Day 23 : The younger generation has got what it takes!

Raj had sent me a text, “I will be joining you.” He didn’t push his dates, nor did he give any excuses, he simply took a couple buses to reach Kelshi and then started walking towards P.V. Joshi sir’s house, where I was put up for the day. I like such integrity. It’s simple- those who want to work, simply come forth and work. They don’t give excuses for why it was difficult, what went wrong that day— they simply join in on the walk.

I have never met Raj before. He is from my hometown- Chiplun, but we are totally unrelated. Other than a few common friends, we have nothing in common. Raj is pursuing a Masters in Development from Bangalore, his previous Masters being in Political Science. Such young minds moving towards groundwork, are essential for the world to move towards a better direction. What we learn in the universities, shouldn’t be limited to the universities. The real work starts when you move out and realise that you have an endless amount of work left over by the greats who expected the next generation to take forth where they left. Mahatma Phule didn’t expect us to go back and become regressive, nor did Ambedkar or Shivaji Maharaj. This life asks us to move further. The nature of our universe is to move from darkness to light.

I reminded Raj before leaving, “We are supposed to live off of the kindness of those we meet along the way. This means accepting all the negative and positive responses from them that come our way. People will come forth with hate in their hearts, but our job is to offer a flower of peace and mould their hearts until there is a stream of love overflowing through their hearts. I know it’s a tough ask and most people run away the minute they see a short tempered person piercing through the barriers of peace that we have built in our hearts and yet, that is exactly what we should be doing. Are you ready for this?”

He nodded and kept walking beside me. Vehicles passed alongside us, asking us to move further away from the road. We spoke of the politics plaguing this land. The inherent hereditary systems and the history which has created it. It wasn’t bad, it was simply how it was back then. As we were moving towards the shore, a sea of mangroves had filled the land as far as the eyes could travel. Birds and fish had come here to take rest from the usual gushing of sea waves. In an hour we had reached the small fishing village of Aade. We walked the bridge while getting some usual and unusual stares of the village people waiting for the bus. Boats were eagerly coming back into the creek to get docked. They too expected some rest after the day’s hard labour. A tough boy, his skin darkened by the sun’s impending rays, rowed the boat swiftly from the mangroves towards the bridge.

“Can you take us on a ride? We want to see the birds within the mangroves,” I shouted from the bottom of my lungs and added, “let us know if you expect some money.”

He thought for a while and then hinted me to come down towards the dock. Raj moved along to experience what I usually do— the inherent kindness of strangers who become family in no time. A man asked me to leave the trolley by the side of the bridge. No one will even touch it here, he guaranteed.

“Come through,” Jeevan was asking us to jump into his fiber boat. “I don’t like people who ask me for money to go on such rides, but you spoke marathi and you didn’t speak in an arrogant tone, so I thought I should take you on a ride.”

We were settling in and I was impressed by Jeevan’s ideals. He expected his money to come from his hard work— which was catching fish. Such endeavours were to make friends, not clients. There are but a few people left who live by such moral standards.

We were deep into the creek when the waves had softened. Jeevan wanted us to experience the real patch of mangroves where the fish come to lay eggs. He started chatting and telling us his story when he realised that we were willing to listen.

“ I used to work in Goa as a lifeguard. The lack of opportunities in this village pushed me to Goa. I was 18 back then. The Casinos and beaches I worked for never paid me in time. They were always late. After a couple years, I was fed up. We were working for 20 hours a day without enough rest,” he spoke while keeping a smile on his face.

“Isn’t this life better?” I asked.

“Oh I love it here. You are the king here. No one to stop you. No one to ask you where you are going. Plus, I am always next to my mother and father. There is no other place or person in the world who can cook like your mother does. I eat a lot. I eat 20 chapatis if I want. I enjoy eating the fish that I catch myself,” his smile grew tenfold when he talked about his family.

“Yet things aren’t great here. The LED ships owned by a few ministers and their family, have come to destroy our livelihood. We don’t even catch enough fish as we used to before. Ships from as far as Kerala come to fish in these waters, but we without enough support and technical abilities cannot compete with their upgraded boats,” he said.

This place too has the same problems like every other koli community, they lack ownership of the land which they live on.

“I hardly use my phone and whenever I do, I use it to learn more about the developing fishing techniques. I listen to people who make sense. All our politicians spread hatred across the social media. Don’t they see how bad it is to the society? Our village is extremely polarised because of them,” he was having the same questions that I had during this walk.

Can we buy you a cup of tea, I asked at last. That’s the least we can do for this 2 hour long boat ride through the creek. We walked up to the road and sipped tea. Our backgrounds were dissolved in that moment, our inequalities were sidelined. We were just a couple of kids in their mid twenties, trying to live ethically in an absolutely unethical world. I believe if we can live this way, many more could. If we can start with us, we can change how we see and perceive reality. Our life is an extension of our morals. If we choose to live against them for whatever reasons we end up conforming to this degraded society. If one Jeevan can come back and live this way, he becomes a ray of hope for many others to come back. Only that we need to support him and people like him.

The younger generation has got what it takes!

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If you can help me by contributing for this walk, then please do, I could start a kickstarter or manage crowdfunding through some other website, but none of those options are available to me here in India. So, I will be dependant on your donations. You can contribute through paypal - here’s the link. I will send out a personalised postcard if the donations are above $30 and if it’s above $100 then whatever comes out of this walk - a book, a documentary or anything else - you will be the first ones to receive it.

Thanks for your continual support. I am truly grateful!