By Syeda Hameed and Gunjan Veda

Rs 399

In Daniyalpur, Varanasi, poverty-stricken Mehmun Nisa can only manage to feed sabut daney ka paani (tapioca water) to her 18-month-son, his malnourished body makes him appear not more than six months of age.
Borrro, an elderly woman, was the last surviving member of the Ora flock belonging to the Great Andamese tribe. Her death in 2010 resulted in the extinction of the Bo language.
In Alleppey, Kerala, Jalaja Chandran, a block pradhan is instrumental initiating a food processing venture that is now giving an annual turnover of two crores. These stories belong to an India whose voice remains unheard and sight remains invisible amidst the cacophony of urban existence.
Syeda Hameed and Gunjan Veda, two duty-bound women decided to venture beyond the conventional route and during their journey they became acquainted with ordinary people and their extraordinary stories. Their route of discovery has left its permanent imprints in a book called Beautiful Country: Stories of Another India.
Syeda who is well known educationist and a gender activist, joined the Planning Commission in 2004. “As a member of the Planning Commission I realised that the task on hand cannot be fulfilled by sitting in the air conditioned room of Yojna Bhavan, I need to set out and meet people. Writing a book in this context did not figure in my scheme of things. It was the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who suggested that my reports did not revolve around the usual statistics that is a generally accepted norm in this sort of an exercise. He felt that people should know about the India that remains unseen. The idea to pen down five years of myriad experiences in a book, was perhaps born at the moment,” revealed Ms Syeda.
Giving an insight into the book, she added, “Beautiful country lends a voice and platform to the millions of unwritten stories in the peripheries of this country. It chronicles the journey of a women and a girl, who set out to see and understand India through the roads less travelled. It sensitively weaves the stories of valiant protest against state repression and narrates accounts of hope that the people struggle to find. The book attempts to provide an overview of the natural beauty of our country alongside the distressing insight into the lives of people who are unable to keep pace with civilisation and are clearly losing out in the race. Tales of calamity-inflicted citizens and their reconstruction moved us and it will touch a chord with the readers. However the book is also interspersed with poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Allama Iqbal, Mazaaj and Musaddas Hali that lighten the readers burden as they soften the rough contours of the document that points at the developmental backlogs of the country despite its several plan.”
The task involved travelling to 17 states of India over a period of five years; going to the remote regions; interacting with the locals and carrying back their eye-opening tales to the other India with the hope that the effort will make a difference for the better. “During the Kolkata launch of the book at Oxford Bookstore, Ms Syeda and Ms Gunjan felt, “The experience transformed into an enduring lesson. There were many instances when despair was staring large at our faces but then hope wasn’t far behind. We met a group of young doctors from AIIMS who gave up their high-profile career in order to provide healthcare to the tribals of Chhattisgarh. Through the book, we intend to provide a glimpse of the hope and despair, misery and triumph, failures and innovations of ‘real India’ — an India that remains invisible to most Indians and does not make it to the front pages of newspapers, and has not been captured by the roving cameras of the 24x7 media channels.”
The encouraging response could well pave the way for the sequel to Beautiful Country. “There are still many places to discover, many stories lying in obscurity waiting to be told,” comes the information.