Dig a ditch - Make a differece!

Do you know digging ditches can make the world a better place?

You don’t?

Don’t worry. I didn’t either. Not until I went to Spiti and dug one myself!

***

‘Spiti is pretty, and you do get to travel around but staying with the locals is something you don’t get anywhere else. That’s the best part,’ Ishita Khanna, founder of Spiti Ecosphere explained the program that we had enrolled in.

We all nodded in unison.

‘You stay with them, observe their routine, help solve their problems,’ the promise and anticipation continued.

To solve their problems, we were going to dig trenches.

Dig trenches? How will that help? I wondered.

‘Spiti is a cold desert. We barely get any rainfall here but ample snowfall. So, the trenches you work on, get filled with snow in winters. The snow melts in summers and increases the water-table.’

***

Geared with picks and shovels, we marched towards the fields.

The prospect of making a difference in someone’s life thrilled me. I never tried that near my home, but while traveling, it was different.

‘Experiential travel’, they say. You can write about it.

‘Take rest whenever you are tired’, Takpa instructed. He was our tour guide.

We took his instruction to heart. We rested after every 8^th strike to the ground – strikes that made absolutely no impact on the depth of the ditches.

The zest stayed high, with girls taking the charge. Though it was not so long-lived. The stark contrast between efforts and results sneered at us: the gusto went downhill, starting from the masculine side.

The girls tried to motivate us to get up, pick the shovels, and remove the dirt.

That didn’t work.

So, they resorted to insults.

That worked.

Butit and other hostesses brought food for us and throughout the lunch made fun of me. Without relenting.

‘Ye motu se to kuch nahi hoga’, The fatso won’t be able to do anything.

‘Kuch kiya bhi isne?’ Did he even do anything?

‘So kyu nahi jate?’, why don’t you go and sleep?

So, I went and slept. Under the blue sky, over the grass-top, covered with dust – I slept. And didn’t want to wake up. But I had to. There were trenches to be dug. Difference to be made.

By the evening, when the job was done to our satisfaction and to Takpa’s dissatisfaction, we left the field, fantasizing about a hot shower and a warm bed.

Butit had already prepared tea and snacks by the time we reached home.

‘Can we get some hot water?’ I asked Butit.

She didn’t seem to comprehend the request. So, I repeated:

‘Can we get some hot water for a bath? We are filled with dust.’

‘OK’, she said, with a mixed expression of reluctance and displeasure, which only a person slogging over the weekend can show.

What the hell! Haven’t we paid enough to take a bath at least? I thought, feeling a little annoyed.

But ignoring the hiccup, I went and chatted with Norbu, Butit’s son, who was aware of Gmail and Facebook despite no internet connection in Spiti. One of his books read:

‘Every child is special. You are extra special because you are a child of Himalayas.’

‘I want to go to Delhi,’ Norbu said.

‘Why? It’s a terrible place, full of smoke and dust,’ we retorted.

‘But its big and I want to see a big city. Till now, I have only been to Kaza a few times.’

The chain of the conversation was broken when I saw from the window, a tiny woman afar, walking with a large blue tank on her back. The tank was three quarters her height and was held by a rope.

‘Damn difficult life, yaar. These guys toil really hard’, I said, receiving a whole-hearted agreement from my room-mate.

‘That is mummy’, Norbu said.

WHAT!

Flashes of how I struggled to reach Butit’s house from the community water tank shimmered in my memory. And now, she walked the same distance with a barrel full of water for us.

We were silent for a while, the quiet broken only by the clanking of the utensils, Butit used to prepare our meal.

‘Water is ready.’

Bathing felt lucrative earlier but now I was reluctant and displeased. Water, such an inconspicuous, never drew so much reverence or guilt. Every mug spilled added more regret than it removed the dust.

For the next two days, I washed my used utensils, helped peel potatoes, talked a little less, listened a little more.

I didn’t take shower for the rest of the trip.