My Sweetest Word

If you have to name the sweetest word in the world – which one would come to your mind? Sweetheart……., Beloved………, Home………, Money……, Power………., Fame……, Position………, Or else?

For me, the sweetest word in the World is – Mother; Mummy, Maa; Aae; Amma

Sometimes ago, when Indian Leader Mr. L.K. Advani praised Mr. Narendra Modi for doing a favour by accepting Prime Minister’s position, Mr. Modi remarked “Can anybody do a favour to mother?”  For Indians, our country is like a mother, and we often call her as ‘Bharat Mata or Mother India’.

It took me five years back in the history in 2009. My mother told me the very same thing that I and my wife were doing a favour to her by cleaning her excreta and I had said that nobody can do a favour to mother. She was terminally sick.

My mother was detected with cervical cancer in June, 2009. At that time she was staying with my elder brother near to Varanasi. She came to stay with me at Navi Mumbai, and survived six more weeks. The doctors at Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH-well known for cancer treatment) confirmed terminal stage and asked us to decide whether we should go for chemotherapy or not. The chance of survival was very slim. 

My mother opted for natural death. In contrary to other cancer patients she passed away very peacefully today (16^th August) five years ago in 2009. Probably, it was her Karma - her helping attitudes to poor children and their parents throughout her life, which saved her from the agony of a cancer patient.

My mother taught me some of the greatest values in life. Among these were love to poor people and importance of serving others. My mother was a teacher: running her own school for more than 35 years, since 1974 till her death. She used to teach children of daily wage workers, rickshaw pullers, small grocery owners and traders at a very nominal fee which she waived many times when the parents were not able to pay. Whenever I asked her why not she takes the fee when she has to pay to other teachers and for maintenance she answered that they cannot afford, and if she does not allow them to study then who will teach.

As my father was a self-employed person - an advocate, the family income was never steady. At crucial times, my mother’s income supported the family. My parent’s first priority was supporting their children’s education than meeting their basic needs. Many of my relatives who visited our home when we were studying outside told us on how they used to send money by cutting down their expenses, so as we could stay and study comfortably.  

I was fortunate to have such a parent. They were always very supportive and never imposed their will on me. That’s why I could take a strong decision to leave my Ph.D. midway when I was asked either to bow down, accept the injustice or leave the Ph.D. (mentioned in my earlier blog on ‘Knowing your True-self’). That’s why I could leave my profiling career at the Philippines in 2008, took early retirement and return back to India.

I very well remember that when I went to Banaras Hindu University (BHU) I got Malaria within six months. At that time my first semester examination was about to begin. Some of my classmates called my parents and informed them about my sickness. They immediately came from Patna (about 250 kms away from my place of study). My mother took special permission from hostel warden, and started staying with me in boys’ hostel, taking my care till my examinations were over. 

There are many such cases when she went beyond her limits to support us. I know your mother is also no exception and you cherish those moments when she came out of way to support you.

Once my friend and ex-Boss at CARE, Depinder Kapur asked me what I got from my consultancy. I told him that the greatest reward from my consultancy work has been those six weeks that I spent with my ailing mother. We were never that much close in last 25 years since I left my home for higher study. During those six weeks I was with my mother for almost every single moment, taking care of her and getting her final teaching. I would not have been able to do that had I been in the job.

My parents are no more in this world, but their blessings will always be.

Jitendra Sinha

16^th August, 2014

PS: During her last days my mother used to share some of her paranormal experiences. I did not understand and believe at that time. However, when I read Dr. Brian Weiss’s book “Many Lives, Many Masters’ three years later I was surprised. At pp.140-141 Dr. Weiss has written very similar statements which my mother used to share. She never knew the authors or read his books.

Lessons from Adversary

When we face opposition, our whole energy goes in defending and proving that we are right and that the other is wrong. We forget that the person opposite us is providing the opportunity to widen our horizon and look from others' perspective. 

It is true that big lessons come from big challenges. I learned it hard way, first time.

Many of you might know that I am an expert on gender issues – conduct training, support designing and implementing gender integration strategy and do evaluations from gender perspectives. You may notice in my writings also that I always use gender neutral words. I was member of gender focal team in my earlier organizations including SDC-IC, IIRR (www.iirr.org)  and Prolinnova (www.prolinnova.net).

However, you may be surprised to know that I was never gender sensitive person earlier, and it was through a bitter fight with my adversary that I started looking from different perspective and ultimately became a gender expert. That tussle expanded my horizon, my context and ultimately shaped my career.

