Wednesday 13 March 2013

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.

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