Amle trek and field trip

This year's introductory trek for the new MTech batch of CTARA was to Amle, a remote tribal hamlet in Mokhada block of Palghar district which has no electricity or telephonic connectivity. Since this field visit tends to be an informal one families are welcomed and Saurabh and kids joined us. The trek was a simple one made special by the monsoon streams and the beautiful green all around. The kids got a taste of some rural technology as well: treadle pump, solar micro grid, the smokeless chulha, bee-rearing and the old-fashioned aata chakki which we all could barely budge but the 90 year old matari used effortlessly!

Anurag goes to Sinnar

I've had to travel more than usual during the past few weekends to my field area in Nashik district for my PhD work. Yesterday was special because Anurag decided to accompany me. It was also an unusual trip because I was taking a big group of students and wasn't planning on very intensive work so I figured it would be easier to manage Anurag.

Anu enjoyed visiting various dam sites and walking through fields. Helped by some of the students he managed to collect a great deal of goodies from the fields - peas, carrots, okra, moong beans and pomegranates. Most of them were collected and consumed on the spot!

(Villages visited: Konambe, Sonambe and Wadgaon Sinnar)