REBUILDING LIVES

It was a warm August morning. The journey from Islamabad to Mardan, about 200 kms. was smooth thanks to the well constructed motorway. Traffic flow was smooth. Passing through some villages and towns, life seemed to be normal as people seemed to get along with the normal routines of life as would be expected in any part of the world. Unless one was told, one could not make out that we had entered the province of Khyber Pukthunkwa, one of the provinces that has been affected by violence in the recent past.

We reached the office of IRSP, one of our partners, who played was involved in emergency relief after the devastating floods of 2010. WaterAid had supported IRSP with the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) component. It had been about a year since the floods had hit various parts of Pakistan. After a brief discussion on the organization and their programmes, we proceeded to Nowshera district, getting on the famed Grand Trunk road (that starts in Afghanistan, cuts across northern Pakistan and goes all the way to Kolkata in eastern India). Soon after passing the town of Pabbi, we left the main road to get into the dusty rural roads, with lush green fields on either side, thanks to the rains. We were heading towards Amankot, a village ravaged by the floods.
“The water came up till here” said the young man we met outside the mosque, pointing out to a slab high above the main entrance to the mosque. It must have been about 8 feet high. Looking around the village, that seemed unbelievable. It was quite dry even though heavy rains had lashed the cities of Islamabad, Peshawar and Lahore the previous day. The crops looked green and healthy. Brick and mud houses looked as if they had been there for several years. The village streets seemed quite typical with children (mostly boys) playing on a quiet Wednesday afternoon in the holy month of Ramadan. “Yes, it is true”, said one of the village elders. “When the flood waters entered the village, most of the people came to the mosque because it was on higher ground. It also had a terrace. But with the flood waters entering the mosque, people had to move to the terrace or onto the verandah of the mosque to save themselves.

Amankot is a large village with about 1,400 households and population of about 8,000 people. The floods in 2010 had caught them unawares. They had never witnessed anything like this before as the area was never considered to be flood prone. But the continuous and heavy rains of 2010 caused the river Kabul to swell and flooding the entire region. Fortunately, many lives were saved as people moved to safer places. Only one death was reported. However, the people lost everything else. All the houses were destroyed and many cattle were swept away. From a village that did reasonably well for itself, it became an impoverished, vulnerable village overnight.

“The borehole in the mosque was the only source of water. But because of the flood waters, the quality of water deteriorated. The electric pump that pumped out the water into a tank stopped functioning”, said Saif, the Project Manager from IRSP. “So while the emergency measures required us to get water tankers and ensure that they were adequately clean, we did two things. First, we checked the water quality and then had it treated before consumption so that people do not fall in. Second, we also installed a hand pump so that even without electricity, people could still collect water”.

“Our most important contribution in the emergency work, in addition to providing emergency water supplies and temporary toilets, was providing menstrual hygiene kits”, said Syed Shah Naseer, the Chief Executive of IRSP. “Women suffer in silence as it is a matter of social taboo. Through our female staff, we could directly work with women at the community level and address one of the most pressing, yet silent needs of women and adolescent girls”, he said and added, “ we are the first to do this in our region “.

We were then taken to a communal building a little distance away from the mosque for a discussion. The audience consisted only of men – without any women in our team, it was difficult to interact with the local women, given the strict social customs. It was clear that the trauma of the floods and the long, arduous route to recovery had a lasting impact on people. There were constantly reminded of the flood with the discoloured wall inside the building which clearly showed water levels of about 12 feet all along – something that ensured that people would not forget what they witnessed a year ago.

“Our village was destroyed beyond recognition”, said Rahim, a youth from the village who played a key role in the emergency response work. The only thing that was visible at some places was the head of the hand pumps if they were on land that was high enough above the water levels”.

One of the key contributions of IRSP that has stayed with the people, very interestingly, is hygiene promotion. “We are now much more aware of the need for hand washing and personal hygiene” said one of the elderly gentlemen. Pointing out to a male school teacher, he said “We now ensure that hygiene messages are regularly provided in the schools so that children make it a habit”.

