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Dr. Vasavi: Yeah, yeah.

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So I'm basically a social anthropologist.

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My interests are in social theory and in anthropology, sociology of India, and with a strong focus on agrarian studies and educational studies.

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I did my Master's, M.Phil from the Department of Sociology Delhi School of Economics, and then left for the US to do my PhD at Michigan State University.

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And after that I taught for a year at Tufts at Medford, and then returned to India and I've worked for about 14 to 15 years.

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Most of the time was at the National Institute for Advanced Studies in Bangalore.

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Apart from that actual working experience, I've sort of been engaged with various projects on the ground level, which is from where we sort of took off the Punarchith collective started in 2011, started with a number of friends, a small group actually, trying to bridge what I thought was...

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I was engaged in research and studies on agrarian issues along with the educational issues, focusing on the youth, who we felt really were both understudied and underrepresented in both these context of what was happening in agriculture in India, about the agrarian distress that I had written about, but also looking at the problems of poor quality education, especially as India was expanding its secondary education system, and the university systems were expanding.

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So trying to bridge these two by looking at youth as actors, but also looking at the agency of youth in these contexts, and what would an alternative learning program be, in contrast to mainstream formal education?

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That's what the collective tries to do.

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Gayithri: Really nice.

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So I'll just briefly introduce myself.

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I'm Gayithri Jayathirtha, I'm a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania currently, and my primary research area has been computing education, to have a focus, to have a disciplinary home.

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But before this I was a math teacher, mathematics teacher back in India, where I was running an afterschool program, for-profit afterschool program.

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But I was also partnering with a few nonprofit institutions to support the broader mathematics teachers in a couple of districts in Karnataka.

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I was actually partnering with Prajayatna.

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I'm not sure if you have heard of them.

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Dr. Vasavi: Yeah, I've heard of.

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Gayithri: Yeah.

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So I did some work with them for a few years before I moved here for my Master's and then my PhD program.

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So that has been my training, but I'm also retraining, trying to complicate what I understand, and how I understand the world.

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And from the time we've been here, I have had my own struggles with my identity, for what it means to be doing this work here, and why am I even doing this, and what at least is not being sufficiently studied, and what doesn't connect with my own life experiences?

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And that is why this whole collective started off, like the south Asian Learning Sciences Research Collective, we call it, but it was predominantly a bunch of us Indian students coming together and really trying to understand what about our own lives are we actually parking outside our classrooms to learn whatever is being taught here, to learn the theories that we learn or study or read here.

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And that is why we started recognizing some patterns, some of the patterns in our own conversations.

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We have been engaging for over a year or two now, more than a couple of years actually.

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And then we got this little grant to do this work where we were like, "Okay, let us talk to folks and find out and capture those contextual factors for what it means to work in the subcontinent.

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What emerges, and how is work even done there?

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Is it qualitatively different, in what ways?

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What are some of the concerns that are coming up?

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So we just wanted to capture that and we wanted to talk to people who are working there, people who have studied there, people who may be doing both, just you do.

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So thank you so much for joining us today.

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So we will have two parts for this conversation.

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One would be more focused on your work, mostly Punarchith, and we will get to more of that and what you're doing there, how is it oriented towards the goals that you're planning for?

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And another would be more of your personal journey, your personal story for where did you start and how did you navigate, and how did you get to where you are now?

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And what in the process would you want to share with people who would want to or who aspire to be in your position, who aspire to do the kind of work of that you do?

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And who may be in position similar to where you are, like where you were before as a PhD student, thinking about the theories.

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So let's get started by talking about your ongoing work with the rural youth.

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For the sake of listeners, of course we will be tagging in some of the writings that you already have ,the webpage of the organization so that people get a sense of what is happening, but if you were to briefly tell them, what would be the overview of your work, for the listeners?

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What exactly is Punarchith, what do you do there?

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Dr. Vasavi: Yeah.

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So Punarchith means re-think.

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Basically, for us, it was a way to rethink our own privileges, the kind of privileged backgrounds we came from and the privileges we've had, but also to rethink a whole range of knowledge systems which we have just received, either in our formal education systems or the kind of formal information and kind of understandings we get from the larger society.

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It was to reposition ourselves in a very complex world in which there was so much turbulence, in which we were witness to but we were also participants in that kind of turbulence that had been happening in India in the past three decades.

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So, it was to rethink all this, along with a new kind of learning practices, and deliberately we didn't want to call it education, making learning, especially for the rural youths, as an endeavor, an experience that draws from their own lives, from their own life worlds, but enables them to engage with both everyday lives and the larger system in a proactive way through, by first, by making them as endowed and capable individuals, so our kind of byline was individual growth, but collective responsibility.

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So basically when we started in 2011, we took a whole year.

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Much of it was sort of organically evolved.

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We deliberately did not take a blueprint approach, although we had some ideas as to what would be the modules and who would be the participants, et cetera.

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So this was a course called the Integrated Learning Program.

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It was meant for youth from 18 to 27, 28, both girls and boys, and it would be a course in which they would not...

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Because we still don't have the infrastructure to house them for long periods of time but they would come in the morning and go back.

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It was for all the villages that were around us in the village we stayed in.

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So that was really the flagship, and has been our flagship program.

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We have not done it since 2019, we've not conducted it.

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Mostly 2019, we did not have funds.

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2020 we got the funds, but-

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Gayithri: COVID happened.

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Dr. Vasavi: The pandemic restrictions prevented us, and this year we are hoping to really make up for the two lost years.

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But we continued to engage with the alumni, which really has now become a part of really the learning experience, its telling us, which I will later elaborate on, which is a big learning for us, but, of course, by in itself it's inadequate here.

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They need so much more handholding over the years because the situations are so difficult, and their own precarity in their homes, in the households, in the society, means that much more scaffolding is required.

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So that continues to be part of our work, where we have alumni network and we have groups, production groups, civic citizenship action groups, et cetera, all from the alumni.

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So that's the big part of the work.

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The other supplementary, in some ways complimenting this work, is we purchased seven acres of very dry loose land, dry in the sense it does not have water.

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The water that we have is harvested from the rain, and land that had been abused over several years and abandoned.

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Of course,somebody sold it to us, so a restoration of land, land restoration program, restoring the soils, the biodiversity, the crops, the trees, everything.

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So that has really been very time consuming.

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A big, big learning experience for all of us, but getting really into the nitty gritty of agriculture, much more than we had anticipated and much more than the kind of skills we had or the knowledge we had as a team.

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Along with this, as we've evolved over the past nine years.

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As I said, we've tried to grow organically by responding to the demands of the field, responding to what we think needs to be done.

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For example, when we saw the youth and they own such small parcels of land, agriculture does not give them adequate income, we started a small production unit, but it also fed into our whole questioning the mainstream economy, the capitalistic economy and a way to get this economy a profit making unit.

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People who have to profit versus workers, that the youth themselves formed collectives.

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So right now, what is grown locally is also a value-added process and is sold by them.

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So a very small collective, and it's a subgroup.

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They run the show themselves.

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So that's a production unit which we also started.

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Other than that we have a lot of small, small programs.

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A home gardening program, in which we emphasize ideas of nutrition and also autonomy, especially for women in the context of a lot of malnutrition in the area, but also enhancing this whole idea of food sovereignty, which is a huge issue in the rural areas and agriculture's changing very fast.

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So these are some of the smaller programs.

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We've recently started one, an outreach program, on understanding climate emergency, because climate change is so, so evident.

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But yet action, either from the government or from the societal level, to address extant resource degradation isn’t there, so we've been trying to work on that for the whole district.

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We've done a lot of data collection and analysis.

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Right now we are doing small infographics, which we are kind of disseminating to people.

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[inaudible]

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.
 And of course the COVID is a time which has forced us to situate that within the larger climate emergency context.

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And to say that unless we really take care of our ecology, our ecological systems, you cannot have [inaudible] livelihoods.

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These two are very, very integrated.

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So these are, I think, very major challenges for us.

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I think we stepped in with ideas of an alternative learning program, not classroom-based but different, but what has emerged are these different programs.

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Gayithri: Very interesting.

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I would love to see what that expansion meant and how that actually happened.

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But before we move on, you said that you started this in 2011, and you have had cohorts of youth participating in your program.

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Just to get a sense, again for our listeners, what is a cohort size, and so far how many have...

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You recently reached out to the alumni, so what has been a sense of size, if you were to give?

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Dr. Vasavi: Yeah, we started the...

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We've had batches of only 24, that's what...

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It fits our budget, but also fits the classroom, the kind of space we have.

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12 girls, 12 boys, that's what we would recruit for each batch.

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We've had some dropouts, mostly when girls get married, they've withdrawn.

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That's been a huge challenge for us, where, the kind of, extent to which we've lost girls, although we've taken a lot of trouble to retain them.

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But every batch, the most outstanding performers are girls, although it's agriculture.

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So we've been happy by that, and we continue to focus on that.

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Some, of course...

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We have a rule where if they don't have attendance...

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Attendance falls more than… their absenteeism is high, is higher than 30%, we ask them to leave.

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Mostly because no session can be understood unless you have attended previous sessions, so because of that.

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So altogether right now, from six batches we have only about a hundred and odd students, of which about 60 odd are quite active, in the sense, quite engaged with us.

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We have about 18 people who have formed the core of the production unit.

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They run the whole production unit, right from producing the stuff, to sending it, to looking at the monetary levels, the banking, everything.

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We have another 12 people who are...

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It's called Grama Sethu, the village bridge, in which they actually work with their local communities in their hamlets, bridging or catering to their civic needs, of the citizenship needs.

