This was the day when everything favored us greatly. We got up early and bought things like cheese spread and ordered Paranthas from a Punjabi uncle near the hotel. This helped us save costs and avoid lunch-time hunger when inside the Khayara village. We had breakfast with Jam and Cheese Spread at the hotel, and it amused me to think how good we girls could be at economy of living, while maintaining the luxury and the taste in life - here with respect to food.
May be we were learning how to get things done quicker. Earlier it was difficult for us to leave a conversation with a village person once entrenched in it. But now we had started making eyes to each other and hinting at the extreme loss of time it was leading to. Such a demeanor was to characterize our dealings today.
First we ran to the Patwari to show him the proof of signature of the Inspector at the Police Station. We had bought a chart-paper and a few sketch pens to have him help us draw the village map. But he was more interested in simply allowing us to photograph the old meticulous maps drawn on cloth material. They were highly detailed and my head reeled at seeing such specificity. Each road meter was more than a cm in length and when spread out, the whole Khanyaya village map covered almost 90% of whatever empty space there was on the ground.
We asked a lot of questions on soil and land and he showed us their registers. It was surprising how easily one could trust you and reveal so much information. We could have been terrorists even. We felt obliged in many ways. Their trust humbled us. We noted the data and then took leave.
Next we went to the Khanyara Khas Panchayat and had the Upa-pradhan called up. He was to arrive shortly and we waited for a while. He gave us a lot of demographic data and we noted all that down. This time there was the Junior Engineer as well whom we had met in passing. We tried to persuade them to help us draw the village map, and to our surprise it happened quite smoothly. The engineer was keen on using his own stationery, paper etc to draw it. We were feeling delighted at every line he drew and he did a great work. While he drew, other joined around him and started contributing to the map. This phenomenon of collective sense-making reminded me of a similar activity related to us by a professor of Rural Marketing Communications. At that time I had not imagined that I would ever be engaged in such thing any time soon. But when it happened, and we girls saw it happening, it sent us on cloud nine. Out of all the data collected that one map is something I would cherish for life. We have plans of adding color to the map and give it a more interesting look.
The discussions with those members in the Panchayat would go on forever and there was little stopping them from sharing anecdotes or even exaggerating some events for the sake of telling us more worthwhile things. We found it difficult to detach ourselves from the group since such warmth had built up. We were given tea and lots of biscuits to eat and being a little hungry as we were, we did eat many of them.
Soon it was mid-day meal time at the Primary School and we decided to witness that and take a few photographs. The teachers readily recognized us and offered us food but feeling that it would be unfair to eat what was meant for the kids, we gratefully refused the offer and instead spent a little time observing the process of serving and the kids sitting together for the meal.
Satisfied with the work, we thought of going ahead with a hitherto untouched portion of the village research, the Brand Consumption. We went to the nearby store - the shop placed strategically at the cross-roads of entrance to Khanyara main road, just near the Panchayat Office. We sat there and first decided to finish lunch that we had got packed from near the Kunal hotel. The shop-keeper seemed quite willing to allow us to use his benches under the awnings. It was a nice peaceful place to sit at and look at the surroundings. That was one of my best experiences ever. The clouds could be seen, not very far away, the people could be seen coming and going. The food felt tasty and we felt so content.
After the food we asked a lot of questions and he answered them one by one. However, he was too precise and too curt in his replies though he was interested in us and smiled all the while. He was one of the most educated persons in the village having done his M.A. in Public Administration from none less than the Central University of Himachal Pradesh. Learning from him that he sends his kid to a costlier school made it clear that he was ambitious without being too showy about it. His shop and dressing were ordinary and not very well managed so as to reflect better financial conditions. I was wondering if I could ask him questions on sale of condoms etc but thought it is better to put it for another day.
Feeling that it would be wiser to take leave from the village before it turned too dark, we started walking downhill. Just then we happened to stop at the Nepali uncle's shop. Now this was the shop which we encountered almost every single day and they had begun expecting us at a particular time in the day. When they asked us if we had found the 'Bisprin' hotel the earlier day, we explained how it had ended. They had us sit in their home-cum-shop a rather shabbily built old rickety structure where the Nepali couple stayed with their helper who sold things and collected money from customers.
They were opening up very quickly in the conversations and kept on telling us more and more about them. We were feeling whether we really deserved being told so much. But they wouldn't care. Smiles and nods were enough to get them going and they told about lost sons in their family, cities they stayed in, houses built in the village and furnished with liberal spending. When they said that they preferred living in that shabby place and not in their family members' better homes, it was a little difficult to digest. I didn't want to explore that area.
