We left the humble village of Balapur where people were content of the simple mudhouses they lived in. Eating pakoda and halwa charged us to continue our yatra of 19-20 km.
A little further, we met with villagers who shared that they face water shortage issues, lack of electricity and most importantly the issue of land rights. Only 5 pieces of land was originally given. Now each family has on an average 5 children and they in turn have 4-5 children, it’s becoming difficult to sustain big families with less land.
In conversation with one of the women on having less children, she revealed that we have many children because we need a boy child. It will require more research to know and understand their reasons for the same if it is a traditional way of life of that tribe or a compulsive process pressurised by the society.
One question that I’m pondering on – “How long are we going to take to educate people on population explosion, it’s connection with Environmental changes and have family planning welfare centres established in the remotest village in India ?”
The villagers also showed us herbs like shatavar, hazardani and bhuiamla.
We moved further and was happy walking witnessing the cloudy atmosphere that did not tire us. We stopped at a gaushala a little further where we relished freshly roasted groundnut and jaggery.
We reached our lunch destination which was at the Ma Kali Mandir, Kangapur.
After walking for about 7-8 km, we reached Mudheri village.
A Testimony
Some people move from a point to another by car, mostly air conditioned ones. Lof of ordinary people travel by bus or train. There are also motorcycles and many others ways of transport on the roads. Even camels are on the road. Could you imagine one carrying cement or crops in Geneva. We decide to walk. This is slow, healthy, could be hot, and makes us happy keeping going for peace.
From a sustainable point of view, walkers and camels get the point. They even don’t produce motor’noise, just farting sometimes. We have to divide the bus pollution in many passengers. Train gets a better ecobilan but don’t exist everywhere.
What about cars? Terrible are the environmental costs. Does it mean we need to eradicate the symbol of liberty after world war two? In fact, the only liberty we have is to choose when we realy need one. Of course this is a compromise.
-Rima michel