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Getting your identity card made, your water card made, mobilizing their [inaudible] . Like new COVID… disseminating information on medical support, things like that, for which they get a small honorarium from us.

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It's very part-time work, all mobilizing people for nutritious food, or any of those activities what they do.

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So this is what some of them have been engaged in, and which we continue to have this sort of engagement, and mentoring and handholding continues.

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Gayithri: Got it, got it.

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And because you were talking about how you make your cohort of 24 try to balance at gender level, is there anything else that you look for or is there anything that you consciously try to accommodate, in terms of other demographic differences that maybe there among the youth, or do you just welcome anybody who's interested?

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Dr. Vasavi: Yeah.

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By default, most of the students are from the scheduled caste, and a few from the..

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it is a tribal area, so we tribal students also.

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There are very few what are called “general category” people in this district.

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This does have the highest proportion of scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, so we have that.

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Mostly because we wanted to have an integrated classroom, we did open up to the so-called dominant caste thing, but very, very few people come.

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They sense that this is not their cup of tea, and overall there is resistance to a course like this.

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It hasn't been easy, it's not attractive for them, even though we've paid stipends for that reason.

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As many have said, "To study means to go to the city, why would we want to study in a village?

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Why would we want to study agriculture?

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Agriculture's something everybody wants to abandon."

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Their parents are telling them to abandon it.

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So altogether this has not been attractive, very, very few people really come out of interest.

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Of the ones who have come, we would say less than 25% have come with interest in agriculture.

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So these have been our challenges.

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The other issue has also been class, which we have not looked at very...

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I mean too much, because as I said, anyone who can afford it, they don't even study in the district.

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They study in Mysore or in the city, where they would definitely not not want to come.

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Gayithri: Yeah.

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Dr. Vasavi: For example, the average holding size is only 1.2 acres.

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Nobody has more than even two acres, in the whole family household, land holding size is so little.

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Girls, what we have found is, they've come from mostly the Scheduled Caste.

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We've had to really, really pick and entice some of the Scheduled Tribe girls.

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One, they live in very remote hamlets and parents are very reluctant to send them.

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They always have to be escorted and they will have to come in groups, like more than two girls or three girls, in which we've also facilitated that.

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But if one girl there drops out, for example we had this case of a girl getting married, all the others also drop out.

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It's like a cluster behavior.

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So these are some of the challenges we've had.

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But overall I would say really, both in terms of caste and class and the household situation, very, very disadvantaged students.

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Gayithri: Got it.

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I just wanted it to be more explicit in our conversation.

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I think we are at a perfect point to talk a little about the social, political, and economic context in which this work is happening.

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I know you briefly mentioned that you are near Mysore.

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Mysore, being like a pretty big city of Karnataka.

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So would you want to tell us a little more about the context in which this work is happening?

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Geographic location and a little more about the social, political and economic?

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Dr. Vasavi: I just want to say, in the larger context, understanding the larger context of India that you mentioned, along with the ecological context, the environmental context would be very...

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So we are based in the district of Mysore, which is a Taluka.

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It became a new district in '97.

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It's considered, it's in the leeward side of the Nilgiris, so it's kind of a drought prone area because it doesn't get sufficient rainfall over the years and has large numbers of very disadvantaged castes.

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Very little industrialization has taken place.

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It does have a largish forest belt, where the indigenous people, the Soligas live.

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It has large national parks which are cordoned off, where the indigenous Soligas have been dumped outside in colonies.

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This is all cordoned off for tourist purposes, where there are elephants and tiger, leopards, et cetera.

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So very big tourist sites, which are really not accessible to the local people.

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Much of it, the planes are very dry, rain dependent, has what I've been calling as dry grain production, but very low production of local grains.

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It also has some kind of, a little bit of granite stone mining.

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This is the only other industry available in the area.

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So the larger political economy is not only of complexity, but also full of contradictions, and this is something that has me agitated all the time because most people don't recognize that the extent to which these contradictions in our structural situation are really the challenges we face.

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The contradictions are that since, say the mid-nineties, when the so-called global economy took off, you've had of course the rise of a middle class, what is called the new Indian middle class.

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People who profited from the rise of the IT, other industries, growth of the urban areas, et cetera.And you've had the rise of global, very visible, transnational millionaires and elite who are commuting between countries, et cetera.

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And you've had an increase in real wages in which, you know, the little boats have also been pushed up.

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But within that, within what is visible infrastructure improvement and visible improvement and housing, access to education, et cetera, are the more invisible disadvantages people have.

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Where access to clean water, to natural resources, all of these have actually occurred in the context of the natural resource base taking a hit because the economies have been so extractive across the country and we see it in our district.

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Lakes and forests drying up, agriculture becoming extractive, et cetera.

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And politically many know that the globalization of the economy has meant, not only opening of the media, but the promotion of the consumer culture, which is very significant for the kind of aspirations youth have.

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But along with this, what you have is the extent to which there is a welfare government mentality that has spread, where the government is providing some of these.

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For example, the increase in the food distribution systems, et cetera, which I think is really, balancing of the economics of neglect with the politics of rescue, appeasement basically, always done at election times.

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But also more significantly has been the erosion of democracy because… the kind of political system that has come [inaudible] and spread of Hindutva, not only as sociocultural level, but as a political force, which has been significant.

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So along with the sociopolitical and economic structures, we've had, as I mentioned, are the really much more ecological devastation.

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Not only climate change, but the extant degradation of landscapes that is taking place.

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And, visibly, there is an improvement.

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As I mentioned earlier there may be more proper houses, the huts may have gone, and then now these concrete houses have come.

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There's more television, more people have bikes, mobiles everywhere, but the quality of life, for example, if you look at what people are eating, the shrinking of the food basket, the increasing malnutrition, poorer nutritional levels of people, et cetera.

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I think those are the contradictions, which we need to catch.

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And this is the context in which we are working.

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Gayithri: And what got you to thinking about this alternative, like learning for rural youth, how did you arrive at, oh, this is what we need to be doing, to actually work with this contradiction?

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And what approaches actually have you drawn to work with this alternative program for rural youth?

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Dr. Vasavi: So as I said we didn't have a blueprint, we tried to evolve it.

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Of course, when we started, there were three four approaches, which having read or interacted with people, we thought this would be appropriate.

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The first was we thought it would be what I called a social transformational approach.

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It would not, because of critiques of what the mainstream education system was, it was primarily reproducing the privileges of being already the dominant castes and the classes, but very, very disjunctive to the disadvantaged who could not fit into the mainstream system because of the poor quality of education.

00:25:43.440 --> 00:26:04.359
So social transformation in the sense of enabling learners to situate themselves within their societies, to engage with it proactively, to become aware of those structures of disadvantage that were keeping them down, to find their voice, to find the agency, to take sort of charge of their own life, to have their own scripts, which they could direct the lives with.

00:26:04.730 --> 00:26:07.379
So this was what we thought the course should be.

00:26:08.330 --> 00:26:14.340
Because of that, we gave them, we continue to give a lot of importance to theater, to performing arts.

00:26:14.340 --> 00:26:21.400
For example, they're so shy and inhibited when they come, to develop their confidence, their own sense of self worth, et cetera.

00:26:21.660 --> 00:26:23.899
So that was one issue.

00:26:23.909 --> 00:26:26.660
The other was place based education.

00:26:27.110 --> 00:26:31.180
Because mainstream education system, the texts are full of things elsewhere.

00:26:31.590 --> 00:26:32.340
It's not there.

00:26:32.590 --> 00:26:33.510
It's not about them.

00:26:34.100 --> 00:26:38.859
For example, many don't even know why is it that they don't get regular rainfall?

00:26:38.979 --> 00:26:40.789
What does it mean to be in the rain shadow?

00:26:44.350 --> 00:26:45.546
Why is our agriculture system this particular type?

00:26:45.546 --> 00:26:47.280
Why is it that our food is this type, not something else?

00:26:49.260 --> 00:26:57.509
So understanding your own immediate worlds, in relationship to the larger world, that was something that we placed.

00:26:57.679 --> 00:27:01.200
So understanding, for example, why is that lake dried up?

00:27:02.120 --> 00:27:05.159
Why that local hospital does not function?

00:27:06.180 --> 00:27:06.989
Why are our rituals, annual village festivals, why have they become so grand over the years?

00:27:07.010 --> 00:27:07.909
Why are marriages so different?

00:27:07.909 --> 00:27:24.169
For example, to see how people are mimicking the tele serials, why are our women dressing differently?

00:27:24.980 --> 00:27:27.970
From everyday things, to wishes, so very reflexive.

00:27:30.420 --> 00:27:35.880
So understanding the place itself as a text, rather than a textbook, place as a text.

00:27:35.880 --> 00:27:41.050
For example, they do walks and map things and then identify those things that they must study.

00:27:42.410 --> 00:28:02.889
The third thing we are trying to do is, where general skills, we know English or computers and accounts, these are given to see those has skills and capabilities for their everyday lives, for wherever they function, as very necessary, but also enabling them.

00:28:03.620 --> 00:28:09.193
So it doesn't mean just because you're going to be in agriculture, you should not know English or you need not know how to use a computer, et cetera.

00:28:09.193 --> 00:28:14.640
So those, some kinds of universal skills are also given.

00:28:14.680 --> 00:28:22.337
Finally we try to, in the modules we have, because it's not discipline based, we try to be interdisciplinary.

00:28:22.337 --> 00:28:34.810
For example, when we do a lot of sessions on social issues, whether it's gender and caste and religion, also, we try to integrate all kinds of perspective, may not be just sociological.

00:28:34.810 --> 00:28:41.449
For example, we might look at the politics of caste, not only caste system as a system of hierarchy, but the economics of castes.

