Shilatane

Working in Mumbai is great and all, but rural is where all the fun is! We traveled to Shilatane some weeks ago to understand what it was like to live in a rural village. This is a village that is 100 km east of Mumbai off the highway on the way to Pune. A random turn off the highway turned into quite the excursion.


Shibin spearheads the excursion into the unknown. Shibin would make a great translator in the U.N.

We ran into farmers who were planting rice in the patties. They greeted us with strange faces, but quickly warmed up to us.


We wanted to understand how mobiles were used in the villages. They were quick to whip out their mobiles and gave us their take on cell phones. A few points they made:

• They make the distinction between Nokia and Reliance(CDMA). They perceive Nokia as a brand for GSM, not the carriers (Hutch, Airtel...).
  
• They like to exchange ring-tones and wallpapers with friends.

One question that we would have loved to ask was "how do you charge your mobile?". Hopefully, we will have a better sense of power in relation to mobiles when we go back to Shilatane and other villages this weekend.