Bakaram Jagir Village nominated for Saakshar Bharat Award

Sathyen Mitra Saakshar Bharat Award: 

Every year central government receives proposals from various villages in India for the nomination of Satyen Mitra Saakshar Bharat awards. These awards are related to literacy activities or initiatives of the village.. The nominated villages are visited by observers and they would eventually recommend their proposals to the government. The awards would then be given to the best village by the President of India on 8 September which happens to be World Literacy Day . 

Bakram Jagir nominated for Sathyen Mitra Saakshar Bharat Award:

Based on the submissions of Saakshar Bharat team Bakaram Jagir Village was nominated for this award. An official has been deputed to visit the village on 19 August. 

Preparations for the officials visit:

Saakshar Bharat team and the villagers worked hard for making the arrangements for the officials visit. The arrangements included, surprisingly, stage erection and decoration, Band-baja, DJ, cultural artists performance, Banners printing and placements across the village, Bonalu (Telangana tradition), Muggulu (Rangoli), etc. I was wondering what was happening around, though I was also involved in the arrangement of banners. The official visiting the village was basically an Associate professor and would he like it? Who cares anyway! :) 

The villagers, from all the quarters, have put in a lot of effort for decoration and arrangements.

I wanted to give a free advise to the Sakshar Bharat personnel that I be given sufficient info about the inspection details so that I could engage the official. As the official was a non-Telugu speaking person I could converse in either English or Hindi. Moreover, being an author my intervention would add weight. But, some gentleman in Saakshar Bharat, instead of using me as a tool, was ignoring me deliberately and did not even bother to explain anything. He even stopped talking to me. I myself approached him the day before and got him talking as it was not the time for displaying our egos.

Welcoming the Official:

The official arrived at around 5 pm and he was welcomed at the entrance of the village with Band baja. A group of women carried Bonalu (decorated pots etc) and a small procession was taken till Gandhi Statue. Even before he could understand what was happening, he became a part of the procession and found himself garlanding the Gandhi statue and breaking the coconut. On a lighter note, whenever a coconut is broken I feel as if my heart is also broken because the coconut water, which I love very much, is wasted. :)

Official's request:

The official could make out that there was a big plan as a big stage was set up with big sound boxes and DJ. He probably thought that the villagers were going to have a disco program and he might be forced to dance :).

He politely requested all that he should first focus on the job for which he was here. He went straight to the Saakshar Bharat office and sat on a chair behind a table. I was actually made to arrange a projector on the table and live streaming of e-learning was going on. This was to show him how the teaching goes on here, but he did not even notice it. :( 

I was introduced to the official and he asked me to sit next to him. 

The goof up:

He first asked for the two Village level Coordinators and started asking for the proofs, one by one, for the various claims made while submitting for the nomination. The document was actually submitted by a senior person and the questions were put to the two coordinators. They were showing the things which were related to the latest developments, that was relating to current and a few of previous months. Even I was also telling all the things under the sun which had happened after I started visiting the village from June on-wards. He then made it clear that the award was for 2016 which meant the information to be furnished should be related the period April 2015 to March 2016. Our heads started spinning. Nobody told us about this earlier.

What is preparation? :

There were not enough evidences of what was claimed in the document submitted and people were running helter-skelter for the same. Even when he asked to show the two daily newspapers and magazines maintained in the office, which were mentioned in the document submitted to him, people were running from pillar to post for fetching. 

This was were the preparation mattered and not the band-baja, DJ, performance by cultural artists etc. What a lesson learnt,  do the basics right!

Official's advise to me:

The official understood that the document was ill prepared and advised me to prepare a PPT and send it to him in a couple of days.

Short Film:

The official was later taken to the program venue where cultural programs were being performed and was made to grace the dais. As usual there were several people occupying the dais and there was no place for me :(. 

Initial plan was to play a short film made by a gentleman called Jaihind about the literacy program in the village. The program was to be played from my laptop. Immediately, after the discussions when the visiting official was leaving the Saakshar Bharat office for heading towards the stage, I had requested some gentleman to carry my laptop and wire it up with the projector, which was placed near the stage already. Meanwhile, I had to pack my projector (my colleague Sunanda's projector) and keep it in my car. 

When we started playing the short film it was seen neatly on the white screen, but there was no sound. Because, no speakers were attached to the laptop :(. We had to place a mike on the laptop and get satisfied with whatever minimum audio we were able to hear. 

Speeches and Bouquets:

As usual, again many people spoke and the high light was the speech of a Ward Member. This Ward member announced that he wanted to fall on his legs for the sake of award :)

Later, people started giving him bouquets followed by photo shoots. The different sections of the village had a gala time giving him the bouquets. They were coming one by one and giving. There could have been a couple of dozens of bouquets given to him. 

He was requesting people that it was not enough. But, nobody paid heed to his words. This, probably, could have been the biggest felicitation of his life. Even on his marriage ceremony he would have not received so many bouquets. :)

Can the village get the award: 
What was required to be shown could not be, greatly, shown. And what was not required we showed in abundance. With the kind of preparation the Saakshar Bharat team had and the way the proceedings went I doubt if the village would even be in the reckoning. But, still we have a chance of demonstrating that the village may very well deserve the much coveted award. Let's pray for the best!