00:28:42.230 --> 00:28:50.549
Or if they're doing agriculture, when you map a village, why is it only some people own large amounts of land and large numbers don't have any land?

00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:53.939
How do you understand the economy of a village?

00:28:54.170 --> 00:28:55.760
Why is it that traders only come?

00:28:56.179 --> 00:29:01.819
So it could be very, very interdisciplinary and making those into linkages constantly.

00:29:02.490 --> 00:29:13.581
So these have been our approach and what we found was something that we needed to do, which we started, right from beginning.

00:29:13.581 --> 00:29:16.579
We had told them no exams, there's no fail, no pass.

00:29:17.049 --> 00:29:24.319
And people were very confused, especially those who had come up in college level because the training system is so honed into that.

00:29:24.789 --> 00:29:37.860
And then we showed how, okay, if you have a paper, they do either at home or they do it there with us, it's correction analysis and you correct, whatever mistakes you've made, errors, you correct that.

00:29:37.860 --> 00:29:38.510
And you relearn.

00:29:39.170 --> 00:29:39.950
So relearning, also as part of learning.

00:29:43.260 --> 00:29:46.140
They are not marked.

00:29:46.210 --> 00:29:47.030
Nobody is a failure.

00:29:47.679 --> 00:29:49.005
That was very, very important.

00:29:49.250 --> 00:29:56.550
Because we found large numbers have dropped out from the system and they've been marked as failures, as failed, already.

00:29:56.880 --> 00:30:02.129
So that is what the emotional scaffolding helps that overcome.

00:30:03.389 --> 00:30:04.670
So these were the interlinked ways, some kind of pedagogies also that have been used in the learning.

00:30:10.679 --> 00:30:12.149
Gayithri: Yeah, that's perfect.

00:30:12.599 --> 00:30:20.880
And I just took a couple of points like notes, when you were mentioning a few, I think, like something that can be worthy of elaboration.

00:30:21.430 --> 00:30:26.320
One is you were commenting on how the Indian education system is.

00:30:26.650 --> 00:30:39.310
Of course, it's not a surprise that it is reproducing, like some of the patterns, some of the dominant patterns and facilitating or helping only like the dominant groups and not everybody.

00:30:40.260 --> 00:30:41.600
Do you want to comment?

00:30:41.870 --> 00:30:52.600
Of course, this is something that has been discussed in the broader context of educational research, but do you want to tell specifically what this has meant for the Indian context?

00:30:52.760 --> 00:31:02.980
What does it mean to reproduce status quo or the privilege or not serving the underprivileged?

00:31:04.980 --> 00:31:05.340
Dr. Vasavi: Yeah.

00:31:05.360 --> 00:31:21.700
So I think that's been the biggest failure of the Indian education system that instead of education being a leveler or equality of opportunity, because of the highly differentiated systems that we have, which I wanted to come later, when we're looking at concept.

00:31:21.950 --> 00:31:22.190
Gayithri: Yeah.

00:31:23.400 --> 00:31:34.020
Dr. Vasavi: It enables the ones who are already advantaged to become even more advantaged and the disadvantaged to be even more disadvantaged.

00:31:34.080 --> 00:31:37.941
And that's what Bourdieu has also reinforced in his study of France, of how a hierarchical education system works.

00:31:37.941 --> 00:32:09.340
But what we see here is because the system is so punitive to the disadvantaged that it leaves you not only with the disadvantage you have from your family background, your class background, but having failed in the system, which is primarily not, if you've not passed or you've not got a job, which is the biggest goal of education, you become a double failure, the large masses.

00:32:09.340 --> 00:32:14.529
So it is poor quality mass education that marks people, the youth especially, in these ways.

00:32:16.059 --> 00:32:22.270
Are scarring them for lives, which really accounts for the large proportion of suicides we have now, among youth.

00:32:23.180 --> 00:32:34.589
So the kinds of anti-social activities, their frustration, which accounts for them to join groups that are violent and hostile to other groups.

00:32:34.960 --> 00:32:40.959
A complete lack of understanding of the disadvantage, which a larger system is creating.

00:32:41.750 --> 00:32:47.895
So I think this really is the biggest failure of the Indian education system.

00:32:48.830 --> 00:33:01.560
Gayithri: And you were also mentioning, even in your narrative, it was kind of clear that you started off with this vision to support youth with an educational program.

00:33:02.040 --> 00:33:08.789
But then in your story, you started talking more about agriculture, like what are people eating?

00:33:09.719 --> 00:33:23.420
Do you want to tell a little about that movement from thinking about it as like a couple of modules, and one program, to now, we are going to talk about what you're growing and what you're eating?

00:33:24.850 --> 00:33:26.560
What was that movement like?

00:33:26.560 --> 00:33:31.250
What was that journey like to move from this focus to...

00:33:33.750 --> 00:33:44.270
Dr. Vasavi: I think I wasn't clear in the sense when we said it's an alternative learning program, it wasn't just learning all these other kinds of...

00:33:44.270 --> 00:33:59.258
Agriculture and ecology, were the key sites, key skills that they would get, which is sustainable agriculture now because right now what's practiced in much of the belt, or across India is chemical agriculture, which is the green revolution agriculture.

00:33:59.258 --> 00:34:17.909
So we were kind of looking at sustainable agriculture, linked very strongly to looking at ecological issues, but that would just be a format, as assigned kind of a takeoff site, for other kinds of issues to be brought in.

00:34:17.909 --> 00:34:24.829
So it was not something that we were not prepared for.

00:34:24.829 --> 00:34:39.860
It was just that the elaborate; in fact, for example, when we do sessions on food, the boys take over; for example, when we look at gender issues, it's the boys who have to do the cutting, chopping, and cooking and serving, et cetera.

00:34:39.889 --> 00:34:49.859
So as I say, it's interdisciplinary, but these agriculture, food, but also sense of belonging, responsibilities, these are all interlinked right from the beginning.

00:34:50.350 --> 00:34:57.450
How we did it, how much we stressed on it, why we had to redo some things, those were the real challenges we faced.

00:34:58.770 --> 00:35:00.450
But right from the beginning, we were very clear.

00:35:00.450 --> 00:35:02.230
Agriculture was a big focus.

00:35:02.259 --> 00:35:10.030
To see it has a viable likelihood rather than what is happening across the country, which is abandonment of land and abandonment of agriculture.

00:35:10.590 --> 00:35:10.930
Gayithri: Yeah.

00:35:13.390 --> 00:35:33.640
So what are some of the tensions that you see between the growing educational and economic aspirations of the underprivileged sections, that is the youth that you work with, and the loss of the indigenous knowledge systems or what they bring in?

00:35:35.049 --> 00:35:42.560
So what are some of the tensions that you see at that juncture there?

00:35:46.030 --> 00:36:02.479
Dr. Vasavi: So what's happening is, the way in which the mainstream systems, either agriculture, education, health, construction and architecture, all of those are bringing in are practices and knowledge system that lead to practices that are really not relevant for them.

00:36:08.529 --> 00:36:17.161
For example, the kind of agriculture that is coming in, it's based on the wet cultivation models.

00:36:17.161 --> 00:36:17.169
It's not meant for dry areas.

00:36:17.169 --> 00:36:23.600
It's based on chemicals and new kinds of very extractive technologies, et cetera.

00:36:24.020 --> 00:36:27.430
These are marginalized, long evolved agriculture systems.

00:36:27.460 --> 00:36:31.140
Systems in which they understood the ecology as well.

00:36:31.370 --> 00:36:38.710
They knew certain crop systems, cropping patterns, cultivation systems, et cetera, and even processing and conservation.

00:36:39.010 --> 00:36:43.082
For example, conservation of seeds and et cetera.

00:36:43.082 --> 00:36:45.546
So it was a whole [inaudible] play, the spectrum of activities they would've had.

00:36:45.546 --> 00:36:54.579
So we've seen that those have already been eroded, there is very little actually left.

00:36:54.579 --> 00:37:06.529
So in such a context where the mainstream education system absorbed youth into a mainstream knowledge system, but also does not give them employment in a mainstream system.

00:37:06.529 --> 00:37:18.799
For example, we know from data, millions of youths are graduates or have graduated, either master's level or bachelors level, but don't get jobs.

00:37:19.380 --> 00:37:24.545
And hundreds of thousands of PhD holders are now applying for clerical jobs, et cetera.

00:37:24.870 --> 00:37:29.569
So unemployment is a huge issue and under employment is also a huge issue.

00:37:29.579 --> 00:37:30.790
So there is the biggest disjuncture.

00:37:32.040 --> 00:37:39.570
You've had an education system that really doesn't fit into the existing economy or the economy is not able to absorb such large numbers.

00:37:40.200 --> 00:37:54.720
Which is why you need, and later I want to talk about it, more you need alternative imaginaries, new different kinds of imaginaries of what economies can be and should be, and also then complimentary to that, educational and employment systems.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:38:04.500
The second is the tension between the new kinds of aspirations that the media has promoted, to what is available.

00:38:05.510 --> 00:38:11.430
There're huge gaps between their aspirations and their realities.

00:38:11.590 --> 00:38:17.000
They all aspire, for example, of course, clothes have become relatively cheap, mass produced clothes.

00:38:17.840 --> 00:38:38.764
So you see the first forms of distinction that you would have, it would be in the new kinds of styling, the clothes that they have, but also desires for motorbikes or vehicles or mobiles, either kinds of accessories, new kinds of entertainment, new kinds of food systems, foods that they want to have, et cetera.

00:38:38.764 --> 00:38:42.948
Theses are the ones have created a lot of tensions within families and households.

