The Finale....

All good things must come to an end. So did Katai yesterday evening - there were two khets in morning of 16th - one at baharadurgarh (~ 10 acres) and another one at Krishi Shaala (Yamuna Banks ~ 28 acres). All General party male members were supposed to go to Bahadurgarh and the ladies + DEI staff and students were supposed to go to Kirshi Shaala. As it happened, all men folk except ones in Arz went to Bahadurgarh. This created a problem because as the wheat was being cut by ladies there werent enough bundle parties.

The Yamuna side khet is 1.5 KM long stretch along the Yamuna bank - it stretches about 0.4 km towards Yamuna. The land seems fertile enough - the khet close to Yamuna are on greyish sand - you dont really need to cut the wheat - it just gets pulled off - and you just dust the sand off it.

Eventually everyone realized the mistake, after cutting and bundling (but not loading ) the 10 acres in Bahadurgarh, men folk came to Krishi shala. GH gave instructions to load 40 trucks only after which the khet were supposed to be called off in the morning. I do remember seeing atleast 600 people claiming chyavanprash last evening with a promise to work till the end of the khet - however by 11 AM - there were porbably 300-400 of them left.

We started again at 2:30 AM - gents loaded off the Bahardurgarh katai first, Ladies did Binai in the Krishi shala - we loaded off all bundles into waiting trucks as GH sat in his scorpio and watched. All ladies left at 6:00 PM and gents soon afterwards for evening satsang. It was quite a site when ladies were making their way out, the dust which was being generated was like a huge cloud which seemed to have covered the door.

So there it is - 350+ acres cut from 9th to 16th of April. I couldnt get a chance to go and work at thresher this time - but probably next time. It has left quite a few marks on the body - but generally it wasnt as bad probably because you were just mentally prepared.

I think I will be back for Rice Plantations and Rice katai to write more on the blog. at least one of us (Ritu or me) will be there.

The 'Ideal' Sickle

Since the age of mechanized reapers is not going to dawn so soon in DB, I did some background research on what is the best sickle around. So far, using a traditional sickle (not the chinese ones - but the ones which have been in use since Bronze age), the ideal ergonomic design based on a study sponsored by ICMR but conducted by National Institute of Occupational Health in Ahmedabad seem to indicate that following is best specs for reducing biochemical stresses so that human performance can be improved

(i) sickle weight - 200 g;

(ii) total length of sickle - 33 cm;

(iii) handle length - 11 cm;

(iv) handle diameter - 3 c cm;

(v) radius of blade curvature - 15 cm;

(vi) blade concavity - 5 cm;

(vii) serrated sickle: tooth pitch - 0.20 cm and tooth angle - 60 degrees;

(viii) ratio of the length of cutting surface to chord length - 1.20.

Now I should try and grab two sickles from DB and try and benchmark against these numbers. Will be interesting to see how the new and old ones score.

Multiple Fronts

as mentioned in my previous posts, today 4 fronts were opened for katai - however GH decided to send 50 strong Katai folks to khet behind engineering college hostel. I also went in that - and we got a bit khet to cut on our own - took us about 1 hour to do the needful as all of the people who went were good at Katai. Punjab folks have also started coming in for part-II of Bhandara and that definitely helps. I wonder in the age of outsourcing their own khets to Bihari labourers on contract how come these folks maintain high level of fitness.

anyway, it is always an out of world experience to have GH standing next to you in Khet as he maintains oversight on what is going on. You work with trepedition that you dont do anything wrong but you also work either work at 3 times the normal pace or some people just drop their pace to 1/3 and dont seem to move at all (esp when they are at a vandage point).

all done today - loading still continuing - but 3 hours of Katai has left me sore and injured a bit - so I came back after having Mathri and Gud. It is incidentally quite nice to work without excessive supervision - i.e. not have too many volunteers barking left right and center at you. Thankfully most volunteers seem to have been put on duty on Ladies Khet - where their own experiences have not been very good to say the least.

New Pothis

Could not help writing this, but lets look at what new Pothis have appeared in last 2-3 years
1. Updated Discourses on Radhasoami Faith
2. Writings and Speeches of GH Sahabji Maharaj
3. Directory of Institutes in Dayalbagh
4. Discourses on Education
5. Rozzana Vakhyaat (Hindi Translation of Diaries of Sahabji maharaj)
6. Special souvenir for GH MB Laal Sahab
7. same above in Hindi

Apart from this, Publication department makes sure ***all pothees*** are available for sale in Bhandara - it is quite funny that a lot of them are not sold out even - dont know why. For example, when was in last time (and I came to senses and started observing when I was in class 6th) - did I see "Bhagwad Gita ke Updesh", or "Yatharth Prakash" being on sale......

all around environment of extreme dynamism, optimism, innovation, discpline and a sense of purpose...

