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Fieldwork # 1
Village - Dandkala
District - Bikaner
State - Rajasthan
Host Organisation - URMUL Trust, Bikaner, Rajasthan

I was born and brought up in Delhi, and barring two short visits to villages as part of preliminary orientation programme conducted by IRMA, had never visited a village. I had also never visited Rajasthan in the past, and hence, was suitably excited about this visit to the state. Our bus crossed the city of Bikaner, drove towards the village, Dandkala, and we were catapulted into an entirely different world. Dandkala is a multi-caste village with Rajputs, Jaats and Nais staying in different hamlets of the village, which is situated 50 kilometres from India's western border. Pakistan refugees, who settled on this side of the border after the 1971 Indo-Pak War, started Dandkala in this desert district.

The village topography consists of undulating plains blended with shifting sand-dunes, the slopes of which are lightly furrowed by the wind's action. There are no rivulets or streams and the panorama it presents is that of an expanse of sand intermittently broken by sand features and a few habitations. The literacy level in the village is very low - at around 40 percent. In the beginning of 2008, primary school had been upgraded from Class Fifth to Class Eighth. The school was established in the year 1992. The inhabitants build their own houses using locally available materials like grass, wood, shrubs, sun-dried unfired mud-bricks, and plastered with a mixture of mud and cow-dung.

The climate and the terrain make it one of the most inhospitable areas in the world. The temperature in the area varies widely. It may come down to the level of 5°C during night-time in the winter season and go up as high as 45-48°C during the summers. However, it is the people, the Pak Visthapits, who provide an all-pervading aura of uniqueness to this village.

I was quite shocked on discovering that the village had no electricity, roads, muddy water and toilets. The first thought which crossed my mind after I had recovered from this jolt was that the next 50 days would be challenging. I thanked the Almighty for leading me to such a village - a near replica of the village which I had dreamt of on so many occasions. Life would undoubtedly be tough. However, it would also be full of opportunities for me to display potential that I knew I possessed in abundance.

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Amit Goel (Campus Associate),
B.Tech. (Computer Science) from TIT&S Bhiwani, Haryana,
Worked as Team Lead in HCL Technologies, Noida for 3 Years.
Currently 1st Year MBA Student at IRMA, Anand.
Article posted on January 17, 2009.