00:38:42.948 --> 00:38:55.619
We know, for example, conflicts between parents and children are primarily over their lack of access to getting these goods.

00:38:55.849 --> 00:39:08.549
We also know this is also one of the reasons for dowry rates to have increased so much and dowry demands are also demands of kind, you want so much gold, you want a car, you want a tractor, things like that.

00:39:10.420 --> 00:39:18.413
All of these are existing on huge gaps between people's abilities to pay for this or to afford this, versus aspirations.

00:39:18.413 --> 00:39:22.300
So I think these are really the big problems of mainstream system.

00:39:25.920 --> 00:39:37.400
Gayithri: In that case, what are your comments on environmental and economic sustainability, in relation to these tensions?

00:39:37.410 --> 00:39:52.670
How do you see the work that you're doing, in relation to environmental and economic sustainability as addressing, or speaking to these tensions.

00:39:52.799 --> 00:40:03.419
Dr. Vasavi: So it's directly related to this because much of our studies have shown that current dominant agriculture model and most of the economic systems are not viable at all.

00:40:03.419 --> 00:40:09.109
The failures are already very visible, and to the victims also.

00:40:09.770 --> 00:40:11.870
But the alternatives don't exist.

00:40:13.060 --> 00:40:24.950
And that is what is really the challenge, to create those alternatives, which make it give you, viable at an economic level and also sustainable at an ecological level.

00:40:24.950 --> 00:40:34.140
But it's also a way for us to really rethink the extent to which small alternative models can be scaled up.

00:40:34.140 --> 00:40:38.380
This is something that many people ask us and I say, you know-This is something that many people ask us.

00:40:38.380 --> 00:40:42.643
And I say, "don't look at small examples of endeavors as something that they must be scaled up, right?"

00:40:42.643 --> 00:40:43.069
Gayithri: Scaled up.

00:40:43.240 --> 00:40:45.069
Dr. Vasavi: Onus shouldn't be placed on us.

00:40:45.069 --> 00:40:47.611
What you're looking at are multiple models of practice.

00:40:47.611 --> 00:40:49.190
Gayithri: Of those small things, yeah.

00:40:49.430 --> 00:40:49.930
Dr. Vasavi: What is available?

00:40:50.200 --> 00:40:53.540
What should be is viable here need not be viable for Kashmir or Kerala.

00:40:53.540 --> 00:40:54.371
Every region is going to have its dynamics and we need different kinds of work.

00:40:54.371 --> 00:40:54.462
So don't always talk about scaling up.

00:40:54.462 --> 00:40:54.552
I don't even want to scale up.

00:40:54.552 --> 00:40:56.924
The other really challenge is in working on an alternative, you have to, by default work on it on a small scale, because you don't know, you're not working on a blueprint.

00:40:56.924 --> 00:40:56.961
It has to be evolved into constantly integrating many, many factors.

00:40:56.961 --> 00:40:56.982
And many, many sources and agencies.

00:40:56.982 --> 00:40:56.999
So it must be small.

00:40:56.999 --> 00:40:57.013
It must be manageable.

00:40:57.013 --> 00:40:57.030
It must be deeply personalized.

00:40:57.030 --> 00:40:57.078
It cannot be like anything people ask us, it's like, "oh, only 24 students.

00:40:57.078 --> 00:40:57.089
It's not scalable."

00:40:57.089 --> 00:40:57.113
They would say, "it's not cost effective."

00:40:57.113 --> 00:40:57.182
"How can you have so many teachers for just 24?

00:40:57.182 --> 00:40:57.184
It's not really worth it.

00:40:57.184 --> 00:40:57.186
You must have minimum 100."

00:40:57.186 --> 00:42:06.471
I immediately say, "no, we cannot view because this has to be a personalized course and you need a small mass of students who can actually become catalysts," and this is a learning for us also.

00:42:06.471 --> 00:42:09.005
Every step, every course we have also learned.

00:42:09.005 --> 00:42:11.640
We fine tune, we change tracks.

00:42:11.969 --> 00:42:20.385
For example, a big learning for us was the extent to which students don't read much because there are no reading cultures in these families.

00:42:20.870 --> 00:42:30.900
And with the inclusion of the both television and now the mobile based media, social media, the little that existed has also vanished.

00:42:31.660 --> 00:42:36.835
So, if you give them five page thing to read and come back, say the next day or a week later, they still haven't read it.

00:42:36.835 --> 00:42:41.400
So we've seen how distant, you have to teach them to actually read

00:42:42.370 --> 00:42:44.865
Gayithri: Making it a practice.

00:42:44.865 --> 00:42:46.850
Dr. Vasavi: Practice and the culture of reading itself.

00:42:48.120 --> 00:42:53.769
So I think these are not only challenges, but also linked to the sustainability issues.

00:42:53.869 --> 00:42:57.539
How do you sustain the program itself?

00:42:58.850 --> 00:43:01.230
How do you sustain them through a program and how do you sustain the program over the years?

00:43:01.230 --> 00:43:07.829
For example, it's only now after the six or seven batch, we're getting inquiries from other villages, of other people.

00:43:07.989 --> 00:43:09.049
It's very, very slow.

00:43:12.180 --> 00:43:15.100
So yeah, these are the multiple issues that we have to grapple with.

00:43:16.120 --> 00:43:16.450
Gayithri: Wow.

00:43:16.850 --> 00:43:43.799
Yeah, I can imagine because I'm also from Karnataka and I've been to some of the places that you're talking about, so I can imagine how it may be a very slow, evolving, organic process because it is so contradictory to what people are used to, what people aspire for when it is a program, what is it that they expect from a program, and how do you...

00:43:44.049 --> 00:43:52.280
Yeah, it's a constant battle because you're kind of going head on with the cultures that are existing on the ground at that point.

00:43:54.300 --> 00:44:00.730
Yeah and in your work, I know we are moving in that direction, I think this is going to be then perfect.

00:44:01.169 --> 00:44:12.190
You've often highlighted the need for educational institutions to play a role in social transformation rather than reproducing the dominant structures that we just spoke about.

00:44:13.890 --> 00:44:20.900
Can you elaborate on what kind of transformation you believe education should facilitate?

00:44:21.790 --> 00:44:39.809
And of course, I'm sure you can also draw from your own existing work for how you are doing it in your program, but what is it that you aspire or what you think educational institution should do, if what is that alternative imaginary?

00:44:42.670 --> 00:45:01.340
Dr. Vasavi: Yeah, so just to define what social transformation would be is to endow learners with capacity, to not only rethink, but to, in order to be particularly aware of their conditions, to see through information, for its relevance.

00:45:01.340 --> 00:45:43.999
But also to have those capacities, to challenge systems of exploitation, of hierarchy, of discrimination, which in most conditions is accepted and internalized, as legitimate, as inevitable, but also to have deep, good understandings of how larger systems work, to understand the potential of democracy, to understand the potential of what real learning can give you, not just textbook based learning and to come out as both, not only active citizens, but also as empowered individuals within their families, within their communities and then on a larger platform.

00:45:44.689 --> 00:45:49.527
So that is what I think social transformation learning should be about.

00:45:49.527 --> 00:45:59.950
For example, we've had cases, very, very small examples of how some of these learners that you really struck out, because of this course.

00:45:59.950 --> 00:46:02.850
And these speak about it.

00:46:02.850 --> 00:46:12.560
For example, girls who refused to get married, saying that, just to anybody saying, "I need to know more about the boy."

00:46:12.560 --> 00:46:15.819
Or a girl who said, "I know this boy is an alcoholic.

00:46:15.850 --> 00:46:18.875
Why are you getting me married to him?"

00:46:18.875 --> 00:46:20.296
Or, even putting her foot down and saying, "okay, just let me be for a while."

00:46:20.296 --> 00:46:20.316
So just asserting themselves.

00:46:20.316 --> 00:46:20.378
To give you an example, when demonetization happened, everything was in disarray.

00:46:20.378 --> 00:46:20.409
We had not met that week.

00:46:20.409 --> 00:46:20.435
It was not a thing.

00:46:20.435 --> 00:46:20.548
And it was a week after demonetization and we knew everybody was really struck, you know, with a mess that they created.

00:46:20.548 --> 00:46:21.859
When we met after week, we always start with what had happened the previous week, just then demonetization was big.

00:46:21.859 --> 00:46:21.982
So we asked them and we were so pleased that many of them refused to give, the shops within overnight, if you took them a bill, they would give you whatever you wanted, but take like 10%, 20% commission.

00:46:21.982 --> 00:46:22.007
And these girls would go to medical stores.

00:46:22.007 --> 00:46:22.221
They said, "if you don't give us at that rate without the commission, we won't buy from you," and they walked off.

00:46:22.221 --> 00:46:22.398
And that fellow had to call them back and say, "okay, I'll just give it to you."

00:46:22.398 --> 00:47:27.600
So no, asserting themselves at those levels, in the banks where some of the boys told us, they just said, "when they asked us for commissions, we said, no, this is the government rules."

00:47:27.820 --> 00:47:30.822
So knowing about rules and regulations and asserting themselves.

00:47:30.822 --> 00:47:42.409
So we had small, small cases of people really trying to assert themselves in some ways through the new kinds of empowerment that they had.

00:47:42.409 --> 00:47:48.875
For example, now, last year we've had village level elections and several of our students stood for elections.

00:47:49.160 --> 00:47:57.560
And some of the things they had learned was, of course some said, "you can't stand without a party and it's only the party that gives you money.

00:47:57.580 --> 00:48:01.785
And we have to pay people to work for us."

00:48:01.785 --> 00:48:03.222
Paying and all that, the usual corrupt systems.

