A village in deep South

I have this wish of visiting villages of all parts of India since my childhood. I have been to villages of UP, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan. Last week I got the opportunity to visit one of the villages in deep south. It was a company trip(field visit) to a village named Naagar in Trichy,Tamil Nadu. One of the best things about company sponsored trips is you can afford all types of luxuries even while going to a village. The purpose of the visit was to study the soil conditions, the cultivation methods used, the kind of technology they are open to and yes to check the feasibility and acceptability of our machines. Although the company expected me to make the visit as an engineering student but I found the sociologist inside me more active (I guess that’s what happens after taking four sociology courses).

As soon as our car entered the village, my eyes started wandering here and there to find something unique or different from the villages of north.  On the first sight everything looked very familiar except the coconut trees. We straight away went to one of the fields where a group of five farmers was taking rest under a mango tree. Yes there are mango trees here also (that’s quite obvious but I was a bit surprised). At that place there were mango and coconut trees side by side, creating an awesome view. We were accompanied by a group who were running a model farmer helpline facility sponsored jointly by IIT Madras and Government of Tamil Nadu. They inspected the fields and talked to the people. We also interviewed some of them.  The people there were so open in accepting technology that sometimes I even doubt myself. They used harvesters, powered rice transplanters and advanced machines for most of the cultivation processes. One of the farmers had bought a rice transplanter worth 6 lakhs(price after subsidy by government). I imagine that if at this moment I was a farmer with all the education I have, I would have never invested this much for a rice transplanter (and like me most of the people in my village).

After an hour or so, the head of the other group introduced us to the farmers. Although he was talking in Tamil but I was still was able to grab something which surprised me. He started by pointing towards us –“ These are the students of IIT Kanpur and are working on a project to give a new design to the present rice transplanter. IIT Kanpur is one of the great IIT’s like the one we have in Chennai.” And I could definitely note a change in their behaviour after he made this statement. But this led to a embarrassing situation because he gave all the importance to us and ignored our guide who was the chief person for this project. But one thing I understood – the IIT name sells, everywhere and before everyone from industrialists to farmers.

I had a short conversation with a guy who knew a bit of English. I asked him about a bell which was ringing after every hour. He told me that it’s a church bell. There was a smile on my face and I said – So there are Christians in this village. He replied ‘yes’. ‘But they are converted you know’, he said after a pause with a different expression on his face.  It was very clear that Hindus there were envious of Christians, as they were in a good economic condition.

After lunch we had another meeting with farmers. This meeting was in a temple. The temple was huge with a bull in front of the main gate. It also had a pond but it was dry. The Mandir was also using the benefits of technology. They had an electric powered system which beated the Tabla and rang the bell simultaneously during the aarti. During the discussion the head of the other group asked the farmers- Do you people have GPRS activated on your cell phones. Five people said yes they have. Then he pointed towards women and asked the same question. None but a 60 year old lady said –Yes I have GPRS activated on my phone. Everyone present there started clapping. After half an hour everyone had GPRS activated in their phones with an app downloaded, which will transfer the pictures directly to a central database. Based on the photographs of the plants which farmers will send, experts will give their suggestions to them by phone. The acceptance of technology amongst people there made me really glad and excited. And that was the major difference I found between that village and the villages I have been to in the north. Hopefully this fever of technology will soon cover entire India!!!