On being asked what the situation was now, they pointed to a number of rehabilitation work that had been done by IRSP and a couple of other external organizations. IRSP had focused on water, sanitation and hygiene. Other organizations had helped with providing temporary shelter and rebuilding lanes within the community. And while they worked hand in hand with these external agencies, they are most proud of having reconstructed their houses almost entirely through self-help, brick by brick, and a very tangible evidence of their attempt to rebuild their lives with
dignity and pride.

THE LOCAL PHARMACIST DOES NOT LIKE US ANYMORE !

It was raining heavily. It was early August in 2006 and I was on my first visit to Nigeria. We were in the state of Bauchi . It was quite a long but comfortable drive from Abuja, the Nigerian capital. We were approaching the village of Birnin Ganye. The last stretch of our journey to the village seemed to take much longer because of the rains which had wrecked the mud tracts leading to this small village with a population of about 300. I had joined WaterAid a few months ago and this was my first visit to an African country after joining WaterAid.

“We can’t go any further in this vehicle”, our driver said. He had tried a few manoeuvres earlier and had somehow managed to take us as far as we could. We decided to get out of the vehicle and walk the rest of the distance. We could see Birnin Ganye, but it was across a swelling stream. It was only less than 30 feet wide, but we were asked to be careful because of the swirling and fast currents and the slippery stones that we had to step on. It was quite a spectacle. Most of the villagers had lined up on the other side of the stream, watching the guests arrive. The young men among them had got in to the stream to help us guide through the stream. In a few minutes, that was done and we were all on the other side, and walking towards the village.

It was a very poor village. All the 40 odd houses were in a cluster, built with mud and thatch. Education levels were low. Almost all adults in the village were casual agriculture labourers. The nearest urban centre was about 10 kms. away. Agriculture production was mostly for home consumption. There was very little surplus. But recently, they had something to be proud of and had thus become the envy of the neighbouring villages. And that is what brought us to Birnin Ganye.

Earlier during the year, a water and sanitation programme had been completed. This settlement now had its own borehole fitted with an easy-to-operate hand pump. This meant that people had easy access to safe water, and women in particular no longer needed to walk to the river to fetch watch. The walk to the river would take them an hour for each trip and the water was unsafe for drinking, but till the hand pump was installed, the river was the only source of drinking water, in addition to it being a place where people bathed, washed their clothes and brought their cattle as well. All the houses had a clean toilet, which was preceded by hygiene education, stressing the importance of washing hands at critical points in time. All this may not seem to be a great achievement, but for the poverty stricken people of Birnin Ganye, this was a matter of pride and happiness. They were happy that their village was now a ‘clean’ village with access to safe water, and proud that they played a key role in implementing the project with the support of the local government authorities and WaterAid. They had invested their time and effort, had mobilised the local group, and more importantly, had taken the responsibility of managing the water point and ensure that people actually used their toilets.

As we entered the village, the community gathered under a tree for a conversation. After the normal introductions and welcome speeches, one of the community members took us through the history of the project and their role. It was then time for us to ask any questions. My first question was what they thought the outcome of this project was. For some time, there was silence. People were talking to each other in hushed tones. Not sure if I had articulated my question properly, I asked them (through our local interpreter) if they could tell me how this project had changed their lives.

The answer was on expected lines. The women felt that they could save more time since they did not have to fetch water. Many people felt happy that their village was clean. And then suddenly, one young man got up and said, “The local pharmacist does not like us anymore”. There was quite a bit of amusement at what he said, but the people gathered there seemed to agree, nodding their heads vigorously. “Can you explain that in some detail” ? I pursued.