00:48:03.222 --> 00:48:05.509
They said, "no, you have to challenge it."

00:48:05.910 --> 00:48:12.720
How candidates who are capable should come, how do you elect, think about if you are a candidate for [inaudible] and they've had...

00:48:13.149 --> 00:48:17.287
Of four, five who stood for elections, three lost and two won, but both of them were very proud.

00:48:17.287 --> 00:48:18.310
And even the ones who lost, they said, "we're very proud.

00:48:21.620 --> 00:48:27.749
We don't feel that things because we've lost by a few like 60 votes, 70 votes, but I didn't spend anything.

00:48:27.780 --> 00:48:29.450
I wasn't corrupt."

00:48:30.100 --> 00:48:34.820
So in a very small ways where we trying to get them also to become part of the system, to become accountable.

00:48:35.040 --> 00:48:47.685
So I think that is what social transformative learning should enable us to really undo some of the systems that are higher up.

00:48:47.685 --> 00:48:52.660
For example, boys now tell us that, "earlier, we never washed our plates after a meal.

00:48:53.369 --> 00:48:57.310
Now we've become so gender sensitive, we wash our plates."

00:48:57.600 --> 00:48:59.780
Some of the boys who said, "we've never carried water."

00:49:00.440 --> 00:49:02.270
They have to go to the common tap and carry water.

00:49:03.310 --> 00:49:04.461
It was always, it continues.

00:49:04.461 --> 00:49:06.000
We've seen it so much.

00:49:06.450 --> 00:49:09.039
A matter of shame for a man to be found carrying water.

00:49:09.039 --> 00:49:09.729
Its a woman's task.

00:49:09.729 --> 00:49:12.076
So you've said, "you'll, be using the water.

00:49:12.076 --> 00:49:12.630
Why should you not go and get it?

00:49:12.630 --> 00:49:15.670
Why do you see your sisters, your mother carry water?"

00:49:16.210 --> 00:49:17.950
So many boys now carry water.

00:49:18.630 --> 00:49:22.364
Some of them have told us how their friends laugh at their first time trip.

00:49:22.420 --> 00:49:25.740
And, but then they get used to it.

00:49:25.740 --> 00:49:41.549
So really challenging systems, really big struggles have been at the level of the field of doing organic agriculture, trying to get back to systems, for more sustainable systems, et cetera.

00:49:41.789 --> 00:49:59.789
So bringing about that transformation at the individual level itself, not really waiting for big macro changes to happen, but our thing is that for the big macro changes to happen you need persons, you need people to also to have an understanding, to become those agencies of transformation.

00:50:00.240 --> 00:50:00.450
Gayithri: Yeah.

00:50:00.969 --> 00:50:01.219
Yeah.

00:50:01.490 --> 00:50:02.380
No, that's phenomenal.

00:50:02.780 --> 00:50:11.520
And before we continue, I know we are just halfway through, is it okay if we extended our conversation for about another 30 minutes or so?

00:50:11.910 --> 00:50:12.200
Dr. Vasavi: Yeah.

00:50:12.380 --> 00:50:12.960
Yeah, sure.

00:50:12.990 --> 00:50:14.399
I hope my internet holds.

00:50:14.399 --> 00:50:25.130
Gayithri: If you prefer, we can also we can stop our videos if it gets there, although I would love to see you as long as possible.

00:50:25.480 --> 00:50:25.850
Dr. Vasavi: Yeah.

00:50:25.850 --> 00:50:26.160
Yeah.

00:50:26.470 --> 00:50:27.370
We'll continue.

00:50:27.470 --> 00:50:27.709
Yeah.

00:50:27.790 --> 00:50:28.800
Gayithri: Yeah, thank you so much.

00:50:28.800 --> 00:50:29.290
Thank you.

00:50:29.730 --> 00:50:33.990
So yeah, no, it has been definitely phenomenal listening to you.

00:50:33.990 --> 00:50:43.379
So what have been some of the key takeaways from your program now that you've run it for these many years, you've actually faced a lot of challenges.

00:50:43.589 --> 00:50:44.519
It's not been easy.

00:50:44.519 --> 00:50:56.660
You're still constantly battling with the ongoing understanding of what it means to live a life and what is it to do so sustainably.

00:50:56.660 --> 00:51:04.649
As you're battling all these and trying to move towards social transformation, what have been some of the key takeaways for you?

00:51:05.600 --> 00:51:36.679
Dr. Vasavi: Yeah, the key learnings for us has been one really big one, which we were not prepared for is the extent to which an alternative program like ours, which is really positioning itself against the mainstream and the limitations of the mainstream, is to also start with the process of unlearning because the mainstream education system has imprinted them in so significant a way that what transactions, learning transactions we engage with is not received at all.

00:51:37.489 --> 00:51:38.950
It kind of bounces back.

00:51:38.950 --> 00:51:39.340
So what is that process of unlearning?

00:51:39.400 --> 00:51:46.790
So that was something we really had to work on, especially from the second batch onwards.

00:51:46.790 --> 00:51:52.080
To cite things that they knew and then say, "okay, we think it that's really not true.

00:51:52.120 --> 00:51:54.419
That's not right or true or relevant."

00:51:54.900 --> 00:51:56.600
And then think differently.

00:51:57.170 --> 00:52:00.720
So for example, even things, that you read only for an examination.

00:52:01.510 --> 00:52:03.330
But you are not reading for yourself.

00:52:03.510 --> 00:52:16.349
So unlearning was something very, very, very important for us that they had to undergo.

00:52:16.349 --> 00:52:22.099
For example, unlearning their own behavior, excessive differential behavior in front of us.

00:52:22.099 --> 00:52:27.819
Excessive exclusion, with gender exclusion, the boys not sitting next to girls or girls not sitting next to boys.

00:52:28.469 --> 00:52:42.140
So, unlearning what practices you had and the kind of habitus you came with to become something new, to inculcate a new habitus for something that we had to work on.

00:52:42.969 --> 00:52:59.420
The other big learning was that the students needed, as I mentioned very briefly, we found that the cost, which we did over by the four and a half months to five months, about 60 days stretched over all these many months, was very inadequate.

00:53:00.410 --> 00:53:08.759
So for that learning to sustain and to really become part of their lives, we had to mentor them for much, much longer times.

00:53:11.250 --> 00:53:12.770
So how would that mentoring be?

00:53:12.950 --> 00:53:27.290
For example, after the first thing, we started having alumni meet once a month, they would come discuss, share, they enjoyed meeting each other where they sing a few songs, they do little thing and do fun things, but also read, think of ideas etc and go.

00:53:27.430 --> 00:53:29.930
Even then we found it very, very inadequate.

00:53:30.480 --> 00:53:35.230
So we had to make subgroups, those who are doing agriculture, what would they need?

00:53:35.520 --> 00:53:36.790
How would they share things?

00:53:37.059 --> 00:53:42.689
Or the girls who are now married, what would they do?

00:53:42.779 --> 00:53:45.930
Or the girls who are doing little bit of tailoring or some other thing, or the girls who wanted to be like, anything.

00:53:45.950 --> 00:53:47.559
So subgroups were formed.

00:53:47.559 --> 00:54:03.939
But constant mentoring and handholding, also a lot of counseling, we found, for example, some of the girls after the course, because the course suddenly had enabled them to be free, to see what they want..

00:54:03.939 --> 00:54:04.303
Gayithri: Liberating.

00:54:04.303 --> 00:54:05.620
Dr. Vasavi: Liberating, yeah.

00:54:06.190 --> 00:54:10.605
To learn, to sing, some of them started dancing, they would do a little bit.

00:54:10.605 --> 00:54:14.360
Some even they got married and they were really under lock and key.

00:54:15.030 --> 00:54:19.119
Some of them went to depression and we sensed it from just talking to them on the phone.

00:54:19.119 --> 00:54:24.180
So we actually had to intervene, visit them, get counselors to visit them.

00:54:26.240 --> 00:54:32.150
Some of them started feeling this tension of who do we choose between our families, Punarchith, and our bygroup.

00:54:32.550 --> 00:54:34.540
So we told them, "you have to choose your families.

00:54:34.540 --> 00:54:35.939
You don't have to choose us.

00:54:36.429 --> 00:54:40.560
You must choose your families, because that is really the long term.

00:54:40.590 --> 00:54:46.559
But you have to learn slowly to negotiate with them, to get these ideas with them."

00:54:46.559 --> 00:54:52.720
And where, if you actually it's the girls who really strategize better.

00:54:52.750 --> 00:54:58.230
Someone who now joined us as a team, she went, she got married.

00:54:58.230 --> 00:55:04.074
She even had two children and it was her mother-in-law who brought her back to us and said, okay, "you can take her, employ her.

00:55:04.074 --> 00:55:06.570
She can become part of your team and all that."

00:55:06.570 --> 00:55:12.877
So, because she had worked on her mother-in-law so much saying, "this is what they're doing.

00:55:12.877 --> 00:55:13.102
This is where I should be.

00:55:13.140 --> 00:55:16.390
I can do this for my children and we can do this in our house."

00:55:16.390 --> 00:55:16.490
So somehow she convinced that lady, "let's think differently" stuff.

00:55:16.500 --> 00:55:34.020
So, there have been moments when they disengage completely from us, which we don't mind, when they're these tensions, but slowly they can rework in that, but they should not have this burden of having to choose.

00:55:35.490 --> 00:55:37.790
Between sections or options.

00:55:37.800 --> 00:55:45.515
So the long-term scaffolding… this emotional scaffolding is something very, very important.

00:55:45.515 --> 00:55:58.210
One, not only gender issues, but also many of them come from such a disadvantaged past groups where family histories are of long, long generations of abuse and exploitation.

