Friday Double Post: Post-2- Trip No. 3- Whirlwind Tour: Travels in Villages

Once again, for the second time this year I’ve made an official trip to a place other than Delhi. If the first trip of the year was to Visakhapatnam then this time I went to Bengaluru, Anantapur and Kadapa districts the week before. It was a sort of whirlwind trip in the company of a team of officials from Delhi. Originally, a colleague was supposed to tag along this team but at the last minute I was asked to go in his place. It worked out well because I could also go to Bengaluru where I picked up half a dozen books and I also got an opportunity to see from close quarters some bitter realities.
It had been more than two and half years since I’ve been to interiors. It is undeniable that a visit to the villages always reveals the real picture. So, at last I got an opportunity to visit more than twenty villages in Anantapuram and Kadapa districts on Sunday before last Sunday. We set off from Bengaluru on Sunday morning in our cars (five of them with a red beacon on the top) and got to Kodakonda checkpost where another senior officer of the Central government who was also asked to join the team at the last minute was to meet us. After a brief meeting with the officers of the Anantapuram district we set off for the villages. Anantpuram is the second driest district in the country next only to Jaisalmer in Rajasthan so one can imagine how it would be- intolerably hot and also very dusty.

It is while traveling that one finds the truth about most things, in rather unexpected ways. There’s truth in tears, in expressions of people and their talk and also in the manner in which they act. On this road trip through the villages I saw something worth narrating here. We had to follow a predetermined itinerary but sometimes we made unscheduled stops. At one such unscheduled stop at a road side village we stopped people to ask them how they were faring. An elderly farmer, with a weather beaten face, began telling his tale. He went on for a couple of minutes about how all the bore-wells he had sunk had failed, how he lost his crops and how it was difficult for him to make ends meet with in such conditions. Then there were the loans to repay. Suddenly, his eyes welled up as he pleaded with us to help him with folded palms. Then he broke down. We did not know what to do other than tell him unconvincingly that things would get better soon. It was awkward watching him wipe his tears with this towel. For a long time he was unable to stop crying. This was real suffering that hit me hard. I wondered how on earth we, or anyone for that matter would, would be able to help people like him. A large press contingent had accompanied us and the photographers began taking pictures of the man in tears.

Even as they were clicking the pictures I saw another photographer go over to another group of village women who were gathered around a lady official of the team from Delhi. The photographer called an old woman aside and whispered something in her ear. The next moment the old woman squatted on the ground before the lady official and touched her feet. Our friend, the photographer, had already taken position and clicked the pictures of the old woman prostrating at the feet of the official. He must have thought this manufactured image of the old woman pleading with the officials by falling at their feet would be dramatic. I was incensed at this blatant manipulation he resorted to. It was sort of degrading the hapless, old woman’s dignity. It also revealed the tricks resorted by some press people to get sensational pictures. It was disgusting to watch this too clever by half press photographer who no doubt thought it was all in the game to resort to such tricks. It shakes one’s faith in the fairness of the press.

It isn’t the press alone that manipulates, politicians are no different. Another incident that followed revealed how the politicians too manufacture protests. In another village we stopped at a dried up irrigation tank on the outskirts of a village. From the car windows I noticed groups of people belonging to different political parties standing apart from each other, waiting for us patiently, holding their party flags. As we got down from our vehicles they started sloganeering. Each group had two or three ‘leaders’ who took turns to speak with us in English and then hand over their representations while the press took their photographs. I saw a bespectacled man in one such group, wearing shirt and trousers, and in his thirties, get annoyed when a local official said something to him. The person suddenly flared up and in a loud voice started shouting that no one was bothered about the dried up tank, about the lack of drinking water in the village and so on. As everyone now focused on him he became strident, shouting at the top of his voice, the blood vessels on his neck bulging with the effort. We were all shocked at this unexpected outburst. His own party people tried to pacify him. But he wouldn’t and instead increased his protestations. At this point a burly cop stepped in and gently led him away from the group which moved away. But I slowed down and turned to watch what would happen.

The protestor, suddenly smiled and winked at the cop. He then put out his tongue and pulled it in quickly to show it was all an act. Of all the images of that Sunday in the villages it was this which stayed in my mind.