when wishes are fulfilled

(c) Anita Satyajit 2005


It was culmination of desires accumulated carefully over years. The desire to move beyond what skill I have got slotted into and move into the platform where I get to do something that might add more meaning into people’s lives.

Working on the script last week I wrote, “When food is a priority there is no time for opportunity.” The situation was befitting of the villages I visited early this week, but for me it was the reverse. Food wasn’t the priority, god has given me all the basics and then some, what I was craving for was that opportunity that’d let me peek and hopefully move into the world which I have been aching to be a part of. I finally got me some opportunity myself.

I visited 6 villages in the West Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh as part of the project site visits. Now after visiting those six, I am greedy and want to visit all the 32 villages which the project will cover.

I couldn’t even begin to image how serene and beautiful the area would be. We breezed through roads that were bordered by coconut trees. Often a canal accompanied us all through the way and in some villages the aqua fields joined the gang to create stunningly beautiful vistas. Farmers were busy at work. Harvesting season was on. All around I could see people working hard toiling away trying to create those houses of hay (as I refer to them. Circular structures, with a cap atop its head. Grain is stored in these structures. Saw people separating the chaff from the hay, storing the hay, transporting the hay. It was harvest time! I was soaking in the beauty and was enthralled by it all.

Some images stay behind. The naked children uninhabited, diving into the canal and swimming in the mossy green; The tiny mud road dominated by the tall coconut trees on either side that met their heads to maybe ponder about us foolish wanderers below; the lady sitting with a child by the road side ( I got their snap), the aqua ponds and the whirring of the water churning machine which was busy oxygenating the water; the view from Patepuram village school roof top, the kids at school jostling for a snap and the four girls who came outside begging for one more, the girls at Ardhavaram standing shyly and their teacher eager and restless to move intellectually beyond the confines of her village...

The more you see the more you observe. Slowly I began to also take in the people working. The sweat streaming down the sometimes bare backs, Women’ blouses dark with patches of sweat, the bare feet, the threadbare houses along the way, plain sheets pulled across 4 stumps and people lunching beneath it. A colleague present said jokingly that they are picnicking. It was a daily affair I commented. But were they?