First steps in West Bengal

Djohar! (The quizz from the previous post is still going on!!)

What I will remember from my first steps in West Bengal...

- the elegance of women dressed in glistening and colourful saris. When they sit in group, they are as beaming as a rainbow!

Most inhabitants of the villages we visited are Santals, which form the largest tribal group in East India. Farmers grow rice during summer and most of them also keep animals, mainly goats, indigenous cows, buffaloes, sheep, pigs and poultry.

Grazing livestock in recently harvested fields:

Rice production only covers 6 months of food needs on average. Thus, farmers are commonly engaged in seasonal off-farm work, e.g. in construction works, stone crushing or coal mining.

- water scarcity in a region where annual rainfall ranges from 1400-1600 mm. But rainfall is concentrated during 4 months of the year and there is not enough water during winter to grow grain crops or vegetables.

In Jogradihi, the last village we visited, there is no tube well for drinking water. So women go to fetch water at the nearby stream between 2 to 5 times a day. They have dug holes on the bank of the stream to get cleaner water (see picture). They collect water after filtering it through a shawl.

Discussion with villagers in Jogradihi

A few anecdotal souvenirs...

During this trip I also met:

- the most crazy (but incredibly skilled!) taxi driver ... Every day, Sreedhar and I were travelling 3h between Bankura, the main town of the district, and Saltora, 40 km away, where we were visiting villages. Within 5 days, we almost hit 12 bicyles riders, 16 goats, 27 dogs and 40 chickens (I noticed chickens always decide to cross the road when you arrive).

- a lot of new friends...

It seems these guys have a strong preference for French blood!

Escaping from the ICRISAT campus!!

From Hyderabad to West Bengal

As I described in my first post, ICRISAT campus where I work and live is a quiet place... very quiet place.... And between quiet and boring, there is not a big step....

So you can imagine how happy I was to have the chance to travel 11 days on a field trip to West Bengal and Haryana!!

See where these two States are on the map enclosed (as you have certainly noticed, this is an instructive blog, so if you read this post during your working hours, don't feel guilty, you actually expand your knowledge, which is for sure very beneficial for your work).

First, Sreedhar (one of my IWMI colleagues) and I headed to West Bengal. Our mission was to visit and select villages, establish a friendly contact with the district authorities and collect some maps, statistics, and whatever local officials were willing to provide us.

Our first stopover was Kolkata*. From the airport, we took a taxi to the railway station to catch the train that would lead us to Bankura, a small town 230 km northeast from Kolkata.

* "Kolkata" replaced "Calcutta", the former anglicised name of the city, in 2001 to reflect the Bengali pronunciation.

Some pictures taken on the way from the cab...

Howrah bridge

Snapshots - streets of Kolkata

I wish I could have stopped a few days in the City of Joy. I found it fascinating - despite of the noise, agitation and traffic, there is a kind of nonchalance that fills the air which magnetised me!

It is late here already - in the next post I will tell you about the mysteries of Bankura - I am sure all of you are impatient to know about it...

Djohar!

To enhance the interactivity of this blog, I launch a little quizz on this post: what does "djohar" mean and in which language? Some Indian sweets to win for the first right guess (only one of these will fill your stomach till the next quizz ...)!!!