- Asmat NGO
A Silver Lining to Gold
Updated: Feb 26, 2019
It was the revelation that not only were we taking away more than words can describe from the experience, we were leaving parts of ourselves behind as well. Parts of ourselves, buried in the soil of the golden mustard fields.
By Zoya Chadha, Winter 2014 Volunteer
There are some memories that one would never want to part with. The day of our departure, when our shoes were well creased with the dust of Soda, I was struck by something that had been inevitable since day one. It was the revelation that not only were we taking away more than words can describe from the experience, we were leaving parts of ourselves behind as well. Parts of ourselves, buried in the soil of the golden mustard fields, in the home of an elderly couple, in the magnificent sunset against the village reservoir, in the dregs of the herbal tea, in the smiles of the children and in countless warm crannies of village life- each one of us had broken a chunk of our lifted souls and irretrievably placed it in Soda.

It had begun with an online application and a telephonic interview. For someone who had zero experience with social work, it seemed like an unlikely possibility to actually be accepted as a volunteer for the Asmat Winter Program. A month and a half later, in the early days of December, I was on a bus from Jaipur to the village, forming part of a fourteen member contingent which was brimming with giddy excitement.
The day after our arrival, we kicked off surveys regarding the effectiveness of the pension scheme across the different hamlets. Rows and rows of houses lay for us to delve into, and with each home came a different story. We were shy at first and fumbled slightly, but soon, they let us in, and not just to their houses.
Soda was a place where we pushed ourselves, constantly inspired by the people around us. It was a place where a child showed up at our doorstep with bagful of peanuts simply because word had gotten out that one of us was craving some. It was a place where Ram Ram was uttered to every person we crossed in the street, where chai and food was forced upon us in every hamlet we surveyed, regardless of how much our hosts had for their own needs. It was a place where we saw tangible hope glimmer in the people’s eyes for a better life, where we were witness to the sea change which Sarpanch Chhavi Rajawat has brought upon her ancestral village- which is an entire story in itself.
Days in Soda were productive, and the evenings sublime. One of the moments I cherish the most was the first night our gazes found the sky. One by one, our lowly anxieties were dispelled, to be replaced by collective awe at the stars above. Now, as I reflect on that moment, I realise that it wasn’t just the stars that were clearer in Soda; so was everything else.
That place taught us how insignificant we really were, and it challenged us to try our best to make our efforts felt. As volunteers in that village, we were single droplets of oil drowning in a sea of fluoride rich water, and we were trying desperately to make our ripple count. Only time will tell if it truly did.
There are some memories that one would never want to part with. For me, the entirety of Soda Village, 9th December to 20th December 2014, is one of them.