Interesting article related to katai

Check out this link :
ergonomic evaluation of rural women while performing wheat harvesting activity - it has a few interesting things
1. what I refered to as master stroke is fairly prevelant activity in rural india - they do katai in morning time and bundles in evening
2. an average women squats and moves 2.2 kms/day (8 hours) harvesting - 1.7 Kms while tying Bundles over 2 hours.
3. They make approx 50 bundles in 2 hours.

I think in DB terms, the bundles they mention are fall smaller than what we make. But this points out the making bundles is more heavier exercise that cutting - quite rightly then this work is assigned to menfolk in our case.

2 days left to go?

For tomorrow's katai (15th Apr) - there will be parallel work in 4 locations - DB ladies will go to Premnagar line-1, General Party to Karyavir Nagar Khet, Haryana Brothers in front of Radha Nagar, all ladies to Pnjabi Bagh. I assume after this only one day of massive katai will be left on Jamuna banks - the land we aquired last year. That 150 acres is supposed to have provided excellent Daal, Wheat, Vegetables all year round.

Could not help noticing this major news item - - world Food and Agriculture head annoucing that world has just enough reserver stocks to survive for next 2-3 months. The situation is so much better in Dayalbagh. There is regular announements for DB residents that the "home delivery" of wheat is being done. all other 3 agra branches regular field workers are also being given abundant wheat supply.

Day after Bhandara

Today the work is near Kuan No 4, Again hordes of people - and some folks like me - who are there just for katai feel a bit lost as we have to give our Daranti to ladies and just make bundles. Get to load a single bundle per truck - rest of time we just do Binai - wonder if this is how it will continue. Today apart from Bhandara crowd, there is day off for DEI students and staff - so lot of work got done. will update the counts of acres cut in some time.

The Bhandara Day

Before the Bhandara, it is rumoured that GH had asked all local satsang branch secreatries (Ellora, Agra City etc) to make sure enough strenght is present to send all their resources for katai. However in Morning aarti, everything was rushed - he indicated by his hand on several occasions to start "Deen Dukhi" - sharmajee didnt have to recite the part-II of Sarkar sahab bachan. The GH Bachan was much shorter by his normal average lenght - he referred to desire to unite with Supreme Lord, The ways of Paramarath, the importance of satsang and seva, Importance of DB residents to show the ideal liefsyle to all others and them ordered all to go to fields for katai.

Today there must have been 4000-5000 people spread across various locations in the fields. Part of it was near Gende ka Tilla (The name refers to a small plantation of Genda flowers which still exists - if my childhood memories are to be trusted - there were lot of more Genda flowers - most of it is now under wheat cultivation) for people who go by trucks and the rest (Car/ scooter/ cycle drivers) were asked to go to Tannery (whats with the name - we dont do any tanning work there any more - it is just a leather working school now).

GH went to Gende Ka tilla for most of the time - a lot of fields were cut.

Another interesting thing which happened during afternoon Bhandara was once the Pothi sale was over, GH asked all menfolk to clear out the satnsang hall at 2:00 PM and ask them to get ready for field work at 2:30 PM. Ladies were given afternoon off.

Now-a-days because of large no of weekend warriors (i.e. weekend / bhandara crowd), there are lot of people and evening work finishes by 5:30 PM.

Prasad and Breakfast

During the Bhandara and katai week, the canteens are open from 3:00 AM to 4:15 AM, 1:30 hours after the announced closure of khet in morning, between 1:30 and 2:30 PM in afternoon. However it needs to be noted that most of us are practically fatigued by 10:00 AM in morning with whatever we have eaten since morning working nearly continously. Consequently arrangements have been made with a white Safari bringing in Mathari and Gud every day for all brothers working in the fields. Gud has a magical property because it collates all the small wheat stem particles stuck in your throat.

Incidentally, the water tankers have a slightly different and pleasant taste of water. The reason is that these tankers were the same in which Gulab Jal was used to spray during Holi - the water still carries the same flavour and is very very refreshing to drink.

Needless to say, the water tankers remain a huge collection point for all of satsangis in the fields.

GH has been giving Chyavanprash only to the people who have worked full time in Khet both morning and evening - otherwise they have been asked to collect the same from Ayurved pharmacy ;-). The same goes for Balm which is getting on sale every evening. The instructions are clear - you have to work to earn any prasad.

Another Process Improvement

There are assigned Loading party leaders for each truck - people cannot load bundles into trucks if the official loaders are not there. These experienced folks ensure that bundles are stacked optimally in the truck and not haphazardly.

The results are
1. Trucks are loaded more compactly and carry more bundles than usual. It now takes 1.75 trucks per acre as compared to 2.5 earlier
2. The no of bundles which get dropped out on the way is much much lesser - it was not uncommon for car folks and scooter folks to deliver bundles which fell on the way to Dairy on their own - you wont see that any longer.
3. The turnaround time for trucks is greatly reduced.

