What I feel about this Trip

There are many things I like about this trip, the first is that I love travelling, especially road trips. But this is something beyond driving, meeting these women has been an amazing experience for me. When I really connect with these people I experience me in their place and I think that this is how india can change, not just by big politicians who are selfish. I have never met more selfless people before.

What I feel about each woman

Bimla Devi - She destroyed the most important problem in India, cast and gender discrimination. I feel she made a huge difference in her village even when she was not the sarpanch of her village which is a great feat because people do not listen to just any person and she made them listen to her...

Vijaylaxmi Sharma - She is the most brave woman I have met, she is not scared of so many threatenings. She just does her work without worrying about herself which is a very good value. Another that I really liked about Raju was her firmness when she said at the age of thirteen that she will not get married.

Norti Bai - I love her always young spirit, she learnt how to run a computer at the age of 60! She became the Sarpanch of her village at such an old age!

Sister Mariola - I love how she looks at everyone with a different or good eye. She even saw love in criminals. I love her love for everyone.

Kalbeliya Dancers - She is a part of a nomadic tribe which is on the move at all times. She has grown from the worst of times into visiting more than 50 times and going abroad 85 times. But this has not made her show off, her humility still exists.

Rakhi Paliwal - She is the role model for all women who think that men and women are equal. She does everything a man does and maybe even more than that.

Fehmida Malik - Being a psychologist, she was not a professional in what she did, but she still did it for the people.

Mittal Patel - Her subject was journalism for which she studied nomadic tribes, when she went and saw how these people live, she was very touched and she then took the decision to help them in any way. And she did. This shows a good heart and a strong decision making power.

What I feel about this Trip

There are many things I like about this trip, the first is that I love travelling, especially road trips. But this is something beyond driving, meeting these women has been an amazing experience for me. When I really connect with these people I experience me in their place and I think that this is how india can change, not just by big politicians who are selfish. I have never met more selfless people before.

What I feel about each woman

Bimla Devi - She destroyed the most important problem in India, cast and gender discrimination. I feel she made a huge difference in her village even when she was not the sarpanch of her village which is a great feat because people do not listen to just any person and she made them listen to her...

Vijaylaxmi Sharma - She is the most brave woman I have met, she is not scared of so many threatenings. She just does her work without worrying about herself which is a very good value. Another that I really liked about Raju was her firmness when she said at the age of thirteen that she will not get married.

Norti Bai - I love her always young spirit, she learnt how to run a computer at the age of 60! She became the Sarpanch of her village at such an old age!

Sister Mariola - I love how she looks at everyone with a different or good eye. She even saw love in criminals. I love her love for everyone.

Kalbeliya Dancers - She is a part of a nomadic tribe which is on the move at all times. She has grown from the worst of times into visiting more than 50 times and going abroad 85 times. But this has not made her show off, her humility still exists.

Rakhi Paliwal - She is the role model for all women who think that men and women are equal. She does everything a man does and maybe even more than that.

Fehmida Malik - Being a psychologist, she was not a professional in what she did, but she still did it for the people.

Mittal Patel - Her subject was journalism for which she studied nomadic tribes, when she went and saw how these people live, she was very touched and she then took the decision to help them in any way. And she did. This shows a good heart and a strong decision making power.

Mittal Patel

She has started an organization called VSSM (). She has been working on giving an identity to all nomadic tribes like the meer group where she has started a school. These people are present in India but do not have any identity because they did not have any permanent address. The physical state of the school is not too great as there are thatches in which studies go on. But they do learn. This school was started just about 2-3 months ago, there is a school that has been going on for 3 years. The aim of these schools is to try and build the mentality of the children to go to the mainstream school. There aim is to send these children itching the time span of 6 months and 1 year. The students in the meer group school seemed very motivated to learn, there was a lot of participation.
There are 40 nomadic tribes in Gujarat, 4 million people are part of these tribes. 28 of these tribes are notified criminal tribes by the Britishers which still stays in India. But the other 12 are denotified by India. VSSM has given identity to 60 thousand people out of the 4 million. They are given the identity by reference, mittal patel is the reference. She even had to make the conditions for the IDs for the government! They have worked in 9 districts out of the 28 in Gujarat. When asked by when will they be done with all 28, she answered first let us be perfect with these 9 at least.
There is political awareness in these tribes and so they all get together and demand several things from the government, it is not fulfilled by saying it once, not twice but several times and then the government does listen to them.

A tribal woman, Jyotsna, less than 30, with which Mittal Patel is working said "she gave my son education, gave us ration cards, voter ID card". She describes the problem of her house saying "when I put a utensil under water when the water falls from the ceiling, water starts falling from somewhere else! This tribe specialises in making bamboos and so he hits were mad of bamboo. And do her tribe is called Baspoda, Bas means Bamboo. "Mittal patel made my girl go to school. She is a great woman". She said "you people think what to cook, we have to think how to get water to cook!". When asked how the government has helped her, she says government only eats money, it does not give money. Mittal Patel has been working here since 3 years.

