Long before Thomas More’s famous work, people fantasized about Utopia even if they didn’t have a word for it.  A perfect land… order, peace, tranquility, brotherhood, freedom from want, liberation from pain.  Heaven here and now without all the waiting.  Many people think that we are trying to create a utopia here and now in India… but that couldn’t be further from the truth.   When coining the word, More combined the Greek words for “good”, “not” and “place”.  In other words, ‘the good place that cannot be’.  For me the ‘good place’ is not a place free from pain, suffering and sacrifice.  It is not a place devoid, where I am “comfortably numb”.  For me the ‘good’ is most tangible in the place where all five of my senses come alive in the stark contrast of reality.
In my village I see.
I see Saran.  Last year he was in the Food For Thought program and was seriously malnourished.  After five months of eating lunch in our program 5 times a week he was reweighed and measured.  Devi, Kausila and Sabita had to inform his parents that he was now too fat and healthy to qualify for free lunches.  Saran is bright eyed and ornery.   His 1 1/2 year old baby sister was weighed and measured in January and found to be undersized/underweight.   After school Saran swings the little girl up onto his back and carries her down a flight of a couple hundred steep stone stairs (built by my vigilantes).  He washes her hands and sets her down inside the Swasta Kendra.  The formerly weak and sickly boy spoon feeds his malnourished sister in the same way in which he was fed last year.  Saran is only seven years old. Continue reading Forget Utopia