After the Bhagalpur event got over, the yatra bus reached Thatha panchayat, Khagariya for malyarpan. Here we found a group of aware individuals especially women, some of whom worked for an NGO called Navjagriti. This organisation works for providing food to women and works against child trafficking. There were children from the Bal panchayat as well who had gathered for the short interaction with the Greenpeace yatris.
After everybody introduced themselves, the urja kranti objectives were explained to the people. The women in the crowd participated in the discussion and expressed their opinions about elections. They expressed their discomfort with the constant ranting of the politicians before elections, about the kind of facilities their party is capable of providing and each time fails to do anything productive for the village.
From here we went for our next malyarpan at Mokama where we were invited by Ms Renu Devi, vice-president Zilla parishad. She was accompanied by members of three other wards. After a short introduction about Greenpeace and the objectives of the yatra, we ate a delicious lunch.
After the grand lunch, the boys decided to take a dip in the Ganga. While they were enjoying their bath, Usha started talking about Greenpeace and the motives of the yatra with the women present there. Within seconds a lot of them gathered and were joined by some school children as well. The conversation ended with women singing bhajans about the river Ganga.
Another malyarpan was waiting for us at Harnaut. Here, we were greeted by Mr. Anil, from Yuva Sangharsh Samiti Morcha. After the malyarpan got over we all headed towards the native village of Nitish Kumar, Kalyan Bigah.
The time for our next event was shifted to post lunch 2:00-5:30 pm and we were to end the event by handing over the solar lamp installed by us in the village to a senior village person. Almost the entire village was present along with ward members and prominent NGO heads. The venue was decided strategically to make a point to Nitish Kumar. We installed a solar street light just outside Nitish Kumar's dad's memorial, Kaviraj Ram Lakhan Singh, who was a freedom fighter.
There has been no electricity in the village for a very long time, so all the villagers were extremely happy with the street lamp in the village. The event proceeded with the introduction of the organisation and its objectives, after this was done the yatra team members were greeted with a short malyarpan.
The theatre yatris were a huge hit among the kids present in great numbers at the event. A lot of curiosity could be seen regarding the solar appliances and people showed a keen interest in the kit’s usage. The solar mobile charger became an instant hit.
After the event got over the theatre yatris left for their home town for Durga puja/Dussera break and the rest of the team headed towards Patna. In spite of the long and tiring day our enthusiasm was at its highest. The short journey to Patna was full of song and dance showing no signs of fatigue.
The next leg of the yatra will kick off from Bodhgaya and move on to other places after 6 days. After our short break, we will start all over again with some more new experiences and many more pledges for a new era of clean and safe environment.