‘Change’: A threat to traditional entertainment?

A tiresome Friday is followed by a much-awaited weekend. A movie in the multiplex, a hangout with friends, a party, a drive, some shopping, great food and quality time with the family! Looks like a perfect one! In a way, this is what entertains most of us. But for many in the villages, for men and women who toil hard for a meager amount, ‘entertainment’ is altogether different.

The ‘Byari’ story: “Your mother tongue matters”

According to UNESCO’s list of endangered languages, 2473 out of 6700 languages spoken worldwide are facing the threat of extinction. And India tops the list with 197 languages that are dying out and fast disappearing. With the passage of a few more generations, by the end of the century, nearly half of the languages spoken today are estimated to become extinct!

A ‘rural innovation’ lights up remote villages!

From the time we wake up from our bed till we sleep, from electric heaters, microwave ovens and laptops to study lamps, we just can’t imagine our lives without “electricity”, which has become a part and parcel of our busy lives. A few hours of power-cut is enough to make our lives unstable. Of late, this incredible innovation of man has often generated chaos between the states. While we kept complaining about the power cuts and were busy blaming the electricity board and the government, there was one man who was busy investing all his time, resources and energy to achieve something unbelievable and this is the story of this incredible man from a remote village in Karnataka, a village that never knew what ‘electricity’ is, until he introduced it to them!

“Grama Sarkara” – A bold anti-corruption initiative of a ‘Gram Panchayat’!

This is the story of a village Sarpanch who once took an undaunted approach to fight corruption by empowering people with information to build a corruption-free Gram Panchayat – a seemingly impossible challenge a reality during his tenure. With a belief that a citizen well-aware of one’s rights with a conviction ingrained in one’s mind that “I will not pay bribe” as the best weapon to fight this evil, Mr Na Li Krishna from a village called Nagarakere decided to confront the unattainable by bringing in transparency & honesty within the system.

Salumarada Thimmakka: At the age of 101, she still dreams “big”!!

A good amount of pension fund, occasional foreign tour packages, plentiful time with spouse and family,  insurances that cover up all the medical requirements and all the time in the world to do something you always wanted to do.....well, is this how you have dreamt about your post-retirement life? Hold on.....this lady will make you rethink and question yourself, “Can I play the second innings of my life in a real big way?” And if you consider yourself too old to make a change, here is a story that says “age – no bar to follow your dreams”!

A village farmer redefining agriculture sutra!

Well, it’s not the tigers alone on the ‘list of endangered’in India. A heart-to-heart discussion with an earnest village farmer and you would end up including to the above list, an exhaustive range of rice varieties of India, mostly traditional and indigenous.

Kodiyala - A village of weavers who wove clothes for the Maharajas

Small houses on either side of narrow roads, busy traditional bazaars that bountifully display spices & vegetables, old-fashioned name boards that remind you of the 80s and a group of elderly at the pocket-sized tea shops who make you forget GPSs and Google Maps... that’s a scene from a small village called Kodiyala located a few kilometers away from the historical town of Srirangapatna that was once ruled by Tippu Sultan. What makes this village unique is the fact that the weavers of Kodiyala wove the clothes for the royal families of Mysore, Tippu Sultan and many political leaders. This village is a home to hundreds of ‘Padmashalis’, a Telugu-speaking weaver community known to have migrated from Andhra Pradesh hundreds of years back.