She used to be a normal journalist researching nomadic tribes. When she asked people where this tribe lived, no one answered. She searched the newspapers and it was written there these are criminals. She went to that place using the newspaper cutting. She was motivated to do this work only after she visited them and saw their state. When a child was crying when she visited that place, when she told her mother, why don't you feed her, the mother shouted back "we don't have food to eat since 3 days, how do you think I will feed her?!". That was the moment she decided to work for the nomads.

The biggest problem for this community is water, food and shelter. There is shelter but it can even get burnt in peak heat in a place like Ahmedabad. This is the physical problem, the social problem is that no one recognises or likes them. Politicians ask citizens what they would like to earn votes but no one asks these people because they don't have the right to vote.

Besides saying so many great things about Mittal, the tribals welcomed her very nicely...

Quote of the day - "There should be a heart in doing things, that is how you can achieve everything" - Mittal Patel

Fehmida Malik

Fehmida Malik is 40 years old, she is a qualified psychologist. She is unmarried because of the cause she is working on. She has 3 sisters and one brother, all of them are married. She was working working with mentally challenged children from the slums of Ahmedabad. In 2002 she took a break because she thought she is not learning anything and exactly a month later the Gujarat riots took place. Thousands of people from the slums were homeless. Vatva is one of the slum area in Ahmedabad. She went there to see what damage had been done. She went there for the first time. When she saw the state of the slums she felt some work needed to be done there. For 6 months after the riots, no one went out of their house there was so much terror. The children were told the stories. They were never so scared before. Fehmida said if you were not there you can't imagine what would have happened. She then started to raise funds so that the children can go to school.

She even opened bank accounts for the people. But there was one condition for that, a woman from the family will open a account and only after that will a man open an account. She gave instant loans to the people between 2000 and 4000 INR. She said at first, the men functioned from the ladies accounts but now men also have opened their own accounts and even come to deposit money in woman's bank accounts.

She got her inspiration from her father who never gave up on anything. Se said he met with an accident two years ago and had a complete memory loss, so much so that she had to even teach him how to peel a banana. But now he has fully recovered and she even went on Haj (pilgrimage) with him last year. This show his power.

She said 3 people supported her financially these are Sameer a friend from Delhi, Aman Trust which is based in Delhi, and Father Paul from a church nearby. When she was asked if her family helps her in this cause, she said yes they support me in any way possible.

Rakhi Paliwal

Rakhi Paliwal is 23 years old, she has been the Vice President of her Panchayat since 3 years. She manages the sanitation of her village by taking a round of her village on her bike at 4 AM to see that no one is going towards the farm with a mug in their hand. If they are she tries to stop them. She has been telling people that it is unhygienic to poop in the farm as many diseases spread. She has been putting up public toilets but no wants to go to the toilet, they say we don't want to go to a closed room. She tells those people to at least pour some mud on their poop as it stops it to spread diseases.

She has been into politics since she was in class 5 when she became the Vice President of her class. In class 9 she told her father I want to contest elections, he said you are too young right now. Se finally came of age and asked her father then. Her father said "no, you will not be able to concentrate as you have to get married." After that she held a meeting with her Panchayat members and told them " I will not get married until my term ends, please vote for your daughter". People did give her votes. She saw in college that a man was troubling a girl, she reported it and that person was sent to jail. Since then all men in her village have been away from women, especially Rakhi. She has been studying government schemes to help the villagers.

Her daily routine is, she wakes up at 4 and goes for a ride on her bike around the village to see to the sanitation. Then she comes back and leaves for her college which is 50 km away at 6 AM. She rides her bike till her college. She comes back from college at 2 PM and talks to people to see their problems. She then studies for her exams in law. She has exams right now and she said it is good that you came today because yesterday I had an exam.

Rakhi Paliwal is the first female Vice President of her panchayat. She is also the first female bike rider of her village. She is the first woman from her village to go to learn law and that too 50 km away!

When she was asked what gave you the motivation to become a politician, she said her father was also the Vice President of her panchayat but he was not eligible any more after he had two children. She said she was fulfilling her fathers dream. When she was asked what she wants to do ahead in her life, she said politics. She also added in India politics is not supposed to be a good word but I want to help people's problems that is why I want to get into politics, not to earn money.

Kalbeliya Dancers

Today we met Sua, she is a Kalbeliya dancer. She is 32 years old. She has 5 children, the eldest is 18 years old and the youngest is 4 years. Sua has gone outside India 85 times! Mostly she goes to France. She has also gone to several other countries, that is ho great a dancer she is.

Kalbeliya is a tribal group which is on the move at all times. They go around with many animals like donkeys, dogs, chickens etc. when the Kalbeliya people go to any village, they are soon kicked out. This is because their animals sometimes go to other peoples farms and eat all the fruits and eatable things. This is why Sua and her family moved to Jodhpur city in Rajasthan. Their family is one of the few who are not on the move at all times.

This tribal group concentrates only on one day. How they an survive for that day, they do not worry about the next day. Sua says "kal ka kal dekhenge" it means let today pass we will see how tomorrow goes later.