“Well”, he said, “there was lot of illness in this village. Every month, all throughout the year, we had to rush people to the local hospital because of diarrhoea, cholera and other diseases. It particularly affected the children the most and many of them died. The person who benefited the most was our local pharmacist because it was good for his business. And because we did not have enough money to buy medicines most of the time, he would lend us money and charge a hefty interest. It also meant that we started borrowing money from him for other purposes as well. We thus contributed quite a bit to his income. But the other day, when I saw him in the market, he wondered why people from this village no longer came to him, bought medicines or took credit. And my response to him was that we did not need him anymore. Our people had become quite healthy, because of the water and sanitation project, and the hygiene practices that our people are following” !

It was quite clear from the reaction of those around him that they were all in agreement. I am aware of a number of attempts by researchers and academicians who conduct detailed, rigorous studies to assess the ‘impact’ of external interventions. But to me, this statement of a young man, endorsed by all those who had gathered around him, was enough of an ‘impact assessment’ !

THE GOODBYE

Twenty five years ago, a quarter of a century ago, we were preparing for a new phase in our lives. We were the fourth batch of students from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). It had been a memorable and fun filled two years. While we learnt about becoming good managers, most of us will remember our time in IRMA even more for the bonding and the fun that we as a batch of nearly 60 students had during our two years. The three stints of assignments outside the campus (one ‘fieldwork’ and two ‘Management Traineeship Segment’ or MTS) got us in smaller groups working on specific projects. After each of those stints which lasted a couple of months each, we all were eager to come back and share our experiences, but also to catch up with our friends who we sorely missed. And in those days without mobiles, emails or Facebook, it was difficult to be in touch.

Our convocation was on March 15th 1985, before which we all were going through our campus recruitments. From the first week of March itself, some of us were successful in getting jobs that we wanted. Some of us had planned for a short holiday before we commenced our working careers. But after March 15th, most of us had plans to start leaving the very next day – except myself. I was waiting for an opening with the Sikkim Milk Federation and they were meant to come only on March 18th for the recruitment. There were a couple of others who were to be around on March 17th, but most of the batch would have left by March 16th.

It was quite an emotional period for us. The mood was somber and it certainly overtook the excitement of getting our diplomas and launching ourselves into our careers. Packing our bags and disposing off unwanted stuff had started in right earnest. Since many of us were expecting our parents, siblings and friends to come for the convocation by March 13 or 14, we wanted to scrub our rooms clean, keep it tidy and get ready to leave from the evening of March 15th.

I had to travel only a short distance, of 70 kms to Ahmedabad and hence, I did not need much time to prepare for my departure. My parents, sister and two of my friends were coming for the convocation on March 14th and they were to leave soon after the convocation. And since I had to stay on till March 18th, I had plenty of time to pack. Hence, I instead spent time in helping many of my friends to pack and clear their rooms. In many cases, I borrowed the bicycle from Sagar, the manager of our canteen, cycled down to Jagnath which was a couple of kilometers away to get an auto rickshaw, helped people get their belongings loaded into the auto rickshaws, and together with other friends, made our way to the railway station to see off our friends. Those last few moments on the campus were precious and we wanted to make use of each one of those as we knew we could never ever get back to that setting in our entire lives – certainly not with this group !

The last of my friends left by the evening of March 16th. It was quite a long and forlorn journey back from the railway station that I made to IRMA. The hostel was quiet. Though our junior batch was around, most of them were in separate hostel blocks. The silence was killing. I was missing my friends terribly. Shankar, Naushad, Vikram, Ashu and Sudhir had planned a trip to Goa. I had to miss the trip since I was waiting for the Sikkim Federation recruitment. But then at least I did look forward to meeting them a few days later in Bangalore – so there was something to look forward to. But even that was not enough to cheer me as I spent some long, lonely hours on the campus. And to make matters worse, I was informed, on March 17th, that the Sikkim Federation had pulled out of the recruitment and that they were not coming ! That was quite a blow.