00:55:58.210 --> 00:56:04.109
For example, people who come from families that were in bonded labor for years, there's complete subservient to anyone outsiders they see..

00:56:04.109 --> 00:56:04.363
to a larger system.

00:56:04.363 --> 00:56:10.060
How do they really stand up for themselves?

00:56:10.060 --> 00:56:19.030
Recognizing what are their rights as individuals, as human beings, as members of a democracy.

00:56:19.590 --> 00:56:44.510
So that I think is something one needs to work on beyond the formal sessions, very, very, one to one, very much contextualized in their situation and long term, long prolonged years, some of them, you know, from our first batch in 2012 to now also we continue to talk to people to have [inaudible] , so that's been a huge thing.

00:56:44.510 --> 00:56:44.810
Gayithri: Fantastic.

00:56:45.110 --> 00:56:54.970
And anything else that you want to add about your program that we couldn't actually talk about or we couldn't touch upon before we move on to the next part of the questions?

00:56:55.530 --> 00:56:55.840
Dr. Vasavi: Yeah.

00:56:55.840 --> 00:56:57.743
No, I think we've covered it all.

00:56:57.743 --> 00:56:58.186
Gayithri: Okay.

00:56:58.629 --> 00:56:59.009
Thank you.

00:57:00.109 --> 00:57:12.280
So moving on to your personal journey, you as a person where you started and where you are now and what the journey was like, getting into a few of those kinds of questions and conversations.

00:57:13.230 --> 00:57:28.870
So I'm going to take you back, way back in the time period, back then what got you interested to actually be in academia when you chose to that?

00:57:29.610 --> 00:57:31.729
What were some of the thoughts?

00:57:31.730 --> 00:57:35.149
What were some of the things that got into that decision making process?

00:57:35.209 --> 00:57:38.090
Why academia and what were your response back then?

00:57:38.570 --> 00:57:49.270
Dr. Vasavi: Yeah, I don't come from an academic family and my parents had very little formal education.

00:57:49.500 --> 00:58:04.740
They were very extremely erudite and very well read people in their own ways, very economically successful in their mid life, which accounts for the kind of very privileged education I had, being sent to a boarding school, right from the time I was seven, to a very expensive colleges, et cetera.

00:58:04.740 --> 00:58:09.410
And I was a very average student.

00:58:10.120 --> 00:58:28.259
I was not a good student or one of the toppers at all and I don't think I had, kind of a purely intellectual bent of mind, maybe it was only after my masters or so, that the world of ideas opened up to me.

00:58:29.959 --> 00:58:32.210
But in the early years it was much more...

00:58:32.220 --> 00:58:35.670
From a very formative years, I was very sure that I wanted to work.

00:58:38.080 --> 00:58:45.649
I did not want to have a very conventional marriage, children kind of life, I wanted to work.

00:58:45.649 --> 00:58:47.359
I wanted to be independent.

00:58:47.529 --> 00:58:48.840
These were the concerns.

00:58:48.990 --> 00:58:59.213
I knew what I did not want, but I wasn't sure of what I wanted in terms of, I don't want to be a lawyer, et cetera.

00:58:59.213 --> 00:59:00.583
So my really...

00:59:01.040 --> 00:59:22.060
Change thing came in, when I went to the Delhi School of Economics and not only the course was very good, very well designed, very well developed over the years, but the friends in the hostel and in the school also, were just phenomenal.

00:59:22.450 --> 00:59:26.820
They came from much more sort of the urban elite backgrounds, but they'd been exposed.

00:59:27.490 --> 00:59:31.734
It was in the 80s in which many of them had come out from the 70s movements.

00:59:31.734 --> 00:59:33.700
They were very well read.

00:59:33.860 --> 00:59:37.310
They were activists.

00:59:37.310 --> 00:59:43.849
They were politically very astute, very politically aware.

00:59:44.089 --> 00:59:58.889
So it was from them that I learned the need to kind of question my own background, the kind of privileges I had, especially both my class position and my caste position.

01:00:00.099 --> 01:00:05.299
And it was from there and academia, I kind of entered to...

01:00:05.299 --> 01:00:09.540
I kind of just slipped into it as, "okay, now, what shall I do?

01:00:09.570 --> 01:00:11.009
This is the only thing that I know."

01:00:13.149 --> 01:00:22.100
It was formal education teaching or… Reading books or things, but it wasn't about chasing an idea or even a discipline.

01:00:22.820 --> 01:00:29.530
I had gotten into sociology because that just seemed interesting, that time that was available then of course it was.

01:00:29.570 --> 01:00:34.110
And in the US, the sociology became social anthropology.

01:00:34.230 --> 01:00:43.939
But to seek a life of ideas was really at much more, at the doctoral level.

01:00:43.939 --> 01:00:55.570
I think that I already started reading much more, thinking much more, but this was something to go beyond a career, that kind of set in when I was doing my doctorate.

01:00:57.220 --> 01:00:57.480
Gayithri: Nice.

01:00:57.960 --> 01:00:59.690
And then what happened?

01:01:00.230 --> 01:01:02.790
You did your doctoral and what happened?

01:01:03.250 --> 01:01:19.440
Dr. Vasavi: Yeah, I came back to India, 93, 94, just when the whole liberalism [economic] was starting and a lot of debates, et cetera, and institutions were really in a huge crisis.

01:01:19.510 --> 01:01:29.610
Many of the known institutions, well, facing funding problems, it was very difficult to get jobs, et cetera.

01:01:29.610 --> 01:01:40.330
And so there were very few private institutions, I joined the National Institute of Advanced Studies at the invitation of Professor MN Srinivas, and I stayed on there for 14 years.

01:01:40.330 --> 01:01:48.519
I learned a lot there, in terms of institutions, but it was a difficult place to be.

01:01:48.619 --> 01:01:53.149
Because it was primarily an institution that was set up by a nuclear physicist.

01:01:53.570 --> 01:02:00.639
The key people were all men, very successful, national level kind of people, who would come there in the post retirement phase.

01:02:00.879 --> 01:02:08.440
There were some of us, 30s, starting our careers and social science people were really very marginal.

01:02:08.440 --> 01:02:11.009
Social science as a discipline, as a subject, was marginal.

01:02:11.260 --> 01:02:15.584
The really big ones nuclear physics, material studies.

01:02:15.584 --> 01:02:21.735
And we were meant to be handmaidens to troubleshoot the problems of the nation.

01:02:21.780 --> 01:02:22.759
That's how we get treated.

01:02:22.930 --> 01:02:27.950
And we negotiated constantly for your voice, to do what you wanted, et cetera.

01:02:27.960 --> 01:02:33.900
So it was very disheartening and very difficult things to...

01:02:35.370 --> 01:02:35.710
Gayithri: Navigate.

01:02:35.710 --> 01:02:36.300
Dr. Vasavi: To strategize.

01:02:36.650 --> 01:02:41.560
Yeah, to navigate and the doctoral program started much later.

01:02:41.560 --> 01:02:42.339
It was interesting.

01:02:42.339 --> 01:02:51.330
They were very good students, and apart there was always a [need] of having to go out, get your funding, do projects.

01:02:51.330 --> 01:03:05.380
So these project modes were very disturbing, because you put so much time and effort, but by the time you could publish or write it up and then publish it, you are already on another project.

01:03:05.380 --> 01:03:09.320
So, it was like project to publish, but really very little time to reflectively think.

01:03:09.320 --> 01:03:34.950
I was also really very, started to get very disillusioned with academia because I found that when you wanted to publish a thing, there were always these dominant hegemonic theories that were all that, that they imposed on you, that if you wanted to publish in certain magazine or journals, you had to tow that kind of school that they endorsed.

01:03:35.400 --> 01:03:41.490
I did not see much where autonomy or scope for creativity of new ideas at all.

01:03:41.610 --> 01:03:45.499
And just the whole process seemed to be very laborious.

01:03:45.810 --> 01:03:50.593
So I was really not so interested in publishing et cetera.

01:03:50.593 --> 01:03:57.319
Whatever publishing I did was something that just came easily, I did not labor over all of it too much.

01:03:59.519 --> 01:04:09.019
The other thing was also, I think for how you felt the onus of what we saw on the field versus the kind of lives one had.

01:04:09.700 --> 01:04:19.800
I was also itching towards just trying to address, as I said, all these problems we saw on the ground about agriculture versus ambience, trying to meld them together.

01:04:20.590 --> 01:04:29.659
So I just felt okay, I've had academia, but academia has a life of ideas, it's something I can always carry with me.

01:04:29.659 --> 01:04:30.350
I don't need a formal institution, I don't need to be bound by a salaried position to do what I want.

01:04:30.350 --> 01:04:50.352
So I would just brave it out and just work out of these kind of formal institutional structures and see what could be done.

01:04:50.352 --> 01:04:57.219
And I'm very pleased to say that it actually worked, I feel that my abilities to think out of these established frameworks improved because I had the freedom.

01:04:57.599 --> 01:05:01.929
I didn't have to constantly be on this treadmill of project, money, publish.

01:05:02.650 --> 01:05:03.912
Go for meetings, all this.

01:05:03.912 --> 01:05:07.720
It was a much smaller group, we were looking at issues that were happening all around us.

01:05:09.590 --> 01:05:14.680
We didn't have to fit within the theories, we had our own voices.

01:05:15.440 --> 01:05:20.020
It could be broadened experiences and the lives we saw around us.

01:05:20.280 --> 01:05:27.546
So a range of studies came out from this by just being in the field constantly.

01:05:27.546 --> 01:05:28.860
And also I also moved there.

