It is eight in the morning, and as one approaches Gorian village, one can see many young men on bicycles, armed with repair tools, pedalling their way miles from home to earn a living. Munna Khan is one of them.
“We have to cycle 20-30 miles every day, moving from village to village repairing pressure cookers, gas stoves, locks, umbrellas and other small household items. I earn ₹200 on a lucky day, but less than ₹150 on most days,” he says.
He and the other young men have trained under elders in their family who, in turn, had acquired the repairing skills at a training centre set up close to the village nearly 40 years ago. That centre closed down 25 years ago, but the skills it imparted continue to be passed down to successive generations.
Back in 1975, the Allahabad Rural Development Society (ARDS) and the Institute of Engineering and Rural Technology had picked Gorian (about 11 km from Allahabad) for a development project. Living in utter poverty, the nearly 100 families in this most backward village were not entitled to any reservation benefits. As they had no agricultural land, they earned a living by playing musical instruments at functions held in the surrounding villages, or through tattooing and toy-making. Under the development project, the villagers were given training and material to set up small units to manufacture soaps, candles, buckets and boxes from metal sheet, carpentry, leather goods manufacturing, pottery and dairy farming; a six-bed hospital was also opened here. The small village had its moment of glory when a large cattle fair was held here and various development agencies put up stalls.
Harshu Prakash Mishr, who was then a member of ARDS and is currently its Chairman, says that once funding from the Best for World (a German aid agency) stopped, most of the projects came to a standstill in the 1980s. In fact, even the two pit latrines, smokless chulas, solar cooker and solar water-heating system that were later installed by another agency have all disappeared today. All that remains is a school running in the dilapidated building that once served as the hospital.
At one time, clay toys made in Gorian were quite popular. The village women made these toys and decorated them with red and green shining paper and wires; today, edged out by cheap plastic toys, these toymakers are forced to work as farm labour.
The village’s art of godna , or tattooing, has been kept alive by Riyasat Ali, who learnt it from his father. He, however, travels far and wide to states like Gujarat and Maharashtra, where his talent fetches him money.
It is saddening to come across a village that was chosen for development decades ago and which has instead turned the clock back to return to its impoverished past. The silver lining is that the ARDS is now scouting for a funding agency to help revive some of the projects, reopen the hospital and put the backward village back on the track of development.
The writer is a Delhi-based freelancer