So, on March 17th, I decided to pack my bags and leave early morning on March 18th. After having helped many of my friends with their packing, I was quite dejected that I had to do it all myself. After having gone and fetched an auto rickshaw for many of my friends and having seen them off at the railway station, I dreaded at the prospect of having to do it all myself. I was slipping into a state of self pity – there will be no one to see me off, at the campus or at the railway station. All my friends had left. And even though I had a few friends from the junior batch, 6.30 a.m. was too early a time for anyone to bother waking us just to say good bye to me !

In the evening, I made a round to the boys’ hostel to meet some of my friends from the junior batch and wish them good bye. A little later, I went to the girls’ block (the A Block) to meet a few girls and say good bye to them as well – there were 3-4 girls who were good friends and I wanted to meet them before I left.

I went to her room last. As I knocked, she opened the door. “I just came to say good bye. I am leaving tomorrow morning”, I said. “But then why are you saying good bye now if you leaving only tomorrow” ? she asked. “Well, I will be leaving early”. “How early” ? “ 6.30 in the morning”, I replied. “Oh, then there is plenty of time. See you at dinner”, she said with a smile and that trademark twinkle. “Well, that’s it”, I thought. I had said good byes to all that I need to say and it was now time to go for dinner and then get back to packing. I needed to be up early in the morning.

I woke up at 5 in the morning. After a quick bath and change, I went to the canteen to collect the bicycle keys from Sagar and made by way to Jagnath. It was a crisp spring morning with the sun shining radiantly. The campus looked even more beautiful. The lawns even more green. I just did not want to leave the place. But the sense of loneliness after all my friends had departed was too strong and I just could not bear to be there on my own any longer. I had to leave. I could have taken a later train, but that was enough. I had to leave and wanted to leave. At Jagnath, I hailed an auto rickshaw and asked the driver to follow me to the hostel blocks while I rode ahead of him.

Once back in the hostel, I quickly parked the bicycle in front on the canteen, handed over the keys to the cook, ran up the steps to my room on the second floor of the C block and starting bringing my bags down – 3 in all, 1 big suitcase, which I brought down first and loaded into the auto rickshaw and went running back to get the 2 small bags. Taking the bags out and one final look into the room that had been my home for 2 lovely years and one final glance down the corridors of C Top (as we fondly referred it as), I made my way down the stairs, looked towards what had been Naushad’s room, and then came down and paused a bit in front of Shankar’s room, the hub of C Block, now eerily quiet and came out of the block, not turning back, but with my head down, walking straight towards the auto rickshaw. “That’s it”, I told myself. “This is now really the end of my life in IRMA”.

As I turned around the C & D block to where the auto rickshaw was waiting, to my utter surprise and delight, I saw her, standing by the auto rickshaw, looking radiant in her bright red dress, her dupatta casually around her neck, hands folded, looking towards me with the same twinkle in her eye and the smile ! “Look, I told you last evening that it was too early to say good bye”. I was overwhelmed. A range of emotions crossed my mind. “Why did you take the trouble”? I asked her. “Trouble ? What trouble ? I just wanted to. And I knew that there wouldn’t be anyone to say good bye to you. Good bye and good luck ! Let’s be in touch” ! she said. All that I managed was a rather inaudible “Thank you”, a nod, a smile and a wave. I got into the auto rickshaw, looked out and waved out to her. The auto rickshaw made a noisy start, spewing out fumes that seemed to jerk me back to reality of what was an unusual morning. As the auto rickshaw turned away from the block, I looked back towards the hostel blocks through the opening at the back of the vehicle. With a final wave, she had turned back, walking back to her room.

Words cannot explain what I felt at that time. It was a feeling of immense gratitude, of being overwhelmed and being completely humbled by her gesture. And that is why, 25 years later, it is still so vivid in my mind. Today, she leads a contented life in Delhi with her husband and son. After a stint of working with NGOs, she has turned a writer. She has already published a book and her second book is soon to be published. She remains as warm and humane as she always was. And innumerable friends of her, like myself, remember her for what she was and is. She is Daman.