The slightly negative part of this is that load of people who load into trucks have to wait with bundles on their heads before the loaders come in and start doing their work. But thats not much of a problem - given that bundles are much lighter (refer to Masterstroke post earlier). It is not feasible to get more than 2 bundles per truck very easily for loading.

Mid Katai News

The approximate acres of katai done so far is as follows
9th: 39 acres
10th: 42 acres
11th: 40 acres
12th: 40 acres
13th: > 40 acres

The areas which have been covered are near Kuan No 4, near Lal Gadi Village, tannery, near the school towards Bahadurgarh, fields in Bahadurgarh. It is estimated that Katai will get over in 8 days starting from 9th.

3000 sickles are in use now - 1000 more were ordered recently as lot of people were without sickles. The new sickles are unlike old in the sense the blade is much more resilient and the teeth take much longer to become dull.

as I mentioned before, the daily routine is like this
4:15 AM: Start of Morning satsang
5:00 AM: Start of Katai in near darkness
6:45 AM: Start of making bundles
6:30 - 7:20 AM: GH takes rounds of the fields and looks at what is going around - gives all instructions
7:20 AM - 8:20 AM: Arz interviews
8:20 - 9:00 AM - Jigyasu interviews
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM - GH again surveys what is going on - explicitly guides what to do
10:00 - 11:00 AM - load as much as possible.

It was disappointing turout from Haryana region in early days of Katai - overall 1500 TVC were issued till 14th. A lot of people are expected in the weekend. a lot of menfolk have a tendency to sit around and while away time under the shade.

The voluneteers are having a tough time dealing with lot of people as well as keeping up with the rapid instructions which come from GH every now and then.

The first day news

Katai started on 9th Feb - all satsangis were asked to come out of morning satsang and proceed to fields - 38 hectares were cut - because the total no of satnsangis was less than 200, I dont ever recall in last 10 years of partcipiating in Katai that I cut continously for 5 hours - 5:45 AM to 10:45 AM. Then Gud arrived at 11:00 AM for all brothers. Although the ladies were supposed to finish off by 7:30 AM - it actually went on till 9:15 AM. Brothers continued to work in fields till 11:30 AM. Then we came back for loading at 2:00 AM. As per instructions before the start of katai, Ladies were not supposed to come in the afternoon, however seeing the progress, Ladies were asked to come in and undertake binai at 3:30 AM.

However given less no of people, the work could not finish even before the scheduled start time of evening satsang at 6:15 PM - so all brothers continued working and GH asked the men's path party to do satsang in fields starting 6:45 PM - while we all continued loading bundles in the lorries. When satsang got over, GH left and so did everyone else.

The Masterstroke

A Major change happened this Katai.GH instructed that all Katai should progress with great zeal and enthusiam and focused efforts from all sisters and brothers in morning. The daily target now stands at 40 acres each day - and this needs to happen quickly in morning. While the bundles get done in the morning time itself, the bundles are left to dry out in the sun for the day and then we come in later and do the loading in the second half. Major thing which happens is that the bundles dry out and they are much lighter to load and take out.

Before the D-Day

Since 2005 (or even before) Wheat harvests in Dayalbagh rarely take more than 7 days. This has been made possible apart from divine Grace with systemic improvements in the way workforce is accumulated, resources mobilized in teams (there is a separate team leader for Rassi, Trucks, Katai, Thresher, Loading, unloading), involvement of Haryana and Dayalbagh's women folk in Katai itself and "incentives" and "orders" passed during this Maha Parv.

It is expected that Katai will start tomorrow morning i.e. 9th and finish by 16th. The total area covered by wheat is approximately 320 acres. GH has set target of 35 acres to be cut daily in the morning. This target has been set to be finished by 7 AM. Already morning satsang has started at 4:15 AM - although it started at 4:05 AM today. Saran Teri was not done today (probably as preparatry) step towards getting people organized for what is coming tomorrow.

Other news from DB:
1. wells in db are running low on water table, people have been advised to use water judiciously.
2. Channa was harvetested on 7th April in single day in Punjabi Farm. The actual katai (which had a lot of Bathua mixed with Chana as side growth) finished by 7:00 AM - however loading of Channa into trucks and their subsequent unloading for drying in Bhandara grounds took till 9:00 AM.
3. Haryana and Punjab party has arrived - they have been working in Dairy even in afternoon with Jau which has finished harvesting last week.
4. GH has been giving Chyavanprash to all permitted zone satsangis with a direction that they should work 4 hours in morning and evening everyday. The part-1 of bhandara will be on 13th and second part on 20th. Last year, regional satsang was shifted to Khet when it was observed that there were not enough people available for loading. On 4th evening, GH gave towels to all students who are either DB residents or studying in DB colleges who have been working in fields for last 4 holidays and have intentions to work on public holidays and sundays as well going forward. He also gave Balm to people who have been working in fields for last 4 days.