Fringe Benefits

A short, quick trip to Palwal district (the name which I mistook for a vegetable Parmal) yesterday was a long drawn affair. After creating ruckus at home in the morning that I was running late for the assignment, I soon realised my watch was ahead by 20 minutes. Talk about a bad start! On reaching the departure point, I was asked to board the bus towards the exit from the back. Walking closer I could see some heads bobbing out. After spotting all unfamiliar faces, I was asked to climb down and move to the Innova parked close by, which was meant to drive the journos. Absent mindedly, and sort of hurried, I was saved by a couple of seconds from a speeding Innova, which drove past too close from the bus. Phew!

The other journalists soon gathered and made a bid to leave. It was still 8am, and all of us were in no mood to hang around for the whole jamboree to kickstart engines, as selfish as that sounds, we were already late by 30 minutes from the scheduled time. So much for discipline!

Finally, with five journalists and an overconfident driver, the Innova fuzzily began its journey. After about an hour, I complained about nature's adamant call. The others soon joined to look for an apt dhaba to stop and have tea and munchies. We took off again, this time, smooth roads helped. On entering Haryana, the first sight I saw was not of fat buffalos throwing caution and crap on roads, but malls.

Smoother roads in Palwal, us journos mostly chatted about movies. My taste in movies such as The Fountain, The Orphanage, District 9, which I forgot was not set in US but Africa..everything that is inhuman in subject and sci-fi in genre does not happen in US, you see.

Reaching the venue, I spotted my aunt, who was part of the organiser bank's team, she quickly started the whole networking thing with the whole lot. The school kids hastily entered with reluctant mothers in tow, who I doubt even knew where they were headed with those waist length veils. I could trip in broad daylight, almost get crushed over with open eyes, this confused me.

The Gudhrana village is populated by some 3,000 odd number of people, unconfirmed data says. We saw a room that read "Vigyaan kaksh" humbly written on top of the wall. In the small corridors, messages with morals were painted on top such as "paap se ghrina karo, paapi se nahin," us journos were escorted to a room for lunch.

We didn't eat there as scores of people had turned up, and we were asked to stop over at the highway on our way back and indulge our hungry stomachs. And we did, how! We sank into a hearty fresh veggie meal with soft tandoori roti at Master Dhaba.

A word about the kids and the programme. Since this was my second entourage for an outreach programme, I could vaguely draw some comparisons from the village in Bhubhanewsar and this village. But, I will come to the later, perhaps in another post.

The kids were just parked together in the shamiana, without water and they sat huddled and awed in our presence. They were mostly the same as you would find in a government school, barring the odd Haryanvi dialogue that you might catch. Most of them were talking amongst themselves, and staring at all of us every few seconds.

There was a skit planned for them, to understand the basics of banking. In one of the sequences of the skit, which was aptly titled 'Raju aur paise ka ped', the actor tried to show that he is planting seeds. Now, from where these kids sat, it was difficult to see what was happening. So, some of them immediately got up to see the 'money seeds' being planted. During this minor commotion, one of the kids, sitting next to me grunted, "na baith jao koi asli zameen na khud ri".

The show mostly went on with the District Commissioner making a brief appearance and addressed the audience in English, which was disheartening, since the programme was meant as an 'outreach programme' meant for the non-urban populace.

"Aage sark lo re chokre," barked this security guard from behind to the kids.

The whole shamiana was dotted with stalls, with local handicraft products being sold alongside some free pamphlets on banking basics,in English and Hindi.

The only spot to cheer was the bank chairman, who despite a flawed Hindi, delivered a spirited enthusiastic address, which no one among the shifty kids, and us showed any interest.

Walking back to the car, we saw an obscure ice-cream vendor, the name I think was Seeza? Some of the kids were drinking water straight from those bulky water containers meant for the function. Leaving behind reams of burst balloons, we came out.

Back to Delhi at 5:45pm..yawwn..tired!