THE QUIET CURIOSITY

This was in one of the villages near Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala in late 2004. Some of us, that included some people from Andhra Pradesh working with the state government , were visiting women’s groups supported under the Government of Kerala’s highly acclaimed programme, the Kudumbashree programme. These groups had engaged in various activities for their economic development. The group we were visiting belonged to the Dalit community. An interaction with them had been organized in the rather spacious and well maintained panchayat building.

At the appointed time, a group of about 15 women assembled in the hall. They were all neatly dressed. From their physical appearance, no one could possibly believe that they were poor. But their sense of self-esteem was striking. Each one had a note pad and a pen, ready to take notes on any useful points that may emerge from the discussions. They needed only a one-way translation. While the visitors asked questions in English which they could easily follow, they replied in Malayalam which I translated into English for the visiting group.

After a series of questions from the visitors which were very articulately responded to, one of the visitors said, “It is quite impressive to know that you all are well educated, in spite of your poverty. You dress so well that it’s so difficult for us to even think about yourselves as being poor. You are able to communicate very well. But there is one difference between you and the rural women of Andhra Pradesh. The poor women there do indeed look poor, are not able to communicate in any language other than Telugu and are not able to dress as well as you do. But they are certainly much more vocal that you are. You are a much quieter lot, responding only to the questions we ask”.

The women giggled. They found the comparison quite amusing. One of them, Geetha, who seemed to be one of the youngest in the group, then said, “Sir, we do have questions and we would have been more vocal. But we were told that you have limited time and that we should spend time in explaining to you our programme. Hence we didn’t ask you anything. But if you have the time, we would like to ask you a few questions”. Our friend from Andhra Pradesh beamed. He was happy that he had been able to get them to participate more actively. “Sure, go ahead. We can certainly spend more time talking to you”. What followed then was a volley of questions that took us all by surprise. Some of the questions were :

“What is the role of information technology in economic development of your state”?
“How have the rural poor, and especially women, benefited from the Information Technology boom that is so often mentioned in the context of Andhra Pradesh”?
“We hear that farmers in Andhra Pradesh commit suicides. If your state is developing so well, why are farmers being affected”?
“How do you ensure that rural producers are able to benefit from the market, which normally is controlled by the rich”?

We were taken by surprise, to say the least. The level of education and awareness was reflected so clearly through the sharp questions they had raised. So what if they were Dalits or if they were poor ? They had kept themselves abreast of developments in other parts of the country. Needless to mention, our group did find it difficult to answer these questions to their satisfaction. But as hosts, the women were gracious enough not to grill us too much !

A ROYAL ENCOUNTER

This is a slightly different post from what I have been posting earlier. While my earlier posts were about events way back in the past, mostly from rural India, this one is more contemporary !

A few days ago, to my utter surprise and completely out of the blue, I received an invitation from the Buckingham Palace inviting me to a reception hosted by Queen Elizabeth and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, Obviously, it was quite exciting and when I emailed my confirmation, I received a response saying that it was being held in view of a forthcoming visit by the Indian President to the UK. There was quite a bit of excitement in my office as well, for no one before from our office had received an invitation like this. So well, I was very much looking forward to it - and of course, I was not disappointed.

The reception was at 6 p.m. on Oct 13th. 2009, Tuesday, and we were asked to be there before 5.40 p.m. I was there at about 5.30 p.m. We were supposed to enter from the main palace gates. Once inside, we were ushered into a hall (called the Investitute Hall, where the Queen normally meets foreign dignataries and where the various honours and awards include conferring knighthood, is held). As people filed in, I estimated that there were about 200 people there - a mix of British, Indian-British and Indians, quite a mixed crowd.

At 6 p.m. we were all asked to take our seats. And then there was a Bollywood dance show, with British dancers dancing to the beats of old melodies like 'Pyaar Hua Ikraar Hua Hai' and the more modern 'Dhoom Macha Le'. That was for about 15 minutes. After that, we were ushered into another room called the Picture Gallery where there are some exquisite paintings, some several hundred years old, that belongs to the palace.

