Tag Archives: water

Mehdiganj Conference 28/03/08

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I hired my auto rickshaw driver to take us to Mehndiganj. We went to Mehndiganj on 28th of March. We reached there and saw that there was a big conference going on. There were more than 500 people attending the conference. Amanda was shocked to see that number of people. When we reached, there was a musical group presenting folk songs regarding Coke issue. I had already seen them a lot of times and always liked their songs. I enjoyed them. It was too noisy there but I liked everything. Lok Samiti was to inaugurate a pond in Mehndiganj. There were no famous people when I reached there, everybody was at inauguration function of pond which was about 2 Kms away from conference place. We went there and found that Nandlal Master, Sandeep Pandey and other social workers were distributing sweets to villagers. The pond had already been inaugurated. I missed it but took lots of pictures.
I met Anurag who was Sandeep Pandey’scousin and working with ASHA. He was so interested in people. He wanted to talk everyone. I met Mr. Rajiv who was from New Jersey. He was also very nice man. He was also a member of ASHA. Amanda wanted to interview few people but it was too noisy there so we decided to record the speeches and not interview anyone that day.

Lok Samiti had arranged lunch for everyone. We had lunch with 1000 other people. Everybody was trying to feed Amanda and Dave hard. I don’t know if Amanda likes Indian food or not but Dave was in love with India. He finished all his food but Amanda left the food as she always does. After the lunch we came back to conference place again.

It was Dave’s turn now. He gave a big speech. Anurag was translating his speech. I know he didn’t do a good job but it was OK. Dave talked about a river in the U.S. that got fired because of heavy pollution. It immediately made me remember about Ganga’s future. I don’tknow what is going to happen with Ganga. Well, I liked Dave’s speech. He told about importance of wetlands and government’s role in preventing the environment. He thinks that government should come forward. I agree with him. He was so nice.

After Dave’s speech a lot of other social workers gave speeches and everybody was so nice. One of them was from south India. When he came to hold mike, his first wording was ” I couldn’t speak Hindi because I am from south India. I would give my speech in English and need a translator.” I thought he really didn’t know Hindi. He started giving his speech in English and one translator started translating his speech but he was not happy with translator’s job. Then he started speaking Hindi and if I know Hindi then I must say that he spoke perfect Hindi. There was no problem with his Hindi. I don’t know why he wanted to give his speech in English where 99% of the people were villagers who don’t understand a single word of English. I think he was targeting foreigners, who were in number of 7-8, as his listeners.

As I wrote about literacy in villagers of Mehndiganj, it made me remind about 7 months ago when I was in Mehndiganj working with a student from University of London. We were there to interview Nandlal and fortunately there was some cultural program organized by Lok Samiti that day in village. There were more than 500 people in that program, we were sitting with other villagers. Suddenly Nandlal went on stage and invited my friend to light up the candle and start the program. Nandlal said that we have a very special guest from London.

As my friend moved towards the stage, all the people started talking about him. I heard two people talking each other about where London was situated. One of them asked other “Is it far away from Lucknow? Another one replied “What are you talking about. London is near Delhi.” Both had already been to Delhi so one of them told other that “I have heard that London is at other side side of a ocean but we didn’t see any ocean while we were going to Delhi” His friend replied that “All the oceans are after Delhi.”

I just mean to say that most of the people in Mehndiganj are uneducated and don’t know anything about what is going on besides of Mehndiganj and that social worker was trying to speak in English. If he was targeting western listeners then it was his very big mistake. He was there to help Mehndiganj’s people not to interact foreigners. Then there was a folk song show again. After it 28th conference was over and we came back to home.

American Biologist at BHU Conference

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I had a tenant in my home from USA. His name was Dave. He was a Biologist. He lives in Fresno, California. There was a conference going on in BHU about world environment and my tenant was also invited there to give a speech. It was his speech at 3’o clock at BHU on 28/03/2008. I went there with my another friend from USA named Amanda. She was doing research on history of Coke in India. I was working with her as translator. We all went together to BHU. Dave wanted to introduce his company in India. He loves India a lot. He always wants to come back, live here and learn Hindi. He wanted to tell people about wetlands.