I studied two years P.G. Diploma course on Development Planning and Management at Pune University (Centre for Development Studies and Activities, CDSA) during 1991-93. We had semesters system –including classrooms teaching, field work and seminar/research papers where we had to select a topic, conduct research, prepare and present the report. As I learned from my seniors one of my teachers was feminist - pro-girls and anti-boys. I didn’t know that I soon be getting first hand experience.

In first semester we had written test followed by presentation of seminar papers. When result of written papers was declared, in that teacher’s particular subject we all boys had 30%-40% marks and almost all the girls got 90%-99% marks. I objected and requested the Director ‘Dr. Salil Mehta’ for re-evaluation. 

That particular teacher was also in-charge of seminar paper. As I had come from Agriculture background I selected ‘Oilseed Production: Problems and Potentials’ as my seminar paper. When I submitted my paper it was rejected on the ground that it hasn’t covered women’s issues. Integrating women’s issues in a technical topic was a totally new area for me. After that, I improved paper 2-3 times, but she rejected all. It was compulsory for me to pass in seminar paper. Therefore, I again approached the Director who was very friendly to all the students. He knew the issue, and therefore he sat down with me for two days to re-work and improve the paper. When it was submitted again, it met with the same fate again - rejection. It was apparent that she had decided to fail me in that subject.

For me there was no other way than to leave the course, return to my hometown and prepare for some other competitive exams. I informed my college and packed my luggage. During this period, the Executive Director Mr. Christopher Benninger was in USA. Fortunately, he returned back to India before my leaving, learned all the incidents and called me. He had gone through my seminar paper by that time. He said me that he is submitting my paper for evaluation in the university, and I should wait for the result. The other teacher at the Pune University evaluated the paper and gave very good marks.

After all this happened and everything cooled down, I started reflecting back and realized that throughout my life so far I never looked from women’s perspective. It was a serious flaw and thereafter I started focusing and building my knowledge on women’s issue. 

Subsequently, a couple of my research papers on women’s issues were published in ‘Times of India’ during 1994-95. In 1999 when I took charge of CARE’s pilot project, it focused on women’s issues. The project name was ‘WISH-Women’s Initiative for Self-help’ which became a star project for CARE-India. Once a CARE global team from USA, working on gender issue, visited the project to collect case studies from WISH project. We were expecting big appreciation from them, but they remarked that the project does not qualify for gender balanced development project as it is working on women’s issue, not on gender issue.

That comment was like an eye opening for me. I realized that throughout the project we focused only on women’s issues and not on gender issues – we had not included the men. The mistake was corrected in WISH replication project in 2001 when we started working with ICRISAT on crop diversification initiative, where both men and women were involved together.

This is how I was transformed from men’s centric to women’s centric to gender sensitive person from 1991-2001. Thanks to my teacher (adversary) for widening my perspective and my horizon.

Traveling Through Difficult Terrain

If I say that I am developing a model which would provide poor marginal farmers US$1000 annually from 1 acre degraded land, you may call me crazy. After all, getting an annual income of US$1,000 or more from 1 acre degraded land, and that with small and marginal tribal farmers who are known for their backwardness is not possible. BUT I AM DOING AND IT WILL BE PROVED BY 2018 THAT WHETHER I AM SUCCESSFUL OR NOT  

WHAT IS AT STAKE? Apart from putting INR1.0 million as initial seed capital I have dedicated my time and energy in turning this concept into reality. I have said Goodbye to high paying consultancies and focusing on grounding 1 acre model. IF I SUCCEED IT WOULD TRANSFORM LIVES OF MILLIONS OF SMALL AND MARGINAL FARMERS, IF I FAIL IT WOULD BE MY First Attempt In Learning, and I would do it again.

WHO ARE THERE TO HELP ME?  A very strong advisory team, active support from agricultural universities, ICRISAT, private sector, my better-half and FRIENDS & WELL WISHERS

WHETHER MY CONCEPT IS WORTH? Recently, I had a long discussion with an investment company, willing to put INR 5.0 - 10.0 million on certain terms and conditions for which I did not agree. UNLTD India (http://www.unltdindia.org) which helps emerging social entrepreneurs is building my capacity to take up this challenge.

Therefore, whenever you see us with those tribal farmers in their field, be sure that we are sowing seeds of better future, not only for those farmers but for many others. These farmers are our initial partners in the 1 acre model.

You can visit the web-page http://sustainableagroinc.com/ to know more about the work.