HYDERABAD: As a communication manager with Sathguru Management Consultants in the city, Aditya KV did number-crunching for a project called AIP-Malawi. From a cushy chair, several thousand miles away, it was easy to look at the numbers and judge the progress of the project. If the numbers looked good, life and work both moved on. For two years since the inception of the project – a collaborative tri-partite effort led by Cornell University, USA, Sathguru and Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources – this is what Aditya did. Things changed a month ago when he visited Malawi, the ninth poorest country of the world according to the Human Development Index, to document the progress of the project.
“Visiting Malawi, talking to villagers, students and those working at grassroot level opened up an entirely different aspect of not just the project but about Malawi too,” says Aditya. During his two-week-long stay in Malawi, the 29-year-old realised that the world has a very skewed perception of Africa and Malawi in particular. “My perspective of the country as a poor, diseased, agrarian and poverty-ridden country changed. I realised all this was a myth,” he shares.
Touted as the country that is in dire need of a rural revolution, with 80 per cent of its population is dependent on agriculture, and only 15 percent of its citizens residing in cities, one things that caught his attention was that everyone was always smiling. “Despite their problems they are always happy. They seek happiness in what they have and are quite content,” he recalls. Probably this is why Malawi is called the ‘Warm heart of Africa‘ and has never experienced a civil war.
Another interesting observation that he made was that one can not guess their ages. ‘’Everyone is married and almost everyone is a parent!” He continues, “Now I don’t know if there is a correlation between happiness and marriage and looking ageless but everyone I met seems to be married and with kids.”
Quiz him on the challenges he faced, Aditya says he missed greenery. Victim of large scale deforestation, the country’s ecosystem has gone for a toss. “It is extremely cold, dry and dusty. We had to wipe dust off the camera every few minutes to be able to shoot properly,” he says. Additionally, he was also asked to drink only packaged water. A self-proclaimed climate change advocate, Aditya says that Malwai reiterated his belief that “climate change is real.“
Being an agrarian country like India, Aditya feels the two countries have several other similarities. “Like us, Malawi too is rooted in family, farming and villages. And much like our villages, these too have the problems of water, electricity and technology.“ Any similarity with Hyderabad? “Oh yes! It was like I was in Old City, where everyone exchanged pleasantries with everyone,” he signs off.