Dave was supposed to give a speech about wetlands at 3’o clock. We reached there at 2.45. We had a special seat of guests. It was my first time when I was sitting at guests seat (thanx Dave). I, Amanda and Dave were waiting for Dave’s turn but unfortunately his turn didn’t never came. We were there till 7.30 but nobody called Dave to come on stage and give an speech. I was not hoping for such a disgusting thing by one of the most famous universities of world. We were all so sad and contacted BHU officials. They said sorry to us and called again next day at 10’o clock.

Next day, we were again on time and waited till 2.30 but nobody called Dave’s name. It was Dave’s speech in Mehndiganj Water Conference at 3’o clock. So, finally we decided to kick BHU out of our mind and went to Mehndiganj. We reached there 30 minutes late but Dave got a chance to speak there.
Dave still wanted to give speech in BHU. He contacted BHU officials again but they had no answer. Well, it was only 3 days conference. So, Dave never got opportunity to speak there.

Mehdiganj Water Conference

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There was a conference in Mehndigani about water rights from 28th to 30th March, 2008. I was invited by Nandlal to attend the conference. I was so excited when I heard that Sandeep Pandey and Medha Patekar were also going to give speech. Then Nandlal told me that there was a girl from the U.S. who also wanted to attend the conference and interview local villagers about their problems caused by Coke. She wanted a translator which made my excitement double because I was going to get a job. 🙂

I called her and scheduled an appointment at Assi Ghat. I met her near Assi Ghat and we had a big conversation about Coke in Mehndiganj. Finally I took her to my home where I showed her all the documents regarding Coke issue in Mehndiganj, Plachimada and Kaladera. Finally she offered me a job as her translator. She was a PhD student of history at very big university in the States. She asked me not to mention the name of the university. She seemed like such a nice girl to me. She was so educated and friendly. She was interested in history of Coca-Cola in India.

She was staying in BHU hostel which was arranged by her university but she didn’t like it because there was no Internet access in her room. She had to walk for 10-15 minutes every time to use Internet. There was another tenant in my home that time who was a biologist whose company could be very helpful for her because one part of her research was about decrease of ground water. She saw rooms of my guest house where there was Internet in all the rooms and and a biologist in next room which made her decided to switch to my place.

I attended the Mehdiganj conference with her doing translation work. We interviewed a lot of people, including social workers from Kaladera also. I have not written her name in this post because she was sexually harassed during her work and she wanted her name to not be written here. If you want to know the story then read this post.

Pollution in Ganga

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I started this blog right after listening a news on India TV news channel that Ganga is going to dried up in next 30 years. I don’t know what is going on with Indian people. What are we waiting for? Are we waiting for the river to become a past?
Ganga is the most sacred river for Hindus. Only a Hindu can tell his devotion for this river or may be not even him. I don’t have words to describe how devoted I am for this river. More than 50,000 people still take bath every day in the Ganga in Varanasi. People from all over India come Benares to take the sacred bath. But we don’t have sacred water anymore. Ganga is still sacred and will be forever but the water. My mother is very religious woman but she doesn’t want to take bath in the river anymore. She still goes to the river, touches the water but never drinks. Hindus make their God statues bathe by Ganga water because it considered as the most clean water on the planet but my mother has stopped bringing the Ganga water in the house temple.
I often talk about this problem to various people and everybody says that our government and few NGOs, that run program to clean the water, are responsible for the present condition of Ganga.
I often take a walk along the ghats of Varanasi and like watching the people taking bath in the river. But sometimes I dont understand how people could do this. I have also taken few baths in the river but can’t do it again. The water is completely black now. I work as tour guide with foreigners. So, I often go for boat ride. There is a ghat called Shivala ghat where a small sewage discharge can be seen. All the water near Shivala ghat is thick and has foam.

Shivala is not the only place where we can see the sewage water mixing with the river. There are more than 7 big discharge points and unlimited small ones also. I am sure we have enough resources to clean this river, not only Ganga but all the rivers. We are preparing for commonwealth games, we are investing huge amonut of money in development projects like roads and special economic zones, we have super subways now. Cleaning of Ganges is not a big deal any more for India but I dont know what our government is doing.