Trip to Gujarat from 24. - 27.11.2009

Ms. Eva, a friend and a well wisher from Switzerland stayed with us at the Durag Niwas Guest House for a week in April 2009 and visited me on my presentation in Switzerland. Ms. Eva’s partner Dave works with a very well known NGO of Gujarat called Manav Sadhna, established at Mahatma Gandhi Ashram here in Ahmadabad. Ms. Eva is visiting Dave and is volunteering with Manav Sadhna for a while now and wondered if I could visit Manav Sadhna and maybe some opportunity will build up for Sambhali to work with them or at least learn something from my visit to the program.

I left Jodhpur with no expectations, sat in the train with some snob Indian men who were too busy on the blackberry handy that they had no time to even smile. I was carrying a bottle of wine for my friends as a present from Jodhpur in a dry state of Gujarat where alcohol is prohibited legally.

I was by accident also carrying the army swiss knife and my new laptop incase if I had to do a presentation somewhere, well you never know with the snow ball rolling.

I was feeling scared if I was to be checked by police for security reason, I am already guilty of carrying alcohol and the big swiss knife, but then making myself relax thinking, a friend’s father is a station master and also my cousin Bunty’s maternal uncle is a police officer here in Ahmadabad and in case I was caught I can get out of the situation because of knowing the officers.

I slept in the train for a few hours with the laptop and my bag close to my reach that if someone touched them (for stealing) I will get awake. I reached my hotel at 3.30am and in half an hour I could get a place to sleep in after some young Indians living in USA checked out.

I slept till late and then took an auto-rickshaw to the Gandhi Ashram where my friends were waiting. I was taken into the Manav Sadhna communal hall through the areas (rooms) occupied by Mahatma Gandhi and his wife Kasturba Gandhi. I didn’t believe at one time that I am at a place on the banks of Sabarmati River which I have read and learnt in my school history.

We went into the communal hall where I met with the founder Mr. Jayesh Bhai and his wife Mrs. Anar Ben. I sat there with my friends, there were many others who were part of Manav Sadhna and they were participants, volunteers or the staff. They were all very friendly; they welcomed me by giving me a traditional welcome and a welcome song. I was garlanded by a beautiful smiley flower made by their participants who were in one of their projects. We did meditation, shared stories, experiences for one hour and a half or something. It was a wonderful experience for me. I also had time to talk to Jayesh Bhai, he knows a lot, he has his own way of working and he has his own principles and goals. He has invited our team of participants and staff to come and live with Manav Sadhna for a few days and learn some structural administration and see how the both Sambhali Trust and Manav Sadhna could work in collaboration. It would be nice if we could work with them on some level. Later Dave and Eva took me to the Tekra, here we saw slums and some projects that Manav Sadhna works with or are building. I was soo impressed, projects I plan to implement in future were already running here, such as a communal hall where people could come in to see a dentist, school for non school going kids, crèche for babies, Anganwadi, gymnasium, playing area for little children etc. I also met with a very interesting lady Vandana Ji, she is from Rajasthan and works with a income generating program of Manav Sadhna called Gramshree. This program is looked after by professionals and the participants do communal work of making clothes and crafts, then they are sold locally and internationally in their own outlets. They pay their participants well and they looked amazing.

I am learning very much in the few hours. I was taken to Dave’s and Eva’s home here in Ahmadabad, a cozy house with a balcony overlooking a garden. Young professionals, wonderful ideas, big team of passionate people.

Next morning I had to meet with co-founder of Gramshree and Manav Sadhna, Ms. Anar Ben. We went to her house for breakfast, she is very nice and a friendly person, she has a beautiful boutique home. We spoke about Sambhali Trust and its initiatives, I made a presentation of the Sambhali documentary and came to a final decision that some team members of Gramshree will come to train women and girls of Sambhali’s Jodhpur, Setrawa and Sheerni projects and the strong leaders of these projects will be brought for extra training at the Ahmadabad Gramshree. I was later introduced to the team of Gramshree where I showed them the documentary and spoke to them about Sambhali and its participants. They welcomed my friends Eva and Dave and myself. The ladies of Gramshree are strong candidates and outspoken, I was soo happy to meet with them and sharing my idea of training, teaching quality control to Sambhali participants, they were enthusiastic about visiting Sambhali and sharing their skills and they were happy to bring some of the participants back with them for a follow up.

After a good lunch at a fancy restaurant I went off to rest for a while. This evening Eva, Dave and myself met again and went to Dave’s friend Ms. Manjari who works with Save the Child project and more interestingly we met with Ms. Manjari’s mother Mrs. Dr. Pushpa Srivastava who is professor at the department of Botany at University of Rajasthan in Jaipur and a Emeritus Fellow-UGC. Dr. Srivastava has been working on Spirulina for many years and has achieved a lot with this green gold. I have never heard soo much about Spirulina before and have never met such an interesting yet simple Indian lady before. She has been working in Jaipur and rural areas around Jaipur, we had dinner with the family and spoke about the NGO’s and their work. I had another interesting day in Ahmadabad.

The third morning I checked out of my hotel and took my luggage to Eva’s and Dave’s home, I stored my stuff here and we went out for lunch, it was good. Today we had an appointment with the person in charge of MAM Movies “Media for social change”. I met with Mr. Madhusudan, he was a young professional from Mumbai now based in Ahmadabad working on documentaries for social cause. It was nice talking to him; he saw our documentaries and really liked them much. I asked him to help me with making one documentary which we can use all the time with changing projects. He gave me some ideas about volunteers interested in helping to make documentaries. He was very informative, helpful and friendly and he has offered any help we require from him. We walked around the Gandhi Ashram at Sabarmati Lake and visited the museum, it was a wonderful informative day, I enjoyed every moment of it. We came back to their home and I had a nap, this evening I am leaving back for Jodhpur full of impressions and help that the Gramshree has extended and I will never forget the friendly, helpful people of Ahmadabad.