Savithabai’s Weblog

deshapande foundation fellowship programme

Hi friends you want to know my village stay experience

WELCOME TO SURSHEETYKOPPA

It might be that you are thinking how will the village study be, but really, being a girl born and brought-up in a village, I got  different experience in my village stay. When we received this task to stay for three days, we felt so nice that we use to say proudly, “We are going to village studies, we will enjoy in village study.” Keeping all hope, Shahina and I started packing our luggage.

We started our journey to Surasheetykoppa on July 22^nd, 2008. We got a bus from Hubli’s old bus stop. As the village is 22 km north of Hubli, only limited buses are there, so we got a bus to Varuru and from there we got an auto-rickshaw to reach Sursheetykoppa.

I reached at 10:30 a.m. As soon as I reached the village, we were accompanied by Mrs. Vandana, who spared a mat for me and urged me to feel at home. She took us to meet an informal gathering of other women. One thing we had: our advantage was that we had already stayed one day, so we had good rapport with them. Within a short while, a group of women and children collected, and I was embarrassed to find myself the centre of attention. They asked questions like, “For what purpose did you come to our village?” and fired at us. They were very curious to know about ourselves, and they discussed with themselves and told us to we have to stay in the house of Sharadamma. She was the main bread earner of her family, with her chief source of livelihood being agricultural work. She could use the additional earnings, and she has two children, one daughter and a son. She doesn’t have a husband. After moving our luggage, we thought we would see the village, so Shahina and I went around the village and tried to get people and speak with them.

MAP OF SURSHEETYKOPPA:

LOCATION:

Surasheetykoppa belongs to Kalagattagi Taluk, Dharwad District. It is situated 22 kms from Hubli town and 6 kms from NH-4, which connects to Varuru. It is surrounded by many villages, such as Kuddikere, Kamplikoppa, Kardikoppa, Ganjigatti, Naganuru, Pallikoppa, Baginarkoppa, and Varuru. These villages are located at the radius 2 to 10kms distance from Surasheetykoppa. One can reach Surashetykoppa by State Transport Bus, and there are seven buses from Hubli bus stand. From NH4 and Varuru many auto rickshaw  and tempo’s are available to Surasheetykoppa. The village is connected to growth centers such as Hubli, Ranebennur and Kalagattagi, and it is surrounded by agriculture fields.

     HISTORY

Sursheetykoppa has a history of 300 to 400 years. A man called Surshetty Gowda came from Nalwar Thoda, from Vijayanagar dynasty, and he brought three stones from there. While travelling, he was unable to carry the stones, so he left one stone in Surshettykoppa, which has now become Bharmalingewar temple. In earlier days, Gowda used to rule the village, but now this system is not there. Agriculture is the main occupation in Surshettykoppa.

DEMOGRAPHY:

The total population of the village is 2332, and 540 families are living in this village. The male population is 1231 and female is 1101. In this population, SC are 110 and ST are 114, respectively.

 LIVELIHOOD:

The main source of livelihood is agricultural labor, and the villagers are paid far below the statutory wages. Several of them are bonded laborers, and they still do not posses their own house sites and live in constant fear of eviction if they do not conform to the will of their masters. They also have serious problems regarding the supply of drinking water. In Sursheetykoppa, people have come from different places, and this village developed through inter-family relationship, i.e. marriage. Though most people depend on agriculture, some people’s occupation is petty shops and tea shops, and some people are working in VRL garments. Some males are migrating to Goa and Bangalore for work. Most of the girls are going to work in VRL garments. In Sursheetykoppa, some families depend on livestock like dairy, as well as mutton and poultry for the meat.

AGRICULTURE: 

In Surasheetykoppa, the land is black and its sand-mixed soil mainly grows the crops of zowar, rice, maize, soybean, cowpea, groundnut, and cotton. Twenty-five percent of people are landless and depend on coli. Trees present in Surasheetykoppa are eucalyptus, teak, tamarind, and Chico, and the village has livestock like cow, cattle, buffalo, goat, sheep, and hen.

LIFE and SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

This village is not very exposed to the city, but villagers living in Surasheetykoppa can lead their life peacefully because so much cooperation and unity exists. Some venders come to sell vegetables within the village and other primary goods are available. Families are joint, though now single-unit families are increasing. Marriages are inter- and intra-family marriage is also there. Girls were not receiving higher education, but after BAIF’s (NGO) intervention, some SHG members sent their daughters for higher education. I visited one family where three generations of people stay under one roof. As for village structure, I saw that scheduled caste and tribes will live outside of the village, on different lanes. I also noticed that newer generations of people are not practicing the caste system.

The infrastructure in village is a primary and high school, two Anganwadis, a Gram Panchayat office, a veterinary hospital, post office, an Ayurvedic hospital, a milk selling centre, a boys’ hostel, ration shop, petty shops and nurse and RMC doctor who are usually contacted for illnesses.

TRADITIONAL PRACTICE:

In Sursheetykoppa, I saw a temple named Yallmadevi,Mariyamma,Shankarrma Brammalingehawar,Siddharuda matta more  than 5 temples are there most of the temples are goddesses temples. The villagers have enormous faith in god and perform different ‘poojas’ to impress god to keep their village healthy, productive and peaceful. During my village stay, I observed the tradition they follow to pray for rain. My host informed me that the village heads and elderly people hold a meeting and may decide to perform the tradition of “calling rain”. During those three days, no one villager does grinding or preparation of jowar roti, and on the third day, there is an “udi filling programme”. When that is completed, all villagers gather in the evening at one point with a traditional music system by “karadi majalu sangha”. The procession then starts and it visits all goddess-situated temples, where female folk present betel leaves, arrack nuts, dry fruits, bananas and rice. The procession ends with a visit to all major temples, especially goddess’s situated temples. When I asked an elderly person about the practice, he said this pooja is performed whenever sign of difficulty arise in the village.

VULNERABILITIES

In this village, I felt that the vulnerable groups are farmers, because seventy five percent families depend on agriculture. There is no irrigation and it’s a rain fed area. Twenty five percent of people are daily wagers and don’t have other income generate activities. I also came to know that fifteen percent of youth are migrating to cities, like Goa and Bangalore, for work.

DEVELOPMENT SITUATION:

From importance of education in these days impact in Surshettykoppa is girls and boys educations strengthen. Women have freedom to work outside the family and they place importance on girl’s education also. Most women are exposed to the outside world through SHGs and participate in group activities. Five women’s SHGs are actively working and three men’s groups are also involved in different development efforts in Surshettykoppa. Farmers are developing their agricultural practices with assistance from BAIF, and they continue to seek improvement. As such, they are exposed to and utilize new technologies to increase their field productivity.