They asked us to find time and come over the next day to have lunch with them and to travel in their Nano to meet their large number of family members. The thought, though being extremely favorable from a research perspective, didn't make much sense from the point of view of 'covering' everything in a village. We however gave in and promised to come over for the same. Somewhere we weren't sure they were too serious about it and may have been being courteous alone.
May be we were learning how to get things done quicker. Earlier it was difficult for us to leave a conversation with a village person once entrenched in it. But now we had started making eyes to each other and hinting at the extreme loss of time it was leading to. Such a demeanor was to characterize our dealings today.
First we ran to the Patwari to show him the proof of signature of the Inspector at the Police Station. We had bought a chart-paper and a few sketch pens to have him help us draw the village map. But he was more interested in simply allowing us to photograph the old meticulous maps drawn on cloth material. They were highly detailed and my head reeled at seeing such specificity. Each road meter was more than a cm in length and when spread out, the whole Khanyaya village map covered almost 90% of whatever empty space there was on the ground.
We asked a lot of questions on soil and land and he showed us their registers. It was surprising how easily one could trust you and reveal so much information. We could have been terrorists even. We felt obliged in many ways. Their trust humbled us. We noted the data and then took leave.
Next we went to the Khanyara Khas Panchayat and had the Upa-pradhan called up. He was to arrive shortly and we waited for a while. He gave us a lot of demographic data and we noted all that down. This time there was the Junior Engineer as well whom we had met in passing. We tried to persuade them to help us draw the village map, and to our surprise it happened quite smoothly. The engineer was keen on using his own stationery, paper etc to draw it. We were feeling delighted at every line he drew and he did a great work. While he drew, other joined around him and started contributing to the map. This phenomenon of collective sense-making reminded me of a similar activity related to us by a professor of Rural Marketing Communications. At that time I had not imagined that I would ever be engaged in such thing any time soon. But when it happened, and we girls saw it happening, it sent us on cloud nine. Out of all the data collected that one map is something I would cherish for life. We have plans of adding color to the map and give it a more interesting look.
The discussions with those members in the Panchayat would go on forever and there was little stopping them from sharing anecdotes or even exaggerating some events for the sake of telling us more worthwhile things. We found it difficult to detach ourselves from the group since such warmth had built up. We were given tea and lots of biscuits to eat and being a little hungry as we were, we did eat many of them.
Soon it was mid-day meal time at the Primary School and we decided to witness that and take a few photographs. The teachers readily recognized us and offered us food but feeling that it would be unfair to eat what was meant for the kids, we gratefully refused the offer and instead spent a little time observing the process of serving and the kids sitting together for the meal.
Satisfied with the work, we thought of going ahead with a hitherto untouched portion of the village research, the Brand Consumption. We went to the nearby store - the shop placed strategically at the cross-roads of entrance to Khanyara main road, just near the Panchayat Office. We sat there and first decided to finish lunch that we had got packed from near the Kunal hotel. The shop-keeper seemed quite willing to allow us to use his benches under the awnings. It was a nice peaceful place to sit at and look at the surroundings. That was one of my best experiences ever. The clouds could be seen, not very far away, the people could be seen coming and going. The food felt tasty and we felt so content.
After the food we asked a lot of questions and he answered them one by one. However, he was too precise and too curt in his replies though he was interested in us and smiled all the while. He was one of the most educated persons in the village having done his M.A. in Public Administration from none less than the Central University of Himachal Pradesh. Learning from him that he sends his kid to a costlier school made it clear that he was ambitious without being too showy about it. His shop and dressing were ordinary and not very well managed so as to reflect better financial conditions. I was wondering if I could ask him questions on sale of condoms etc but thought it is better to put it for another day.
Feeling that it would be wiser to take leave from the village before it turned too dark, we started walking downhill. Just then we happened to stop at the Nepali uncle's shop. Now this was the shop which we encountered almost every single day and they had begun expecting us at a particular time in the day. When they asked us if we had found the 'Bisprin' hotel the earlier day, we explained how it had ended. They had us sit in their home-cum-shop a rather shabbily built old rickety structure where the Nepali couple stayed with their helper who sold things and collected money from customers.
They were opening up very quickly in the conversations and kept on telling us more and more about them. We were feeling whether we really deserved being told so much. But they wouldn't care. Smiles and nods were enough to get them going and they told about lost sons in their family, cities they stayed in, houses built in the village and furnished with liberal spending. When they said that they preferred living in that shabby place and not in their family members' better homes, it was a little difficult to digest. I didn't want to explore that area.
They asked us to find time and come over the next day to have lunch with them and to travel in their Nano to meet their large number of family members. The thought, though being extremely favorable from a research perspective, didn't make much sense from the point of view of 'covering' everything in a village. We however gave in and promised to come over for the same. Somewhere we weren't sure they were too serious about it and may have been being courteous alone.
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