Karlapat and Amthagouda

...I look up to see how far she needs to go...my eyes keep looking higher and higher until they finally find the forebay, at least half a kilometer of a climb away. She has 12 bricks on her head, held onto by two dark brown human limbs, nearly a photo-copy of a sapling's limbs. She climbs steadily, knowing her sweat is gradually giving her partial ownership to the new micro hydro system. Others in her family go searching for labor jobs in order to build the corpus fund required for the system. The jobs ofcourse are inextricably linked to the local "development", ie roads for new mining and dam work. Are we bringing them light or inevitable darkness?

...We have arrived after dark. The lights are on, but ironically I still cannot decipher all his features. He is Arjun, the boyish looking 20 yr old leader of the village. I am introduced as the 'madame replacing Michael'...I receive stares in response to the intro. I catch an older lady sprawled out on the patio of her cookie-cut, Gram Vikas built home. I interrupt the intros to ask what's happened. "She's over dosed on the local liquor." Nothing new I am told....but I was so happy to hear that Arjun was not going to accept drinking as a village ritual. Arjun and his co-leader are the only two in the village who do not drink. Three years ago, Arjun forced the gov't to close its nearby liquor shopt. If people made their own, he publicly tied and scolded any man that was drinking...his motivation in relieving the chaos that follows drinking resulted in a liquor free village for at least a year. Unfortunately the gov't has re-opened the shop. ...We talked about how evening activities could now be held with the new lights, in order to distract people from drinking. Hope they happen soon. ...We were there to look at the new lights...Arjun became the Light I had been searching for.

Such images in the villages of Karlapat (in process of getting a micro hydro system) and Amthagouda (has a newly finished micro hydro system), two tribal villages near Bhavanipatna (the town I am in now), Orissa, have occupied my mind and heart like no other during the last four days. They are teaching me about their will and my judgements.

The turbine and cable material arrived unexpectedly on-time. We will stay an extra week, until April 14 or so No email or phone.