THE TILONIA EFFECT

People..the word tilonia itself had a sepcial aura in itself, leave aside the place. When i heard about this place for the very first time some months ago,i had no idea of what or how this place is. Never knew that this place would bring such a big change in me.
I was very eager to visit tilonia among all the places in the yatra coz it would be the first time i would be visiting a place in rajasthan.So obviously the excitement levels were quite high as our train left delhi. It was a pleasant surprise the next day at around 6am seeing myself at the jaipur railway station. Another three hours or so,n there we reach tilonia!!!!!!
The first pleasant surpsrise was the welcome the local villagers had arranged for us with music and dance.It was great.Almost evryone jumped off the train and joined them in the dance. After sometime we were supposed to go to the famous barefoot college, the society responsible for tilonia's success and development. As we went there, another beautiful sight was seeing all the village kids lined up for welcoming us with a big smile and a namaste. Man,for a moment i forgot who i was!!!!! I met a small kid of standard 4 and started talking with him.I just asked him the subjects that were taught to him in his school n he gives me a whole list of subjects from maths,science,hindi,sanskrit,value education and so on. I asked if they were taught english.And this kid replies me back in english-"Yes, we are taught to speak in english in the school".great!!i asked him what he wanted to do as he grew up. And guess what he wanted to become?? a maths teacher!!!!Way to go...
The real shocks were in fact yet to come.As we were moving towards the village,one thing that amazed me was a tall communication tower.That was strange!!! As we moved forward, there's a ground where you see a array of solar panels lined up.and wait,these were not ordinary solar panels.they have been designed by the villagers themselves,who call themselves the barefoot solar engineers all built by using scrap materials. And now they train people from villages all over the country and abroad so that they can do the same.Awesome!!
As we were taking a round of the village,we go inside a hall. And what i see there is a room having around 10 computers where some ladies were working on accounts.i was shocked!!!At a corner i saw a old lady who could easily be in her 60's making some reports on ms excel..Oh my god!!!i was speechless. later i found that none of them have received formal education. Still with the shock of what i saw,i moved on to the next room and the only thing left for me to do was fall down in wonder-there i see a huge room with people from different countries sitting in tables and doing what-designing integrated circuits to make small tubelights. Any guesses who was teaching these foreigners???yes,it was the villagers itself. These villagers had to be superhumans or aliens. i found that they all had come for a duration of 6 months from their respective countries where they were trained to design these circuits,make the lights and train other villagers in their country......just too good..
Still amazed with what i just saw, me,guru and maitreyee just walkd off d room and were just roaming around that a lady called us to her home. How could we miss that chance!!! As we entered her house,it seemed as a normal house itself, small and beautiful. As she took us to one of the rooms,i stood still. What i see is a big tv in the corner of the room with a dvd player beside it.there was a pack of dvd's of all d recent movies. Yes,its a village. Beside the dvd player i see a report on international labour organization(ILO) supposedly made by her daughter who's in class 8.What should i say on that??
There were so many incidents in that village that left me amazed, shocked, inspired and brought about a thought in me. Who said development is only limited only to the cities?? Who said formal education is the only way by which you can bring about a change in the society?? For answers, welcome to tilonia!!