Hello F.R.I.E.N.D.S
Usually my blogs mingle
over a trek or a picnic spot. But this time our venture was a little different.
I had never been to any field trip during my school days, but if at all, they
could have been designed around such places. Aniket and Dipti, our sweet Madhav-Ramabai
couple (Ramabai not in terms of age off course ;) :P), incepted an idea to visit Hivrebajar - A self sufficient, self developed and a role model
village, which is a mere 10 kms away from Nagar (around 125 kms from Pune). We made it to the place on 27th Sept Saturday.
Short intro –
Hivrebajar:
Situated in a drought prone area in Ahmednagar district, with a population close to 1300 now,
this village was a prey to drought and alcoholism. I wonder if they pegged raw :P. Ironically the presence and absence
of two different liquids and that too at the same time can be so devastating. So
basically the youth migrating out, villagers dipped in loans, insolvency and
water shortages. Such was the picture of this typical Indian village a few
decades ago. But there came a turning point, when a graduate local youth, Mr.
Popatrao Pawar came to the Sarpanch position with unanimous voice. With lots of
persuasion and efforts, he started implementing small trenches and
drip-irrigation techniques at house hold levels to conserve water. The biggest
step was to eradicate liquor shops from the village. It may sound simple but imagine
the protests and the hardships that young fellow must have faced to implement
such a drastic step. This changed everything slowly. The farmers got enough
water to plough their farms for a major part of the year. People migrated back and
now the village is awarded the status of a role model village. The average income of the village had increased twenty-fold with 50
of the villagers becoming millionaires and only 3 families below the poverty
line.
Coming back to the
start of the journey, Aniket was already in Pune from Thursday, while Dipti was
greeted with a fantastic treat at South Indies on her arrival Friday night. The
menu was so exclusive that we ate as if we were starved for a week. Our tummies were full but our souls weren’t :). We started from my Hinjewadi home at
around 8 a.m., estimating to reach Hivrebajar around 11. Google map
showed us a 3 hours drive, but it did not predict the 10 punctures (in 1 tyre) and a
tea-idli break :P :D. Thankfully it was detected at an air
refill center. We filled petrol worth 2200 and air worth 1400 (with the
puncture and valve of course ;) :P). So with such a mini adventure and a pleasurable
drive on a smooth beautiful road with passing small villages, we reached around
12. 
The village is approx
9-10 kms drive from the main highway (a left turn at Chas phata). But the tar road does not leave you till
the end. It even follows you inside the village. Hivrebajar welcomes you with its
symbol of success – The Hivre Bajar primary school. This point onwards it’s
simply spic and span. Abhijit, a friend who saw the pics said that even their
dustbins are so clean ;). The village was smaller than I had imagined. But the surroundings
are explicit. The lush green mountains, small farms and the flower plantations
take you into a trans. 
We first visited the gram panchayat office, which is just
at the beginning of the village. It has a small Hanuman temple and a big banyan tree in front of the one storied office. Even though the sun was high, the breezy trees and the soothing view around kept us cool. We met our guide who was
prepared to show us around. We first went to a hill top pagoda swirling around the curvy road in my Liva, which not only tested the newly patched tyre but also my driving
skills. During the whole drive, our enthu young guide gave us a full speed
narration in his local Marathi dialect :P. Kept me wondering if I really grasped
what he intended to part. But this was not the case with Aniket and Dipti. They were keen
listeners with lots of questions. But Aniket later expressed that if we had someone with us,
who has lived his life (or a part of it) in a village, would have been in a position to ask more profound
questions to give us a real insight. E.g. when he mentioned that the villagers started
a different type of irrigation technique digging trenches around
the hill contours to trap water, we could not understand the difference between their system and usual system. We actually don’t know the normal course of irrigation systems. But we understood that such
trenches not only conserve the rain water but also helps afforestation and avoid soil erosion. 
We came back to
the village with a small insight read of village lanes. Few villagers were still working
on the hill top doing the fencing work on the road. We understood that the funds come from state
and central government but the work is undertaken by the villagers themselves.
Their funda is that if the govt funds Rs 100, they work worth 25 Rs (Shram daan) towards the project and make the value worth Rs 125. This is how they have
developed so much systems into their villages. It was a kind of surprise to
hear that they have implemented mandatory HIV check ups before marriage. Unfortunately
we did not have the honor of meeting Mr. Pawar himself as he was out of the
village for some cricket tournament. We were back in one of the office room,
which was displaying all the trophies, paper cut outs and acknowledgments
received by the village and Mr. Popatrao Pawar. The place wasn’t really big enough for the displays. I wonder how they will manage the trophies that are going to
come their way year by year. With Dipti writing a note of appreciation in their book of
testimonials, we were already on our way
back. It was around 2 pm and here we felt that we should have reached
early morning around 9 at least, to enjoy the village and its activities live in action. We actually reached at a time when the
school was closed and the villagers were having their afternoon nap. It would have
been more fun interacting with the villagers, visiting school and see them perform their morning chores. But a
lesson learnt. To optimize the visit, we should start either early morning around 6 (midnight
for me) from Pune or reach a day ago and stay at the lush PWD quarters a few kilometers
before the village on the highway. Also reaching with a bigger group makes more sense.The more the
merrier. This will increase the interaction. 
We were finished with our visit with lot of more enthusiasm and a want to visit again starting early in
the day. We did not notice the upcoming
training center just at the start of the village road, which we did on our way
back. This training center is funded by both state and central govt and will be
used for training leaders for taking other villages on the path chosen by
Hivrebajar. 
We retired back at
my Hinjewadi home around 7 pm, enjoying our walks around the urban man made- gardens
and landscapes and digesting our waanga bharit and bhaakri lunch and by sweating
out at table tennis. We still wonder what we have really achieved by this so
called urbanization, when we still try adding such unnatural ‘nature elements’ into
our concrete lives, ignoring and harming the real nature surrounding us. I
guess we are trying to complete the vicious circle of nature?Enjoy the pics of the visit here
Also links to the
great bhet interview of Mr. Popatrao Pawar by Nikhil Waghle.
