Rohit Sharma

Government buses are at strike for more than 40 days in Maharashtra. So I am travelling in this 2000 make black & yellow coloured taxi, sitting besides the driver with my legs separating across the gear. The taxi man of this vehicle makes two trips in a day between Malegaon & Dhule. He starts his day early morning at 4 O clock. At the stand, there would be a queue, so the earlier the better. Eight travellers can sit in it at one go. That's 32 for the whole day and he earns almost 3k bucks with it. Anyway, the taxi man soon started to share with me his personal story. He has three taxis. The other two are 1995 & 1998 make. They soon are going to be scrapped. In his own words, "today's generation do not listen to their elders.. If pushed, they will do something of extreme", he said swirling a finger across his neck. He continued, "my elder son does not listen to me. He doesn't want to work hard. Now I stopped pushing him. But I will work...

Mau is a tiny village settlement at the outskirts of Maihar... It is one of the more than 6 Lakh villages of India. Nonetheless, it is largely dependent on agriculture for livelihood. Many of them either work on their own (less than 3 hectares) land, or opt to work on others' land as daily wage laborer. A large chunk has started working in the nearby cement factories, or one of the many stone quarries as the Baghelkhand region is a rich source of minerals like limestone. Migration of people to bigger cities, especially in the Northern industrial belt, or towards the west and the south is a burgeoning phenomenon. What is it that might be stopping people to stay at their native place? Poverty, malnutrition, lack of education & health institutions, ideological backwardness, infrastructure gap and so on. Many of them are semi-literates and cog themselves in low paying unorganised sector jobs. Education for children is a perpetual dilemma even though there are higher asp...

From far away, finding it as a peaceful abode we headed towards this place. With a sense of envy and how the grass is always greener on the other side, we urban dwellers has a thing with space and no noise. Sanjay saw us coming. He sat down in his wooden cotton-woven khataai (bed). This is rabi season. Sanjay has grown wheat in his 3 acre fields. Okay, it was time for the young mind to kindle with and belittle the hard working farmer. In this huge spare of land, why can't he do commercial farming? Shouldn't he grow Aloe verra, process it and sell in the market? Isn't it in the trend? Sanjay used to work as an operator of a bulldozer in another district. He would mine sand from the riverbed. For a month he is free as the work at site is stopped. The new administrator has banned it. Anyway, why does he want to go away from his native place! This place is at the outskirts of Maihar. The landscape is up and down. Not too far, the river Tamas make its way. During win...