01:05:29.300 --> 01:05:33.680
So I've been living in the village full time, returning to the city only occasionally.

01:05:34.460 --> 01:05:42.870
And also started learning from both my colleagues who were there who were working there, but also from the people, from the students, from the families et cetera.

01:05:43.600 --> 01:05:45.394
For example, I have recently been trying to see the household as a very, very important site.

01:05:45.394 --> 01:05:57.669
Not only as a family but the household and the household dynamics, Which has been studied, but I feel not adequately enough.

01:05:58.240 --> 01:06:04.059
That really is now the microcosm of all the complexities and the contradictions of India.

01:06:04.770 --> 01:06:10.100
And those burdens we see and those battles are being fought within these walls.

01:06:10.760 --> 01:06:22.443
Also I think that is something that I've come to only because I'm there maybe to watch it but to participate in so often.

01:06:22.443 --> 01:06:22.842
So I'm glad I left the citadel of academia in this.

01:06:22.842 --> 01:06:33.190
But the ideas, the life of ideas has been there and I think it's all been facilitated by new kinds of technologies, for example being able to talk to you...

01:06:33.580 --> 01:06:38.130
have many webinars, meet students, we have lectures online now.

01:06:38.759 --> 01:06:40.710
So, I think we've been very fortunate.

01:06:41.850 --> 01:06:41.870
Gayithri: Yeah.

01:06:42.490 --> 01:06:56.790
Maybe one question I had as an aspiring scholar scholar, not in the sense of somebody who will sit in the ivory tower of institutions, but somebody who aspires to make these differences.

01:06:56.890 --> 01:07:03.340
You mentioned that publishing and running behind that whole thing was kind of like limiting you.

01:07:03.910 --> 01:07:20.310
So, and I know you kind of moved out of that, but what would be your alternate, what is that other alternate reality that you kind of hope to see in academia or what you actually left academia for?

01:07:23.059 --> 01:07:27.089
If not publishing, if not being limited in those frameworks.

01:07:27.479 --> 01:07:35.526
Dr. Vasavi: You need to publish, but you don't need to publish to make it as a part of your CV.

01:07:35.526 --> 01:07:40.649
You need to publish because you have something to share and something to say.

01:07:40.649 --> 01:07:42.099
You say that is substantial.

01:07:42.540 --> 01:07:46.610
So you need to also, for example, I publish much more on popular media now.

01:07:46.610 --> 01:07:52.680
I mean, it's newspapers, Kannada newspapers or online, English magazines, things like that.

01:07:53.080 --> 01:07:54.377
Which I was not able to do earlier.

01:07:54.377 --> 01:07:55.953
So you need to, I want to keep the importance of publishing.

01:07:55.953 --> 01:08:02.229
But where you do it, how you do it also is important.

01:08:05.590 --> 01:08:22.809
But I think academia then, for example I mean just to answer to what you had asked me to list out as things, what kinds of transformation should we see at the educational institutions or researches.

01:08:22.809 --> 01:08:29.320
For example, against the new educational policy that's been promoted since last year now, already being implemented.

01:08:29.930 --> 01:08:34.790
Of course they do say mother tongue education is important, so that's one thing positive you need to pick up on.

01:08:35.590 --> 01:08:44.250
But for most scholars to also become multilingual, because that's one of the ways in which we can address the divides we have.

01:08:45.020 --> 01:08:49.200
I constantly, I myself was schooled in Kannada.

01:08:49.400 --> 01:08:53.479
I was schooled into the, you know, the Delhi ICSE is what I did.

01:08:53.779 --> 01:08:55.944
I did Hindi, although Kannada was my mother tongue.

01:08:55.944 --> 01:08:59.549
And it was much later when I was thinking that I said, no, this is my mother tongue.

01:08:59.580 --> 01:09:04.389
I should read it and write it and I forced myself, I could choose things, I took courses.

01:09:04.389 --> 01:09:09.026
But now I constantly meet people who are very proud, they say, oh I don't know the language.

01:09:09.026 --> 01:09:20.002
I want to give you an example now during the COVID crisis where we do online support, we get people who are under home quarantine to talk to certain doctors who are very generously giving their time online.

01:09:20.002 --> 01:09:27.995
And then I was just shocked that these are Bangladesh doctors, Kannada speakers, none of them can read and write Kannada.

01:09:28.160 --> 01:09:35.749
So when these people type on their mobiles for WhatsApp, they're telling them--write it in Roman script, we cannot read Kannada.

01:09:38.220 --> 01:09:41.069
And this I tell you is just an example of the divides.

01:09:41.069 --> 01:09:50.129
We have other students who come who are speaking Kannada or other languages in their home, but they said we don't know these, we cannot read and write in these.

01:09:50.129 --> 01:09:53.080
So they cannot speak formally, you know.

01:09:53.700 --> 01:10:05.020
So unless this divide, this constantly we've been dropping the Indian languages, in our right up from nursery, from elementary school.

01:10:05.430 --> 01:10:11.580
Unless [inaudible] as both part of your cognitive development which is very good.

01:10:12.150 --> 01:10:21.300
And then of course, you can pick English up from middle school, but I think so bilingual capacities or multilingual capacities which are very important.

01:10:21.420 --> 01:10:23.420
Which older generation scholars had.

01:10:25.139 --> 01:10:30.829
This is what the increasing growth of private schools which are primarily English medium has done.

01:10:30.919 --> 01:10:36.559
So you have large numbers of people who don't know their mother tongue, they can't read and write in it.

01:10:36.600 --> 01:10:41.010
They speak it, but they can't, they're not sufficiently good even in English.

01:10:41.350 --> 01:10:43.263
In large numbers of students this is so.

01:10:43.469 --> 01:10:45.919
So this language problem needs to be addressed.

01:10:46.650 --> 01:10:49.400
Second, what is it that you study?

01:10:51.190 --> 01:10:53.840
Researchers need to look at issues that are not fashionable.

01:10:53.840 --> 01:11:01.270
Even now, I get proposals from the universities and associated be it the doctoral proposals or even Master's.

01:11:01.730 --> 01:11:06.039
They just pick up an idea from some key theorist and maybe want to check it out.

01:11:06.459 --> 01:11:11.559
But you forget to look at your vicinity, to look at your immediate surroundings to see what are those issues.

01:11:11.560 --> 01:11:22.516
And there are hundreds of issues that are calling attention to, that need to be studied.

01:11:22.516 --> 01:11:22.610
So that is one.

01:11:22.610 --> 01:11:26.910
The third is, I think, a lot of time, this is something that I also faced, is the lack of an intellectual community in India.

01:11:27.809 --> 01:11:34.290
There are large numbers of people who are [inaudible] , but they need a community of people to hand hold, to support each other.

01:11:35.710 --> 01:11:37.470
In academia it’s missing.

01:11:38.139 --> 01:11:46.450
Very, very few people support each other.

01:11:46.450 --> 01:11:50.330
Build up a corpus of work together or pursue something over the long term et cetera.

01:11:50.620 --> 01:11:54.230
You see very, very little collaborations taking place within India.

01:11:54.230 --> 01:11:57.780
People will collaborate with international scholars et cetera, but not within.

01:11:58.609 --> 01:11:59.440
So I would say that.

01:11:59.469 --> 01:12:01.629
And finally, I think interdisciplinary.

01:12:02.009 --> 01:12:04.538
Questioning this disciplinary bar, so boundaries and divides is very important.

01:12:04.560 --> 01:12:11.620
More and more has to, because all knowledge need to be questioned.

01:12:11.620 --> 01:12:21.360
One of the things I always talk about is, right now the way we brush our teeth to the way we use toilets are the kinds of toilets are being questioned.

01:12:21.850 --> 01:12:29.270
So why not look at all knowledge systems and say it's not just sociology versus political science.

01:12:29.559 --> 01:12:33.789
It has to be issue based, then bring in the others' knowledge systems.

01:12:34.899 --> 01:12:39.759
So I think multidisciplinary is very, very important.

01:12:39.810 --> 01:12:40.670
Gayithri: Yeah, for sure.

01:12:42.090 --> 01:13:02.130
And so, coming back to working, I know you mentioned earlier and even now when we were talking about language, it kind of felt like you were talking about how the current institutions, the current systems do not necessarily support the disadvantaged or the underserved communities as much.

01:13:02.750 --> 01:13:20.390
So what would be some key ideas and issues that you think that needs to be redefined or rethought about for it to work for these marginalized, underserved, minoritized communities?

01:13:23.239 --> 01:13:31.509
Dr. Vasavi: I would say it's in terms of the structural system, the Indian educational system that is highly differentiated needs to be challenged.

01:13:31.990 --> 01:13:38.390
We cannot have such a differentiated system, which I've elaborated on, some nine different types of schooling systems.

01:13:38.740 --> 01:13:42.690
They really correlate, correspond to different classes.

01:13:43.540 --> 01:13:51.342
So if not an absolute, one type of schooling system, you need somewhere where there is a commonality.

01:13:51.342 --> 01:13:52.480
Where everybody's got to a platform and then check.

01:13:53.259 --> 01:13:53.570
That is one.

01:13:53.790 --> 01:13:59.929
Secondly I would say that expansion of the educational system on a mainstream mode.

01:14:00.370 --> 01:14:01.219
A mass mode.

01:14:01.639 --> 01:14:14.402
Without attention to quality has been devastating and just produces a huge pool of people who just really cannot fit into the mainstream economies of the system, nor can they fit into the existing societies and culture.

01:14:14.402 --> 01:14:14.650
So that is something.

01:14:18.440 --> 01:14:24.289
So that learning loss that is taking place at multiple levels needs to be questioned.

