life is good..

I love my project. It has given me the opportunity to do something outside the regular cycle of college life. As part of our final year project, we have to conduct a socio-economic survey. Today was day one. The houses-illegal settlers shacked up on either side of TS canal, Varkala. No electricity, no water supply, no sanitary facilities, no dreams, no aspirations, no future. Never in my normal life would i have got the opportunity to interact with these people, most of the homes had a single earning member and so many hungry children to feed.
They were so nice to us, bringing out plastic chairs for us to sit and fill out the form, pressing us to have a glass of "narangya valam"- lime juice before we leave. Inviting us inside their houses, it could barely be described as a house, a single room some of them, with mud walls and thatched roofs.

What saddens me is, if our project is implemented, which is the revival of the canal for navigation and tourism purposes, these poor people will lose their house, they will be relocated somewhere else. Sad, but thats the way its gotta be, development has its downside too.

we were totally drained by the end of the day. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of an ice cold lime juice, a fan and falling on top of my soft bed, almost made me feel guilty, these menial things which we take for granted, would be a luxury for them .

its good to have such experiences in life, gives us an opportunity to appreciate the life we take for granted.

im sure bleak will come with an amusing blog about our adventures today, so i din go into the details. i couldnt sleep without writing down my thoughts. there is a tag pending bout the things i hate in life, thanks to rockus. Its going to be a tough one, im not saying that i love everything in this life, definitely not! but its going to take some soul searching to come up with a whole list. so till then..appreciate life :)