This past week we took a trip to a village up north of Mumbai. We were up bright and early at 4am and started our journey. I can’t really remember the last time I was up so early, walking towards Sion Train Station the air was fresh, the weather was calm and the sun was rising in the distance. This was a very unusual feeling for me especially here in Mumbai. It’s hard to picture such a hectic city so quite and peaceful. Not one honk was heard as we made our way to the station.
It was a two-hour train ride up north and another hour and a half or so in a jeep to actually reach the village. We traveled in this fashion because our director wanted us to experience how people from the outskirts of Mumbai traveled in and out of the city everyday for work. It’s crazy for me to think how people could just give up six hours of their day to travel just for work. I really didn’t know what to expect, this village trip was sort of a last minute decision made by our program director. We got a call that very night to wake up at four in the morning and that we would be taking a day trip to a village. As we made our way there my friends and I were joking how the village people would be living and how they would look like, but how wrong we were…
In the village the family we visited had everything that you could imagine an urban household having: a brick house with two to three rooms, kitchen, television set, cable, cell phones, and even a car. Movies and media give us a different perspective of what it means to be a villager, but it’s interesting to see how completely different these people are living. I guess this a good example of how globalizations and modernization is taking place even here in the rural areas of India. Yes they dress differently, but aside from that they were living comfortably in their own unique way as we do back home. Although the villagers have these somewhat modernized homes, what I took away is that their mindset and how they interact with one another is still “village” like. Just like us they use technology to make their lives a little easier, but they still go on about their everyday tasks the same way. Main part of their day is still spent gathering food and running household errands. One thing to note is that, I think the family we visited had better amenities then the other villagers because I’m sure they get paid well by tourist like us who come to see them.
