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Product Description
Review
The Jamun Tree is a collection of four stories that take us, in turn, to villages of the central Indo-Gangetic plains, the dry expanse of Kutch, the Saurashtra plateau and finally, to the hills of Kumaon. Each region is entirely different from the rest, whether in terms of culture or of natural resources. What brings them together in this book, is that each is the location of long-standing efforts to enable local communities to improve the management of land and water resources. This book is quite unlike conventional development literature. It is not the academic perspective of a geo-hydrologist, sociologist or economist. Neither is it the perspective of a project manager who analyses goals, objectives and strategies. Rather, it a beautifully narrated account of a development worker who crosses paths with a multitude of real people with real lives. Each story is worth sharing for the human dimension it portrays, quite apart from the professional insights it may offer. And as the reader accompanies Prema, a thinly disguised version of the author, on her journey, this human dimension is what embodies The Jamun Tree. One of the many themes of the book is how diverse people come together: men and women, landless labourers and poor farmers. Those at the receiving end of development programmes, only rarely get a chance to speak their mind, let alone decide what is best for them. And when they do, the results can be quite dramatic. For many of them, taking part in a programme is often a huge act of faith that defies logic and reason. It takes a gifted development worker to build upon this faith and enable people to collectively achieve what they cannot individually. Prema is fortunate to work along with such gifted people, and to learn first hand what it takes to foster collective action. And in the process, the occasional failure is just as instructive as the many successes that come her way. We also discover that Prema has a special interest in drawing upon local government support. She introduces us to a wide range of officials, some skeptical, some indifferent, and some enthusiastic. Whatever their outlook, she seeks novel means to bridge the considerable gap between officialdom and the rural community. This often leads her into perplexing situations. But thanks to her persistence, she finds that most officials show a genuine desire to be a part of change for the better. Unlike the purely objective, impersonal report, The Jamun Tree chooses to name the players in the development process, and to capture their hopes and dreams, tears and fears, and mirth and laughter. There is, for instance, an agitated Kheri, who hits his own head with a brick in a fit of anger, only to quietly subside by the very next morning; a Pradhanan who gives Prema a lift on her tractor and casually reveals that she shot the man who had killed her husband; little 12 year old Sapna who bursts into tears on the day of her marriage, as she wants to go to school instead; Ganga behn, the frail widow whose sole possessions are a couple of utensils and a spoon; the dashing rabari Vanka Deva, who happily prefers a life of roaming the desert under the open sky, to settling down like other people; Shanta behn who unhesitatingly introduces Prema to a visitor as her own sister; Hansi devi who is concerned at the meager stock of food in Prema s fridge; and Puran Joshi who finally succumbs to several months persuasion to build a toilet outside his house, thus becoming a local celebrity. - Daman Singh Author of The Last Frontier (published by TERI); Nine by Nine & The Sacred Grove (published by Harper Collins) --More than just development
About the Author
Starting life in the hills of Uttar Pradesh, Pamela Chatterjee moved to Mumbai and worked for several years in the communication field, with a multinational company. However, her real interest lay in rural development and when her circumstances permitted, she left Mumbai, to work with the Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development (SPWD), in Delhi. This gave her an opportunity to spend long periods in villages in Uttar Pradesh, where she worked for the reclamation of alkaline (usar) soils, and in Gujarat villages, where the need was water conservation. With this experience of eight years with SPWD, in 1993, the author decided to live and work in a rural community, in Kausani, Almora District, Uttarakhand where she still lives. ISBN - 9788179934401
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