Guest post by ARNAV DAS SHARMA and SOUMIK MUKHERJEE. Photographs by SOUMIK MUKHERJEE

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Peepalguda, Koraput, Odisha: “You see, for the bridge over that rivulet, forty thousand rupees were sanctioned”, the sarpanch of Mossigam gram panchayat starts off emphatically. It is only after a good amount of probing that he confesses that it was foolish of the Public Works Department (PWD) to sanction Rs 40,000 for a bridge when a similar bridge was built seven years ago in another village for Rs 43 lakh. In any case, a slight bureaucratic nudge resulted in even this amount to get diverted to another village in the Lima panchayat.

While other villages in the Mossigam gram panchayat, in the Kundra block, every season wait eagerly for rains, for the people of Peepalguda, however, the rainy season is a nightmare.  Inhabited by the Paroja tribes, Peepalguda is located deep within the Eastern Ghats and to reach it, one has to wade through a rivulet, a small tributary of the Kolab River that separates Peepalguda from the other villages in the gram panchayat. During rainy season, the rivulet is flooded and crossing it becomes daunting.

Narain Bagria very well remembers that distant afternoon last year when owing to the incessant rains, water had gotten clogged in the rivulet, making it a host for malaria-laden mosquitoes.

“One day, I came back after cutting wood. It was impossible to go and sell them in the market as the river was overflowing,” he says. “After coming back, I found my younger daughter with very high fever. I couldn’t do anything, nor was I able to take her to the dissari,” Bagria adds. A dissari is a traditional healer, much regarded by the tribals. But apparently, the dissari wasn’t able to cure Bagria’s daughter. He was left with no other option but to go to the nearest health centre.

The nearest Primary Health Centre is in Digapur, almost 8 km away on a normal sunny day. The distance gets tripled when rain strikes, flooding the rivulet. In such an eventuality, the only way left is to take a longer route via the hills and reach Mossigam and from there take a shorter route to Digapur, or to reach Boipariguda, a town that lies just beyond the hills.

That day, Bagria somehow managed to cross the inundated hills and reach Boipariguda. At the health centre there, his daughter was diagnosed with malaria.

“It was sheer luck and nothing else that saved my daughter,” Bagria says, trying to conceal a lump in his throat.

Narain Bagria’s daughter may have been lucky. But luck is seldom uniform, as Ramdas Machodi would soon discover.

“This year the rains were fierce, more than what was last year. My son fell ill one evening and didn’t recover,” Machodi says. Lack of medical facilities, and luck, took its toll. Machodi’s twelve year son, Bagwan, died due to malaria three days later.

Angry, inconsolable, Ramdas Machodi still feels it was luck, and the lack of it, that caused his son’s demise.

“Repeatedly, we have given written pleas to the sarpanch to construct a bridge over the rivulet so that our village can remain connected to the gram panchayat. But nothing was done,” Bagria adds.

Padman Bodaputia, the sarpanch of Mossigam panchayat, is nonchalant. According to him, the written pleas from Peepalguda were forwarded to the collector of Kundra block, which in turn was forwarded to his superiors in Jeypore and Bhubhaneshwar.

An Everyday Struggle for Food

In fact, for Peepalguda, lack of connectivity is so severe that even the census authorities do not come. Bagria realizes this discrepancy because his household does not have ration cards, they being unregistered. While his immediate neighbour does. Hence, Bagria has to buy his ration at double the price than his neighbour who avails all the benefits of holding an Annapurna card.

Similarly, Jagabandhu Jani, a villager in his 70s, recalled how during the last monsoon the entire village was starving because there was no food in stock. With heavy rains, they couldn’t even access the nearest village of Pujariput, which was only 4 km away.

In this village 15 families out of 35 don’t have BPL cards, Narain Bagria’s family being among the unfortunate ones. For these families a meal of rice is like a dream. The BPL rice which they are entitled to receive is for Rs 2 per kg; on the other hand rice in regular market costs Rs 15 per kg. So the less fortunate people without cards consume millet, ragi and black gram and sometime rice, if the neighbours were kind enough to give some. Even families who have BPL cards are not always able to claim their rations. In the last two months they didn’t receive rice from the PDS centre twice as there was no supply.

The entire village thrives on the forest of Tuaguda. Besides cultivating little amount of maize and millet, all the men, women and even children go to the forest to collect wood and leaves and earn around Rs 50 by selling them in the nearest market. Jagabandhu asserts that they would have died long back had the forest not been there.

While, the bureaucrats patiently go about fulfilling their duties, Narain Bagria patiently serves as his neighbour’s bonded labourer, after all he was unable to pay the paltry sum of one thousand rupees that he had borrowed from his neighbour.

“It is not very hard. As soon as I fulfill my obligations, I will be free,” Bagria answers, patience brimming from his faltering voice.

“Yes, the unequal distribution of ration cards is an unfortunate issue, and we are looking into the matter,” the sarpanch answers expressing regret.

Indeed, Narain Bagria is a patient man. Perhaps, for the people of Peepalguda, patience is the only thing that lingers.