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Consumed
By Hunger Human misery always makes for a good story. But as INDIA TODAY Special Correspondent Sheela Raval discovers in poverty-stricken Nandurbar, it's of little use if it doesn't touch hearts and help bring about change. When a high-profile source gave me the news about rampant infant deaths in Nandurbar district due to malnutrition and related complications, it saddened me no end but also stirred the journalist in me. "How many deaths?" I asked him excitedly. The answer: over 500. "Is it on record?" I had my doubts. "Check it for yourself," said the source. The collector's office, he added, would provide me with the figures. It's perverse but human misery, like they say, always makes for a good story. I was warned about having to put up with a temperature of 47 degrees celsius and about having to walk several kilometres on dusty tracks to reach the remote villages in Maharashtra where hunger was devouring lives. Yet, it was one of those feel-good-sort-of-assignments. Feel-good because it presented me with a challenge—to portray the plight of the poorest of poor in country in the hope of effecting some change. When my guide in Sahada asked me and the photographer accompanying me where we would like to be taken, my answer was simple: show us the worst. Over 72 villages in the affected district are still not accessible by road and in many areas, civilisation is still an alien word. Ghatli was my first such experience. When our car reached the nearest motorable road to the village, around 40 half-naked locals came to receive us. They then led us to a makeshift grass and bamboo tenement which they said was Magti Kotya's. What we saw was shocking. The place was as bare as the villagers. Two empty aluminum vessels, a charpoi and three children with spindly arms and bulging stomachs staring into our faces. There is little chance that any one of them will survive. I asked Magti about their plight and she broke down. The stray dogs on the streets of Mumbai would be better off than her family, she said. Seven children,
I was told, had died in just one week in Ghatli due to malnutrition and
related diseases. Twenty others were waiting for medical help. The primary
health centre was locked and even when open, did not present a happy sight.
There were heaps of medicine and IV packets whose expiry dates had passed.
I picked up one of them to present it as a souvenir from Ghatli to the
chief minister. The photographer with me kept blaming the people, pointing to how there was no birth control under such circumstances. But I was not so sure. Who is really to blame? The Government which is aware and apathetic? The bureaucracy which is more interested in covering up its inefficiency and corruption? The non-government organisations which have their own agenda to follow? Or the tribal people who still believe that more hands mean more money. In the end, I was convinced that it was a collective responsibility. The villagers may be backward, fatalistic but they can do better only if there's help coming forth. Even with scarcity so rampant, every house we visited offered us water for which the women walk for miles. Some even offered us kairi (mando) sarbat. I was reluctant at first to accept a drink. But I couldn't break their heart. For about a week after my return, their hunger and stark poverty haunted me. I felt guilty every time I ate. But that wasn't going to help them, I would tell myself. Nandurbar desperately needed change and each of us had to act as agents of that change. |
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