Prime Minister’s Relief fund.” Omprakash said. “The next thing is to increase our economy. We don’t have a market of our own. We should encourage our villagers to open small business and spend their wages locally to help improve other people’s business. Successful business create more jobs for more people and better standards of living for more people in the community.”

“For that, we can cultivate good crops in our fields. We can use those vegetables to sell in our village only, so that the revenue generated can help us.” Mohan said to which Omprakash agreed.

“We will also have to start proper planning of our villages. This includes, construction of drain channels alongside roads, every house to have a well-planned green area in their compounds & lots of open spaces for people to play and relax. That also includes, good medical facilities for us. Also, we will start using cattle dump for preparation of biogas. To reduce the cost of electricity, we could use Solar Panels for generating hot water as well as also electricity. To maintain proper hygiene, every house should have a toilet. Also, since the rains are approaching, we can start rainwater harvesting to conserve water.” All of them agreed to the Sarpanch’s plan.

Work was started next day itself. Mohan & his team first cleaned the entire village in groups. Omprakash issued orders to segregate the wet garbage & dry garbage, which was carried out enthusiastically by all the villagers.

“Dry Garbage like paper, metal, plastic, wood, glass can be recycled and sold.” Omprakash ji said as he launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in the village. “Wet waste like rotten fruits, leftover foods, peels & scrapings of fruits & vegetables can be composted along with other degradable matter. This will take months to degrade, but will produce good manure which can be used for our fields. Also, under the Swachh Bharat scheme, to eliminate open defecation, we will get the required revenue from our government & have individual toilets for every family.”

Hearing this, villagers readily agreed to segregate the wastes generated.

Omprakash ji, also hired engineers from the neighbouring towns for installing Solar Water Heaters & Solar Panels above every house. Almost after 5 months, every house in the village had its own individual toilet, a well maintained green open space outside with two garbage cans: one for wet garbage & one for dry garbage. With the installation of Solar panels, the use of cooking gas as well as electricity reduced to a much larger extent. A small hospital, was also proposed in the village, & it’s construction soon began after the Solar Panels were installed.

Mohan and his team helped Omprakash ji to build a new school building in the village, which further raised the education to secondary levels. The construction of the building as well as various other projects such as civil work of submerged drainage systems, construction of toilets and other structures was done by the local villagers, thereby avoiding labourers from other villages which helped to save the costs.

With almost every villager owning cattle, bio-gas was easy to setup using cow dung. Two major bio-gas plants were set-up in the village. The villagers sold cow dung to the plant at the rate of 75 paise per kg and started supplying gas to their kitchen from the plant by paying ₹200 per month.

After a couple of months, farmers from the village used the manure developed by composting the wet garbage for the fields, which ultimately produced good crops, thereby increasing the individual profit for every farmer in the village. This village had no proper market of their own. Villagers had to go to all the other neighbouring towns & rural areas for their daily shopping. Now, with all the crops flourishing nicely, Omprakash ji decided to start a market in the village itself. This helped the villagers to purchase groceries & all the other stuff in their own market, thereby, increasing the net profit of all the farmers.

The villagers also converted the playground in the centre into a nice open ground for the kabaddi championship, by planting proper shading trees like Siris, Kadamba, Neem, Sausage tree & Bakul. With proper seeds planted ,they buried the seeds with manure produced in the grounds.

“We will be installing the Rainwater Harvesting system in every house in the village.” Omprakash ji announced in the Panchayat meeting to the villagers as well as also explained the procedure. “The water from the roofs will be drained into a filtration tank where it will be filtered & made ready for our use. This will help us to use that water for bathing the cattle, for watering plants, for flushing in toilets & for all domestic use.”

Within about 6 months, with the help of Mohan, his team,& all the villagers, the whole village of Dharnai slowly started transforming. Roads with proper drainage on both sides, every house in the village well equipped with a toilet, Solar heaters & Rainwater Harvesting tanks surrounded by greenery on all sides. The village had its own secondary school under construction & a marketplace, thereby benefitting the villagers.

With about 2 months left for the kabaddi matches, the organizing committee came to visit the visit Dharnai. Looking at the development, they readily agreed to allow Dharnai to host the Interstate Kabaddi matches. By the end of the rainy season, all the crops had grown magnificently, the villagers had an ample supply of water & Dharnai was no longer facing electric load shedding.

Finally, the day of the match arrived. Many people travelled to Dharnai; from neighbouring towns & villages in government & private transport. All the matches were to be held in the central ground. The Panchayat Samiti had appointed volunteers to take care of all the guests & also to manage all the things. As per the rule of the organising committee, the host team is not allowed to participate in the tournament. Owing to that, Mohan & his teammates were helping out the villagers to organize things. The Mayor of the nearby town was invited to inaugurate the event.

The tournament lasted for two days.

After the final match and the award ceremony was over, Omprakash ji, was invited to speak. Greeting all the dignitaries present, he started his oration, “Respected brothers & sisters, today I would like to thank all of you for coming to my village and for gracing this wonderful occasion. It is said, that teamwork is the ability to work cooperatively with others as opposed to separately or competitively to achieve a common goal. Take the example of kabaddi. In this game, a team will not be successful unless all the members work together as a unit. Similarly, business or cooperation will not survive unless all members work as one team. Whether or not, each individual realizes it, they are putting complete trust in the other members of their team to work together and achieve one common goal.

Today our village of Dharnai is not just a sustainable village, but also an eco-friendly and self-dependent one. To make it of this standard, all of the villagers and especially Mohan & his team have contributed immensely to make our village of such a nice standard. We all worked together as a team and created what was impossible just a year ago, to possible, which is now. Trust, hardwork, confidence in each other, these ideas make up the core concepts of teamwork. I am whole heartedly grateful to Mohan and his team for helping me in sych a difficult task. Thank You…!”

As all the dignitaries, guests & villagers applauded, Mohan was requested to say a few words. “I believe, that every team needs a leader, someone who will step up to his/her task and complete it to the best his/her ability. For us, Omprakash ji was an inspiring leader. A leader, does not exactly have to be the same person every time. For example, a kabaddi team requires several leaders to be successful. If someone new will step up every day and get his/her job done, others will follow by example. A good leader does not always have to be the loud and aggressive, but can be directional & set an example for all to be followed. Omprakash ji inspired & created the leader in all of us. He has always been the leader on our path to success.” All the audience present gave a huge round of applause to Omprakash ji, who thanked everyone.

After a month, Dharnai was awarded the UNDP Biodiversity Award for sustainability & eco-friendly environment. The money received was used for the welfare of the village.

Today afternoon, majority of the villagers & Omprakash ji had gathered in the central playground to watch a match between the boys of the village. With fully grown trees surrounding the playground, a nice breeze was blowing, & inspite of the harsh afternoon, not a single villager could feel the sun owing to the nice shade provided by the trees. The village kabaddi team now got this ground for practising for the next year tournament.

“Hu-tu-tu-tu….tu-tu-tu…..” Mohan kept murmuring, as he entered the opposing ring.