And as we queued up to make our way, we saw, at some distance ahead, the Queen and her husband. She was there, greeting everybody by shaking their hand with the Duke (her husband) next to her, also greeting and shaking hands. It was quite a moment when it was my turn to shake the Queen's hand and then the Duke's. I was struck by how elegant she looked and yet very modest and greeting each person individually.

That done, I worked my way round the floor, meeting and greeting a few people, making some small and social conversations. Champagne was served and I helped myself together with some canapes - very delicious. The guests were spread across 3 halls. We had assumed that the Queen would have retired to her private chambers. But to my surprise, I found her in the midst of people, mingling with the crowd.

I was obviously keen to have a word with her and as I made my way to a group of people who were talking to her, her assistants, two of them, asked me to get closer into the group so that I could talk to her - which I did ! She asked me what I did and I spoke briefly about my organisation and our work. Even at the ripe age of 80+, she spent well near 2 hours in the reception, never sitting even once, moving around, greeting people and talking to them. Absolutely amazing !

There were quite a number of known faces. One of them was the big film producer, Yash Chopra, with whom I had a chat. Then there was the Indian-British film maker Gurinder Chadda (of the Bend it like Beckam fame), Indian-British actors Sanjiv Bhaskar and Meera Syal, Bollywood actor Saed Jaffrey, business tycoon Vijay Mallya, the Indian High Commissioner to the UK and the Indian-British cricketer Monty Panesar (whose autograph I got). And of course, there were many other not-so-known members of the royal family. I met with and spoke to the Duchess of Gloucester (who apparently went to India for her honeymoon several decades ago and she said it had been organised for her by Lord Mountbatten !) and Princess Michael of Kent.

All in all, it was quite an amazing and memorable experience. But what I found most amazing and was indeed deeply impressed was how simple and modest the Queen was, so informal and pleasant ! And very interestingly, though the event was in the Palace, security was absolutely minimal. There was only a couple of cops who checked our identity card and our invitation. There were no metal detectors, no checking, no frisking ! Thought I'd share that event with you which will remain one of my most memorable evenings !!!

A SILENT REVOLUTION

It is experiences like these that convince me that a silent revolution is sweeping by the countryside, in rural areas, in far flung hamlets and villages. I was once visiting some villages in the Jalaun district of Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of India, in mid-2003. This is a district which continues to mirror the typical characteristics of a feudal era, where land holding is skewed, where repression of dalits and women is marked and which has an adversely skewed gender ratio, low rates of education especially among the women and high rates of morbidity and mortality.

The women I met were members of a self-help group. They had initially started off 4-5 years ago by saving small amounts so that they could collect a small fund to meet their various needs. Gradually, these evolved as forums for women to look at issues affecting them. They started discussing issues of domestic violence, of sexual harassment while working on the farms of the rich and influential landlords, of the low level of education among the girl children. They started taking part in various village level planning exercises. Some even stood for and got elected into the panchayat (local government). They had started insisting on getting their daughters educated. They had negotiated with their men folk to enable women to access more opportunities.

As their work grew, and as the visible impact of their work grew, the men too started taking notice. The men had realized that their women needed to spend more time outside their homes, to visit the block development officer’s office, to go to the District Collector’s office to press for their demands, to visit the bank in the neighbouring town to deposit their savings etc. They had started getting convinced that these would help them and their villages. As a result, they had started to even undertake domestic chores – taking care of their children, cooking, fetching water and fuelwood etc. The women had also seen the advantage of getting their sons engaged in domestic chores, earlier restricted to the girl children.

