103) Women with a mission

There was always something intriguing about her; she was full of cheer and positivity that others soaked in its comfort. Janaki Gupta was highly regarded both as an individual and an expert educationist; being the Technical Head for Education there were few issues that escaped her attention.

Janaki worked for a donor development agency and as the Head of the education programme in Madhya Pradesh, her job was to identify NGOs for a partnership. Her company would fund the activity as long as the NGO made a difference on the field. Even the course curriculums were provided and so were the teaching techniques.

Janaki, an expert observer and over the last five years in MP, had devised different teaching methodologies. In fact she knew which stories made a mark in a farmer’s girl or cobbler’s son and what language made them grasp. For example in an Adolescent programme, Maths was taught literally using vegetables and fruits from the market. First time learners in a family carried the diffidence of centuries.

The government has failed the rural hinterland spectacularly in health and education. But for committed people like Janaki, things would be a lot worse.

These NGOs too were not blind in offering the 3 Rs heedless of their social education. Of what use is the ability to read and write if one’s lot was to go to bed on an empty stomach? So these programmes were run in conjunction with rural employment schemes. Teaching these people the alphabets were easier a chore than getting them to fend for themselves economically. Poverty indeed can breed more ills than any other.

The role of Janaki at work was to devise training course materials for children from V standard to Xth and conduct workshops for the teachers. Once the NGOs are short listed and selected, the teaching aids and study materials for kids would be disbursed.

More than the job, Janaki had to travel at least 15 days a month covering over 20 odd districts, taluks, and villages in the state on roads that barely exist and any car journey
would shake one’s liver and kidney.

Janaki has been my colleague for two years and was once my project leader. What impressed us was her ability to size up any situation and come with a solution and as to her knowledge of the local conditions, simply phenomenal - she was a real expert on rural India; so abysmally neglected by the mainline media.

I was on her team when she headed the Tsunami disaster unit in Cuddalore. I was witness as she ran around for over 16 hours a day wondering as to where she got energy from. Be it assessing the situation, ordering supplies, ordering boats, or shouting instructions to our head office in Delhi. Those two months were the hardest for each member of that 7 member team. But we learnt what it takes to serve in a completely different region, and in a different language. Janaki would remind us: “Suffering doesn’t know any language and it is universal. These people have lost their all and yet displaying great resilience that it is a lesson for us”. When we left even the collector came to pay this compliments and respect.

This year, I volunteered to accompany her when there were floods in Bihar. I would have my heart in the mouth as Janaki visited the villages even before the waters had abated and insisted on traversing through boats. In addition, she would go to Patna from Muzzafarpur, our base camp and come late in the night after meeting the CMO or other state government authorities. Bihar is still notorious for kidnap and life after 6 in the evening comes to a standstill and we thought she was being foolhardy. I remember the collector with whom we were closely interacting mention, “Janaki is indeed an inspiration and for a woman, what courage”.

I have known her for over 5 years and we have had some memorable events on the field; she once rescued a child after the waters had washed away the house or enjoying her mom’s culinary. And yet, she never got personal. It used to be puzzle at the office that for one so beautiful and so much status and position, she was still a spinster past her 36th birthday.

This sort of became my bee in the bonnet as I tried to crack the puzzle. Once I got talking to her mom and it was then a bean spilled out. “ Janaki was abused a child by her father and she had directed her hurt into being useful to the society”.

Not bad for one to have done her Ph.D; at times studying on streetlights after the abusive father abandoned the family. No wonder she knows what pain is and can other relate to when others are in distress. (810 words)