A childhood trip to village Barwani first introduced Sneha Mahapatra to harsh rural realities. Going back there as a 27-year-old reaffirmed her belief that her life’s vocation lay in empowering marginalised communities.
When I was 12, my father took me to a rural village for the first time. He’d recently set up his NGO, Harsha Trust, and was working tirelessly to address the issues of poverty and lack of access in rural India.
We went to a small field in Koraput district and met two engineers working with Harsha Trust. We discussed their backgrounds and how they had left behind comfortable urban lives to work for rural development.
Their reasons were varied. Seeking a deeper purpose in life or being drawn by the complexity of rural life itself. It made me question what it is that we truly seek in life – comfort or connection? The casual chat planted a seed of curiosity in me. What makes someone leave behind the familiar comforts of the city to immerse themselves in the realities of rural life? What did they gain here that they couldn’t find in the urban world?
The next day, I hopped onto the back of a motorbike with two NGO field workers. It was my first time riding on a bike and the experience was liberating. However, as I enjoyed the ride, my mind kept circling back to the women I had met. I thought about their everyday struggles and the layers of complexities they navigated – running businesses, managing households, and caring for their families while being embedded in a system that rarely acknowledged them.
Our next stop was a field where workers were installing a tube well. They explained how tapping underground water would support local farming efforts and provide water security to the area. It was a simple initiative but the impact it promised felt enormous.
In another part of the field, I met a farmer who had started growing okra (bhindi) using the trellis method. He proudly told me that his monthly income had shot up from less than ₹2,000 to ₹25,000, thanks to the training and support he received from the Harsha Trust. His joy was infectious, but it also made me think about how fragile these victories were, dependent on continued support and access to resources.
As I rode back from the field, a sense of dissonance began to settle in. I was happy and inspired by the progress I had seen but I couldn’t shake the overwhelming disparities between the life I lived in the city and the one these communities experienced. The gap felt unbridgeable at first. When I returned home, I found myself grappling with questions that I didn’t have easy answers for.
That early trip to the village, though fleeting, took on a “mythical quality” over the years, something intangible yet powerful, embodying a different world that felt out of reach amidst my city life.
Years later, when I finally returned to rural India as an adult, I found myself retracing that mythical world, but this time, with a sense of purpose.
In Barwani, a district in the heart of rural India, I was no longer just a curious child. I had come to understand and document the communities’ realities and challenges. The mythical quality was replaced by a sober understanding of resilience, struggle, and hope. I visited the same kinds of homes I vaguely remembered from my childhood trip – mud walls, narrow doorways, homes without running water or electricity – sombre realities of rural India.
On my first day in Barwani, I met members of a Self-Help Group (SHG) who ran small poultry operations. The women showed me the small cold storage they used to preserve eggs and farm produce. I’d taken these resources for granted, yet here, they were proud symbols of their financial independence. Watching them reminded me of my father’s early days of setting up the Harsha Trust. I recollected how every improvement here felt monumental because of the hurdles these women had to overcome daily.
As I accompanied field workers, I saw a range of rural realities that had once been just dinner-table conversations. I spent time with ASHA workers and Anganwadi teachers, witnessing firsthand the frontline work of public health and early childhood education.
In each village, I spoke with women about maternal health and that led them to discuss the deep-rooted issues of malnutrition affecting their children. At the heart of it all, I saw women shouldering the responsibilities of running households, often in conditions with no clean water, sporadic electricity, and scarce food.
Water, something I took for granted because I had access to it 24×7, became a point of reflection. Electricity was another point of dissonance. I realised that the constant glow of city lights and the convenience of uninterrupted power were luxuries that few rural families could afford. In villages, even a single bulb’s glow is treated with reverence, a resource as precious as the effort that brought it to life.
Even transportation took on new meaning. In the city, a taxi or subway is just a few minutes away. But in the villages, it took a bumpy bike ride over unpaved roads to reach the nearest centre, a reminder that for many, “convenience” is a foreign concept.
My trip as a 12-year-old and then again as a 27-year-old to Barwani was more than just that. It was a journey that reshaped my understanding of life. I returned to the city with a new perspective, knowing that the disparities I encountered would no longer just be statistics or distant realities.
The experience reaffirmed my belief that my life’s work would always revolve around connecting with communities, learning from them, and working towards a world where every person—no matter how remote or marginalised—can lead a life of dignity.
Author bio:
Sneha Mahapatra is a Delhi-based rural development professional. She grew up deeply inspired by her father, who founded an NGO dedicated to empowering rural communities in India. His work shaped her worldview and instilled a passion for justice and systemic change. Over the years, through travel and exposure to diverse communities, she has seen firsthand the realities of inequity and the strength of those living on the margins. These experiences, combined with her father’s influence, have made rural development the core of her life’s work. She’s driven by a sense of purpose to bridge inequalities and create meaningful, sustainable change that honours the resilience of people and their potential.
The lead image shows women in Barwani, who despite being rarely acknowledged are running businesses and managing households. (Photo courtesy of Sneha Mahapatra)