While we were discussing these issues, I noticed that many women still had their faces covered. The system of purdah was still quite prevalent. I asked them about this custom and whether they thought this practice was going to change. “There have been lot of changes over the past 5 years of so. We have started taking various responsibilities and representing the needs of our village with the block and district officials. This never happened before. We have been transacting with the bank. More and more girls are getting educated. We have regular meetings. We speak up in meetings even when our menfolk are around. These are major changes for us. Yes, we still tend to cover our faces when there are other men around. But then, this too, is a matter of time. In a few years from now, even this will disappear”, they said emphatically.

I have seen such changes sweeping through many other parts of the country. Our mainstream media, especially our films and television serials, may still be stereotyping our women and glorifying their traditional roles to counter the trends of increased opportunities that women are increasingly seeking, our corporate sector may still be raking in the big bucks by continuing to project women as objects of desire, our cities may be reeling under various atrocities against women, even in the so-called middle and upper class strata, with various forms of domestic violence, our labour markets may still pay much less to women for the same kind of work - even, in some cases, in the case of skilled and professional workers, our urban educational institutions and work places may still be a melting pot of sexual harassment ……. but these belie a quiet, but significant change that is sweeping across our countryside, nothing short of a silent revolution and hopes for a lasting change, even if that's going to take a long time ……!!!

THE LETTER FROM ARULMANY

Life in Tarashiv continued to be uneventful. Days were short because of the winters. December was coming to an end and we were at the threshold of 1984. The only thing (or so it seemed to me) that made life eventful at all were our occasional visits to Tilda, Kesada or Bhiladi, or the more regular evening waits by the roadside in the dark for the milk collection van to bring us letters from our friends. Our batchmates from IRMA where we were doing our Rural Management course, were spread across many states for our mandatory 2 month rural orientation.

Letters from friends describing how they were getting along in their respective rural environments was pretty interesting and insightful. But the one that took the cake was the one we received from Arulmany who was in Erode, Tamil Nadu. This was soon after the New Year, in early January. He was writing this letter soon after one of the faculty members, Srinivas, had just stayed with him for a couple of days on one of the routine visits that the faculty did while the students were in the field. Srinivas was a relatively new member of the faculty and this was probably his first rural visit and stay. Having graduated from one of the elite Indian Institutes of Management in India and teaching Financial Manager, poor Srini (as he was fondly referred to) may never have expected to undergo this kind of an experience ! Arulmany's letter went something like this :

“ Having Srini around was great fun. You know what a simple, nice and shy fellow he is ! He was quite cool and we had a good time. His only problem was going to the toilet. We didn’t have one. On the day he arrived, he asked me where the toilet was. I said there was no toilet. He was horrified. What do you do then, he asked. We go out in the open, I said. But where, he asked. This place is full of houses. We do to the side of the road, I said. But then there is so much traffic passing by, he said. But I said, there is no choice. When does the traffic stop, he asked. I said, the last bus passes by at 11.30 p.m. Ok then, I will go only after that, he said. But what will you do till then, I asked. I will hold on, he said. So, he would wait till it was night. I would then escort him through the lanes to keep an eye on the snakes that could be around and about which, Srini was scared stiff. When we came up to the road, he would fit a suitable place to squat and then ask me to switch off the torch, while he went about his business. On the second day too, the same thing happened. I sat up till late and after 11.30, escorted Srini to the road which was a little distance away. At the appointed place across the road, Srini sat down and asked me to switch off the torch. I was on the other side of the road. I switched it off. And while I looked around gazing at the starts, enjoying the cool night breeze and listened casually to the sound of insects around me, I heard Srini ask, ‘Arulmany, what is the time’ ? ‘Can I switch on the torch to check’? I asked. ‘Ok, but turn the other way and switch it on. I am not finished as yet’, he said. I turned around and switched on the torch to check my wrist watch. It was five minutes past twelve. ‘It is 12.05, Srini’, I said. ‘Thanks Arulmany. Wish you a Happy New Year’, came his reply. That’s how I welcomed the new year this time ! Hope you guys had a better way of celebrating the new year!”