Having spent four weeks in Natpurwa, I would like to write up a summary of my experiences with the individual Asha volunteers there and the Asha work in general that I witnessed.
On the whole, I was very impressed by the hard work of all the Asha volunteers, and the degree to which Asha has helped Natpurwa in a wide range of areas, including education, the sex worker problem, police harassment and political projects (particularly the Right to Information Campaign and the Right to Water Campaign.) The children in the Asha schools gained not just classroom knowledge from Asha workers. The workers’ involvement in political campaigns taught the children the possibility and effective methods of demanding the rights that had been withheld from them for centuries on account of their caste and economic position. I truly believe that the work of Asha volunteers in the various political campaigns and local anti-prostitution self-help groups has empowered the villagers and inspired the children. A sense of political-mindedness and social activism has been instilled in these children in a way that cannot be taught in schools.
I will now go on to talk about individual Asha workers.
Ramsagar (Guddu)
I stayed with Guddu’s family in Natpurwa, so I am particularly familiar with his work, his hours, his commitment and his frustrations.
Guddu works mainly for Asha’s political campaigns and for the school that is
conducted on his front porch. During my
time there, he spent most of his time outside the village working for the Right
to Information Campaign, both in Hardoi and in
I would however like to mention that in my four weeks with Guddu, I did notice that his spirits were failing. He expressed to me that he hadn’t been paid for five months, and asked me to talk to the Asha America workers. At first I felt that I was not in a position to do so. But as an Asha intern who spent significant time with this man, I would like to mention his tireless hard work, devotion and passion. By the end of my stay, I began to think that despite his good attitude, he could only work so much longer without getting paid. In his economic position, it simply isn’t possible. And I wanted to mention that I bear witness to that.
Neel Kamal
Neel Kamal and Guddu, first cousins, essentially do the same work. They are the only two Asha workers that own motorcycles, and thus they travel together to projects outside the village. All that I mentioned above about Guddu’s involvement and hours also apply to Neel Kamal. The same is true for his economic condition, which he expressed to me on a number of occasions.
Neel Kamal is sharp-witted and a jokester. At the same time, he takes his work very seriously and tirelessly travels throughout the district to do Asha work. This is especially worth mentioning since he was sick with a fever and serious ear infection my last week there, and still worked every day, making time to take me to different villages to do school surveys (often in the rain). His wife Mamta who is five months pregnant teaches at the school in the mornings.
I will write about Chandralekha on both a professional and personal level, as I got to know her on both. She teaches at the evening school at Hansaraj’s house, and also organizes the sex worker self-help groups (SHG). At the school she was a devoted teacher. There was not a SHG meeting while I was in Natpurwa, so I did not get to witness her in this work. However, I was well acquainted with her advocacy for these women in the flesh trade.
Herself a former prostitute, Chandraleka arranged for me to interview 11 different women who were either involved or previously involved in the profession. Additionally, she took me to meet with two of the village doctors to investigate the health of these women. She is knowledgeable and passionate about the problem in the village, and is anxious to find alternative income opportunities for these women. She is now in the initial stages of organizing a women’s cooperative program. On a personal note, she was incredibly helpful to me in my investigation of these women. She was ready whenever I was to conduct interviews, and hosted me almost every afternoon on her porch with tea and biscuits as we waited for these women to come. This was before and after half of the front wall of her house collapsed, leaving a pile of dirt and limp roof where her front door once stood. She will not fix it until after the rainy season.
I found Chandralekha to be a powerful mobilizer among these women. She was able to convince a number of skeptical women to participate in the interviews. Additionally, in my last two days I organized bike riding lessons for these women. Chandralekha went around convincing women to come, and was the first to fling herself on a bicycle, sari hitched, and try her hand (feet?) in front of 30 giggling villagers.
She also worked as an advocate for local villagers. On one occasion, a neighbor was being harassed by the police for producing cane liquor in his home. Chandralekha immediately went over to talk to the police and tell them not to bully this man. On another occasion, a local girl had eloped with a boy and Chandralekha went with the family twice to the police station in Atroli, 10 km away, to file a report. She is kind with a good sense of humor, but also passionate, outspoken and fierce, when need be.
I got to know Hansaraj quite well, as he was my translator for my interview with the sex workers. In addition to that, he also hosted me at his Asha evening school, and took me to the government school (where he works in the mornings) as he felt it was important that I see the conditions there.
Hansaraj is passionately and tirelessly devoted to his work and the power of education in general. I know this well, as he speaks very good English, and often went on tirades about his beliefs. It was inspiring -and sometimes a little tiring!- but his message and his feelings were clear. As I mentioned in the school surveys, Hansaraj works in the mornings at the government school and in the evenings at the Asha school, which he hosts in his home. When I was there he spent much of the time in between helping me with my interviews. He is a busy man. In addition to that work, he also worked on the Right to Information Campaign and helped organized people to attend a sit-in in Sandila.
Hansraj
went to school in
His wife, Uma, also teaches in the school. The two of them and Chandralekha are convinced that girls education in Natpurwa requires a nearby girl’s inter-college, which the dream of setting up, given the proper funding. Otherwise, the girls won’t be educated past the 8th class. The high school options are much too far away for these girls to travel, and as Hansraj told me repeatedly, “the key to getting these girls out of the flesh trade is to educate them. Then, they will know that this is a bad thing.”
I did not get to know Bikki personally, though I got to witness him almost daily as a teacher. He is a great teacher. On my first day in the village, I was surprised by the professionalism and enthusiasm of the teacher, who I later learned was Bikki.
Bikki is a
Muslim, and lives in the neighboring
Within Hardoi, Bikki is Asha’s “model teacher.” He has attended teacher training sessions in Madhya Pradesh (there may have been others, I just heard of this one.) and came back to teach other Asha teachers at the Lalpur ashram. I was there, and it was fun to watch him make Hindi and English letter building blocks from mud, and teach math games with bundles of twigs. Additionally, the children love him, and he was at every Asha gathering that I attended- both within and outside the village. This was regardless of the distance, and he and Hansaraj always attended, traveling on their bicycles, often in the suffocating hear or pouring rain.
Those are the major Asha workers that I got to know. Without them my time and work in the village
would have been difficult and mostly impossible. I am very sincere when I say that I was
impressed and sometimes blown away by their influence on the village. Guddu informed me that before Asha started
working in Natpurwa, police came to the village almost daily to harass its
inhabitants. They made good money off
the bribe money they got from the prostitutes, pimps, cane liquor producers,
and unlucky villagers. Today, while
police harassment certainly hasn’t ceased, there is significantly less. Additionally, while the prostitution problem
certainly has not ended, I felt that the women involved looked at Chandralekha
as an example and a voice, that ancestors and caste cannot force a woman into
selling her tired and resigned body for 150 rupees a night. And finally, I felt that the presence of Asha
in Natpurwa gave the villagers a sense that they were not alone. Through political involvement, teacher
training and
On a personal note, I would also like to say how much I gained from my time in Natpurwa. I found the villagers to be incredibly hospitable, if at first somewhat distrusting. As time progressed and people’s distrust grew into rabid curiosity and then genuine friendliness, I became comfortable in the village. I felt incredibly lucky to witness and experience the everyday lives of these people, and to often be included in them. Moreover, I was able to learn first hand about a fascinating culture that I would have otherwise never known.
She interned with Asha in the summer of 2006 for six weeks. For four weeks she lived in Natpurwa, visiting schools and researching the village’s sex worker problem.