Thunder On The
Sea
Introduction
It had been a bad day for me, money had not come in
as required, I had managed a very small amount yesterday and today just didn’t
exist, and everybody in the village of Magrahat was unhappy, tears rolled down my
eyes in the morning.
“Can I come over,”
I said, “I am in bad shape today, it’s a long road home and don’t see anyone
even remotely close to a friend around me,” I had asked one of my friends who
stayed in the other village.“Yes,” said the voice on the phone, and I had taken the long road to Calcutta, a bustling town and also the capital of West Bengal.
I could hear voices in the wind, “Are You Waiting
for me,” my mind seemed to be asking, this was going to be a long road to
freedom. “Everything on merit,” said my
mind. Solar Lanterns were my pet project
and I had got this community to agree to doing the project. It would bring us visibility and with Solar
installed the children would be able to study and I would be able to send to
universities.
“Devdaasi, and you?” said my husband to be, I just
nodded my head, “It’s a long story,” and
he must have seen the hidden tears behind my words. He had stopped and we walked over to the
flower shop, bent down on his knees and said, “Marry Me.” My mind had flashed
into overdrive, too stunned to say anything.
He looked up at me and said, “This is you, I don’t care what you have
done.”
That had been
the only moment of happiness in my life for over 20 years and they said, “Why?”
“These words of mine will and I am not going to be around"
“Whoa, I got a love as big as Mississippi, I am going to catch a prey”
The Road Map to Freedom
My current focus group stays with Sefali Marik and Group
from the village of Magrahat in West Bengal.
Sefali Marik and her group of
friends wanted to buy DC Lighting systems for their homes, “What no Inverters?”
my colleague asked and they snapped back at him, “Inverter based systems are
too expensive, give us DC costing not more than Rs
What
batteries will you install in the
system, "Solar C/10 Batteries, they will discharge upto 15 percent” my colleague said nervously, we were a company waiting for the right
contact and we had to talk straight to this lady, Sefali was hell of a lot
smarter than a lot of women we had met in the city.
She was
saavy, intelligent and down to earth, her eyes shown bright, “I will buy this
if it is quality stuff, the Lanterns you sold us earlier don’t even last 2
hours, I want a system that will handle lighting for 4 hours in the evening.”
We could
do that system maam, it will cost way less than Rs 15,000 and will meet the
specification and she smiled and I thought to myself, “I have seen a lot of
women, waiting just like you.”
