The underdeveloped me

Travelling and living in rural India are always educational. The last blog I wrote about such a journey was a year ago. You can read that here.

This time was different! Most of my conversations were with the “Literate” and “Developed” who had moved to the location to serve the illiterate and undeveloped community. However, after a couple of hours of conversation, I was confused about our terminologies and understanding.

It was clear that the villagers were illiterate, except for the young generation attending English-medium schools. One of my friends said that people in these villages are 50 years behind other rural communities in India. I took this at face value. But the conversations that followed were revealing. The illiterate, undeveloped communities had three things which we, the developed and literate, have longed for!

One – Community with clarity. I heard about how the whole village works together in the fields. How families help each other to plant and harvest. How does the village plan each week and month’s schedule for caring for the fields and cattle? How marriages are celebrated together, and expenses are taken care of by the village. When one of the “Developed and Literate” families lost a loved one, the villagers stopped working in the fields for a day, waited until the body was shifted to another town, and contributed towards the expenses. They included this Developed and Literate family as one of their own! When the family objected to taking their contribution, the villagers communicated clearly that they were part of the village and had no other option but to accept it!

The developed and literate long for such a community. But these people already have it and are willing to include others in it!

Two—Contentment. They were content in their daily lives. Yes, they had aspirations and desires—that’s why they sent their children to school—but there was a sense of contentment in the way they went about their daily routines and work. When I listened to their lives, I was reminded of a statement in the Good Book.

“I’m not trying to rule the roost; I don’t want to be king of the mountain. I haven’t meddled where I have no business or fantasized grandiose plans. I’ve kept my feet on the ground and cultivated a quiet heart. Like a baby content in its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content.”

This kind of describes the community’s heart and soul. I wonder when I will reach that level of contentment! (One literate and developed visitor saw all these and ran away because it was silent and content. He was used to stress and a full diary.)

Three—Clean Air and care for the environment. I found it difficult to breathe because my lungs were used to an AQI above 400! Here, it was almost 0. There were no plastics or waste lying around, the houses were clean, and the common areas were well-kept. There were also planned bushes and shrubs planted for beauty. Cattle sheds were clean and well-managed.

The 50 years behind statement came up again in our discussions. We wondered, will it take 50 years for ‘them’ to reach where we are today? Will they move from being illiterate and undeveloped to literate and developed? By then, would they have lost what the developed and literate are longing for these days—community, contentment, and clean air? Or is it that we, who are literate and developed, have regressed by 50 years in our pace of moving upward?

How do we decide who is developed and who is underdeveloped? Are communities that live in harmony with each other and nature, care for the environment, and are content, not the developed ones? Can communities (me included) that are divided based on various social structures, always aspiring for more and destroying nature, be considered developed? 

Instead of writing confusing blogs like this, I will learn more by listening to those I consider illiterate and underdeveloped! Because I seem to be more under-developed than them!