01:14:24.299 --> 01:14:47.110
So I think there I would say that to address the issues for marginalized communities, it's very inadequate to have a formal system of reservations or systems in which the system is only formally accepted but within institutions disrespected and distorted in so many ways.

01:14:47.380 --> 01:14:52.450
So there's a need to really review that in a very substantial way, to go beyond that.

01:14:52.450 --> 01:14:59.509
To look at how inclusive education has to happen in a much more integral way.

01:14:59.509 --> 01:15:04.450
It will be an endowment coming across people.

01:15:04.539 --> 01:15:12.010
So for example, as part of the socio transformational learning I've also talked about how the privileged also have to be part of socio transformational learning.

01:15:13.240 --> 01:15:28.330
The privileged also have to take critical perspectives like we have done about the type of privileged backgrounds we've had, kind of privileges we continue to have and therefore it places a huge onus on us to not only question it, you go beyond it.

01:15:29.260 --> 01:15:41.760
So I would say that education for marginalized and disadvantaged communities needs to be both, structurally we need different systems, and content and orientation also it has to be very different.

01:15:42.240 --> 01:15:44.120
Inclusion cannot be just reservation.

01:15:44.120 --> 01:15:57.627
And also opportunities, kinds of education systems, a plurality of all the systems need to be endorsed and redone in a very significant way.

01:15:58.390 --> 01:15:58.590
Gayithri: Yeah.

01:15:58.960 --> 01:16:00.110
So much of work to do.

01:16:03.040 --> 01:16:20.090
So what theories or schools of thoughts or works have informed you or shaped your work as you have actually taken this journey, as you have done the work that you have been doing?

01:16:21.679 --> 01:16:21.699
Dr. Vasavi: Yeah.

01:16:24.109 --> 01:16:41.000
Early years, when I read Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society, that is something that really struck me and later of course I read his work on medicine, on energy.

01:16:41.420 --> 01:16:43.769
And more recently on the mediality.

01:16:43.839 --> 01:16:49.389
And I think the whole concept of mediality is something that I really think much more.

01:16:49.400 --> 01:16:56.328
I think that it's an alternative to this whole development paradigm we've had, to the neoclassical economics that the societies are fit into.

01:16:56.328 --> 01:16:56.673
So Ivan Illich has been very significant.

01:16:56.673 --> 01:17:07.280
In India, I've always been, not always, been kind of an admirer of Tagore.

01:17:07.460 --> 01:17:20.859
Tagore's ideas of holistic education, I've been a huge admirer of his writing and his, of course, his attempt in Shanti Niketan, which is really not a model anymore.

01:17:21.089 --> 01:17:24.280
But you know the politics that has disrupted it.

01:17:24.340 --> 01:17:29.050
But the idea is still something worth looking at and respecting.

01:17:29.560 --> 01:17:46.780
More recently, I've been very impressed with Ganesh Devi’s work, the linguist who has also worked with enough tribals where he has also talked about how our loss of languages has led to a collective amnesia where we've forgotten our cultures, our identities.

01:17:47.430 --> 01:17:58.845
Not only he makes a call back for it, it also talks about the end of critical consciousness, expansive, that learning really should be a way to expand our consciousness, therefore has forms of inclusion.

01:17:58.845 --> 01:17:58.920
So Ganesh Devi’s work is something that I really do respect.

01:17:58.920 --> 01:17:59.110
So these have been some of the seminal works I touch base on.

01:17:59.110 --> 01:18:19.130
Of course, John Dewey and the others, several US writers are people I read.

01:18:19.130 --> 01:18:29.883
But I think ideas are from Illich, which is going beyond learning, really questioning the other systems that exist around us.

01:18:30.429 --> 01:18:32.569
Gayithri: Yeah, for sure.

01:18:32.739 --> 01:18:43.630
And what do you envision the role of research and academia moving forward in education, moving forward thinking about education in India?

01:18:44.120 --> 01:18:52.560
We mentioned and we discussed so many things that need to change, but how do you see academia playing a role in it?

01:18:54.959 --> 01:18:54.979
Dr. Vasavi: Yeah.

01:18:55.360 --> 01:19:04.179
I think as I mentioned with the need for academia to have a new community, both a community and a collaborative responsibility.

01:19:04.559 --> 01:19:08.650
Illich would describe it as, that needs to come on.

01:19:09.009 --> 01:19:15.670
I think our current situation where there is a lot of censorship, there is a lot of fear.

01:19:16.940 --> 01:19:20.158
For example, over the past two days we've been getting messages of how WhatsApp is going to be monitored and the government is going to look at everything.

01:19:20.158 --> 01:19:20.179
That's really a way to silence us, and I have said, okay, is this a way to silence us?

01:19:20.179 --> 01:19:20.185
And that is not outrageous.

01:19:20.185 --> 01:19:37.630
We are not all going to go off WhatsApp, let us continue to do what we should do, we want to do.

01:19:38.470 --> 01:19:40.813
And say what we want to say.

01:19:40.880 --> 01:20:01.135
So I think, under especially this situation of the growth of totalitarianism, of really authoritarianism, academics have a huge role to play and we all, each of us, as individuals and also members of our general disciplines in academias, institutions, really have to be at the forefront.

01:20:01.135 --> 01:20:05.370
We have been too silent so far.

01:20:05.370 --> 01:20:08.976
We've been in the back seat too long.

01:20:08.976 --> 01:20:09.504
Gayithri: Stepped aside, yeah.

01:20:09.680 --> 01:20:10.130
Dr. Vasavi: Yeah.

01:20:10.610 --> 01:20:15.386
So I think courage, along with ideas and strategies, collaborating with others.

01:20:15.386 --> 01:20:15.405
For example, supporting the farmer's movements.

01:20:15.405 --> 01:20:24.750
Now, looking for alternatives to the huge ecological mess we are in.

01:20:25.250 --> 01:20:25.985
Argue now, very importantly to have a good public health system which is what we're seeing with the whole COVID crisis is not a surprise.

01:20:25.985 --> 01:20:26.070
It's not a collapse of the system, it's because those system existed, no public health system exists.

01:20:26.070 --> 01:20:26.085
The privatized systems.

01:20:26.090 --> 01:20:49.089
There are no decentralized democratic health systems available.

01:20:49.650 --> 01:20:53.709
So I think these are issues which are not disciplinary based.

01:20:53.979 --> 01:20:57.259
I cannot say, you know I'm not a doctor, this is not an issue for me.

01:20:58.070 --> 01:21:00.360
These are issues about democracy, about rights, about wellbeing.

01:21:00.360 --> 01:21:02.969
All of us as academics have to engage and take stance, we can't hide under this, under all the threats that are being deployed that work against us.

01:21:06.740 --> 01:21:24.130
So I think this is really the immediate challenge that we academics have to face.

01:21:24.430 --> 01:21:24.740
Gayithri: Yeah.

01:21:26.770 --> 01:21:33.449
They do sound already very daunting, but at the same time, yeah, it also kind of feels very urgent.

01:21:35.020 --> 01:21:46.719
Do you have any specific advice for young scholars or researchers who are not yet there, but who would want to be a part of this transformation in Indian context specifically?

01:21:48.570 --> 01:21:48.940
Dr. Vasavi: Yeah.

01:21:51.219 --> 01:21:54.110
I would say that they need to persist.

01:21:54.110 --> 01:21:59.970
I've seen people who just say okay, academia is now so hollow and we just become activists.

01:22:01.580 --> 01:22:05.400
They don't seem to, at least there's no recognition maybe because they're younger.

01:22:05.400 --> 01:22:11.337
You need good academia, good knowledge systems to also influence or direct your actions.

01:22:11.337 --> 01:22:14.930
So you have to have your eggs in both worlds.

01:22:14.940 --> 01:22:17.620
That is very important, they need to do that.

01:22:18.120 --> 01:22:22.319
Or there are some people who actually just abandon everything and go away.

01:22:22.319 --> 01:22:22.399
Literally going [inaudible] . That is not something advisable.

01:22:22.399 --> 01:22:41.705
Secondly is for them to really be ready to face the challenges at the moment, but to understand that leading an engaged and meaningful life is much better than being trapped in certain kind of [inaudible] of privilege that many, many upper class people have in India.

01:22:41.705 --> 01:22:55.880
And I know that there is great satisfaction that lies after we meet these challenges.

01:23:00.090 --> 01:23:02.320
To persist, it's not an easy game.

01:23:02.740 --> 01:23:07.259
Persistence is required in these kinds of situations.

01:23:07.849 --> 01:23:10.500
But they should also know that there is a community out there.

01:23:10.530 --> 01:23:14.460
Nobody needs to feel alone and abandoned.

01:23:15.540 --> 01:23:17.809
There is a community, you just need to reach out.

01:23:17.809 --> 01:23:22.360
Really there is a very, very active civil society in India.

01:23:24.350 --> 01:23:26.529
Extremely engaged, committed, driven.

01:23:27.330 --> 01:23:32.950
You just need to reach out and they will be there for you.

01:23:32.950 --> 01:23:34.222
And to know that it's only a lonely journey if not.

01:23:34.222 --> 01:23:41.339
It will be hard at times, but most very satisfying, meaningful, but people will be there with you.

01:23:41.639 --> 01:23:43.410
Gayithri: Thank you, that was very reassuring.

01:23:45.360 --> 01:23:50.320
Anything else that we didn't touch upon that you want to?

01:23:50.410 --> 01:23:52.120
Dr. Vasavi: Not that I can think of.

01:23:52.290 --> 01:23:52.483
No I think we've covered good ground.

01:23:52.483 --> 01:23:52.510
I can see my internet already still going on the blink.