It takes us an hour to reach Galaberi, the last few kilometres on a road that did not exist the last time I was in Barmer years ago. At one corner of a massive panchayat bhavan compound is a spanking new health sub-centre. We kick off our shoes, and Chaini-didi, the ANM, proudly shows us room after unopened room: this will be the pharmacy, that is the lab, this is the labour room. She is unable to hide her joy, she has not had an ‘office’ to work out of in her 17 years of service.
Now there are roads, mobile phones work, pregnant women get their antenatal checkups and even get a free ultrasound, every child gets vaccinated, there has been one infant death and no maternal death in the last seven years
Later, sitting under the morning sun, she tells us how easy it is now. The 600 households Chaini-didi is responsible for, small hamlets far from each other, are spread over a 7-km radius. Over the years, she has repeatedly visited each home, by foot, to offer health services to her communities; only to be frustrated by people’s mistrust in vaccines and the methods of modern medicine: “Why should we tell you if our daughter-in-law is pregnant? These are family matters.”
“Now there are roads, mobile phones work, pregnant women get their antenatal checkups and even get a free ultrasound, every child gets vaccinated, there has been one infant death and no maternal death in the last seven years, look at my office, what more could I want?”
Listening to this, it is easy to believe her. This is just after my colleague has written a moving column about how difficult it is in Barmer. It is not the kind of desert that will draw tourists for its romantic sand dunes and hill forts. One has to experience the arid landscape, its remoteness, the harsh weather and terrain that makes livelihood and living a wonder. And yet one has to hear the children sing about the beauty of their village, see the colour and vibrancy of anganwadi teachers as they play and care for their children, believe Chaini-didi when she says it is easy here.
The same system that reaches the remotest parts of Barmer is unable to serve a community on the margins of a modern metro.
Heading back to Barmer, my phone picks up the internet, and I see pictures a colleague from Bangalore has sent. The images are of a place we first went to with food and other essentials when the Covid lockdown kicked in. A community of fakirs who sought alms outside places of worship and on the streets, living on the precarious ridge of a stone hill outside the city. The few times I have been there, I have struggled to walk up its slippery and narrow incline, often holding on to the tin and tarpaulin sheet homes for balance. The sheer poverty and indignity of their everyday lives made me wonder how this can be true in our country today.
Their homes were razed some days ago, and those were the pictures I was seeing. If one traces Bangalore’s history over the past two centuries, it will be clear it is a city of migrants. Today’s migrants are those who keep the city running — they are waste pickers, domestic workers, security guards, gig workers, construction labourers — increasingly, many of them are from east India, and live in informal settlements in suburban peripheries. Public systems have not been able to keep pace, and these communities have little or no access to anganwadis, primary schools, health centres, or ration shops. It is almost as if the city wants their services but does not recognize they are also citizens who need to be served. The same system that reaches the remotest parts of Barmer is unable to serve a community on the margins of a modern metro.
We hit an unexpected bad patch of road, and that brings my attention back to Barmer. We are on our way back from Galaberi, and since there is still time to lunch, we head to Poonyion ki basti, where a village health camp is on. Tulsi-didi has been serving as ANM in the same set of villages for 23 years. She tells us with pride that just about every child born here was delivered by her; how many, I ask; thousands, she says. As we leave, I see an underground water tank without a cover. I tell Tulsi-didi it isn’t safe, a child may fall in. She says, ‘Take a look inside, there is no water and a pigeon has nested, can you hear the chicks? All the children know and they are careful. We will cover it once the chicks fly out.’
Walking out, I am left wondering about the spectrum of our humanity, that is able to find abundance and compassion in a desert, yet struggles to express the same humanity in a modern metro.