Till 30 years ago the earning for the Kalbeliyan group used to be daily wage labourer or similar works. As many people today know Kalbeliya dance is a great form of art. This tribal group did this dance only in their celebrations like a marriage. Sua said during any festival or celebration time, they would celebrate for the whole month. The mothers of these dancers teach them and that is how this ance is still present through so many generations. Sua also said that she creates new dance steps often but the Bollywood stars rob them from me, so I have to make new dance steps more often.

30 years ago Komal Kothari held a meeting of these great dancers and told them to spread this great art work, it would earn them a lot of fame. That is when Kalbeliya dancers performed on stage and were acknowledged.

The name Kalbeliya (meaning).

These people had a great relationship with sankes, they would first take out the poison of the snake and after that they would keep the snake with them for sometime, controlling it. They knew when the venom would be back in the snakes body and they would release it then, Sua also said they release it because they get old and it is not said to be good if the snake dies in your house. Ad you believe it or not, the dancers say they also learn their dance from the snake, you will see similarity in Kalbeliya dance steps and how the snake moves. If the snake has bit someone, the Kalbeliya people know how to cure them. So coming back to the name, Sua said snakes are black and the Hindi for black is kala so kal comes from that. Kal also means time and Beliya means friend or helper. So Kalbeliya is the helper of someone in their bad times.

Sister Mariola

Sister Mariola has been working with the jail inmates of Ajmer central jail since 1997. She is also a teacher in Sophia college in Ajmer which is right beside the central jail. She goes to the jail once a week. While our interview with her she got very emotional saying some of the prisoners have very good hearts. When asked what is the best thing of the job she replied "I love to help the wrongly convicted prisoners". She said she has been making handicrafts for them. A student of hers from the Sophia College has been providing all materials. She sells these handicrafts in the market. On the first occasion when she sold and came back to the jail with the money, the prisoners said please give this money to a poorer and more needy prisoner.
I wish there were more people like Sister Mariola who has a completely different thought even for prisoners.
Hope to see many such women.

Norti bai

Norti Bai, age is unknown as she has been saying she is 65 since ten years! She is the sarpanch of her panchayat harmada, harmada has two villages harmada and naya gaon. She learnt how to use a computer ten years ago. She did not know how to read and write in English but for the computer, she memorised all the letters and she uses Hindi font. She knows which letter is Hindi in the English letters on the computer. When asked what her favourite website is she said "I look at the different Panchayats that are progressing so that she can learn from them", when we asked her if she is on Facebook she said "no work comes first, I don't have the time to go to Facebook, and time is money".

She was talking to us very calmly, sometimes she would get excited and start talking loudly and happily, everybody loved it!

Her actual story started in 1981. She used to be a daily wage labourer. The daily wage for men was 7 rupees per day and for women was just 3rupees per day. She was very angry at this. She approached barefoot college on this matter and they filed a court case. They won it. But norti Bais agitation did not go. To try and make norti bai do something new, they told her to learn the computer. She said it was very very tough in the starting but she somehow managed it, "ro pit ke" as she said it. For the next 6 and a half years she was the manager or quadrant or of all computer related work in The barefoot college. She became very popular in her village and surroundings. She took permission from the barefoot college to ask if she could be a candidate in the elections. The tilonia based Organization said if you do not use government money for campaign and do not bribe to win you may contest the elections.

Vijaylaxmi Sharma

Vijaylaxmi Sharma, 24, B.Ed from village jhorinda bhojpura in Phagi district Rajasthan was born when her mother was only 14 years old. Kamla Sharma had all her 3children by the age of 19 which is when she had an operation after which she couldn't give birth. The other two children are vijay Sharma, 22 B.Ed and Mahesh Sharma, 20 pursuing polytechnic in civil. When Vijaylaxmi got to the age of 13 she saw her friend (same age) getting married. Her friend gave birth next year and died. Raju (vijaylaxmi's nickname) saw this coming her way as well. She used to listen to her parents talking to one of her uncles about marriage. She used to hide and listen to all this. One day she shouted out "I am not getting married at this age!" Her parents were shocked. They had never seen her daughter like this before. Her mother admits that she cursed her. But she saw the silent support of her fathers. One day she said to her father "please give me your support, I will not dishonour our family". He agreed, that is when her fit against child marriage started. Slowly she got the support of her whole family and now the family together has stopped 15 child marriages in their village and the surrounding villages. Her brother is a tarot card reader so he uses his social identity to convince the brides family. The mother talks to the mother of the bride. The father talks to the father and Vijaylaxmi herself goes straight to the bride.

When Raju started this cause, her mother got threatening phone calls saying tell your daughter to stop this or we won't leave her alone, at a few instances Raju would pick up the phone and tell them "come, what can you do to me?, come". Her mother used to be very scared but she also supported her daughter in this great cause.

Vijaylaxmi Sharma says what motivates me to do this is that she pictures herself in the brides position.

Red Rickshaw Revolution

The Red Rickshaw Revolution is a project in which Laura, Carina and Sunita are driving an auto from Delhi to Mumbai to raise funds and highlight great women. If you also want to donate you are most welcome. You just need to log onto redrickshaw.in

The following posts are all about this trip and about the women involved.