By Sudeshna Sarkar
Kathmandu, Jan 20 (IANS): Scuttling along on three-wheels and derisively overtaken by powerful cars and motorcycles, the humble auto-rickshaw of South Asia has been given a new image by a 28-year-old ingenious Briton.
It is now the symbol of adventure in India and Nepal , and poised to canter through Bangladesh and perhaps Pakistan in the future.
"People in the West need a bit of adventure," says Thomas Morgan, a fine arts student who left sculpture and filmmaking to embrace adventure tourism.
"Someone has already climbed the highest mountain in the world, sailed all around the world and discovered all the continents.
"We need to make our own adventures, we need to make things difficult for ourselves," Morgan told IANS.
During his visit to India three years ago, Morgan went to Kochi and found the perfect vehicle for adventure: the three-wheeled auto-rickshaw that has been converted into a means of cheap public transport in India , Nepal and Bangladesh .
"It is unreliable, uncomfortable and smelly," he says. "So it's the perfect adventure vehicle.
"All the smells and sounds of the country come to you. A rickshaw ride provides quick connection to the culture of the place and makes the journey indigenous."
When he returned home from India , Morgan started the Adventurists, an organisation that mixes adventure with philanthropy, planning rickshaw runs in the Indian subcontinent.
The winter Rickshaw Run 2008, which started in January from Kochi and ended in Kathmandu , saw 64 teams take part. Held twice each year, the summer run will head for Puducherry from Kathmandu in June while the next one will trek from Puducherry to Assam and then on to Bangladesh.
Morgan says the journeys are crammed with adventure.
Adventurists also raise funds for local charities. One of the charities they assisted was Maiti Nepal , one of Nepal 's best-known NGOs that rescues and rehabilitates trafficked women and children.
Once bandits chased them in Puri town in India . While nearing Kathmandu , one of the rickshaws lost a wheel while making its way through high mountains.
Morgan is thinking of adding still more hurdles to make the rickshaw run even more difficult in future.
"We would like to start a run from the Everest base camp," he says. "Or perhaps in future use the cycle rickshaw."
By Nayanima Basu
Nandigram (West Bengal), Jan 20 (IANS): Blood-red banners naming "martyrs" and proclaiming "shame on Buddha", walls painted with war cries, trees tied with black and red flags, burnt houses and a broken pathway lead to Nandigram, an ordinary village that turned into an unlikely battleground between communists and local residents protecting their land and livelihood. Almost three kilometres before entering the main Nandigram area, which lies about 170 km from state capital Kolkata, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers flank both sides of the road, which then meanders through a busy market that sells everything from shoes to shampoos.
Even though things appear to be in an absolute state of peace, it is hard to get over the eerie feeling that engulfs anyone who crosses over into the vast tracts of land dotted with camouflaged graves.
"People think the guns have fallen silent here, everything looks normal, people going to work, a busy marketplace opening and shutting every day - but all this is apparent," said a visibly shaken 70-year-old Narmada Sheeth, who runs a small tea stall in the market.
"This is the kind of silence that is followed by a storm. People here know that they can be killed, shot, harassed, women molested anytime, yet we are not ready to give up the land," said Sheeth.
She is one of the elderly members of the Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC), a group of protestors who are against the acquisition of land here for a proposed special economic zone (SEZ) and chemical hub in eastern India, told IANS.
While narrating the incidents that occurred last year when the CPI-M allegedly wanted to "recapture the land", Sheeth suddenly stands up and starts beating her chest, wailing the names of those who have died and shouting, "Buddhadeb is a killer! Kill us! Come kill us! Kill me! But we will not give you an inch of our land!"
There are thousands like Sheeth all across Nandigram who put the blame on the CPI-M government in West Bengal and its Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee while denying the involvement of any Maoist element in the protests.
"I don't know who did what? But what I know and what the BUPC members tell me is that this was by the 'harmat bahini' (as locals call the CPI-M cadres)," said a sobbing Rinku Mondol, 24, who is a mother of three and the widow of slain Bharat Mondol.
Bharat Mondol, a BUPC supporter and resident of Sonachura in Nandigram, was shot Jan 7 last year. His younger brother Pushpendu Mondol was also shot in March but the family has got a compensation of Rs.500,000 from the government only for the latter.
"The government has given us compensation only for Pushpendu and not for Bharat. In any case, I don't want money, I want my family to earn benefits from the land," said their father Pulin Behari Mondol, a farmer and weaver by profession.
Nandigram, a constellation of villages in West Bengal 's east Midnapore district, first saw unrest in January last year when the natives protested against selling their land for the chemical hub, which resulted in a massive eruption of violence in the region.
Lives were lost, mostly in the months of January, March and October last year.
Even though the situation has been slightly better ever since the deployment of the CRPF, Nandigram continues to simmer. The villagers fear every moment that troop withdrawal may again lead to severe unrest.
"And this time it's going to be worse. This time we will also not keep quiet," Amirun, a young BUPC supporter, said standing near a citadel like area, which is now regarded as 'Shahid Mor', a cross-section that has been dedicated to the slain villagers.
The BUPC wants the CRPF to stay there till the panchayat elections, which is scheduled to happen in May this year. The CRPF, which was deployed there Nov 12, 2007, is to be stationed there till Feb 15.
"The troopers are a gift of god to me. It's because of them that my family can sleep at night, my children can play now. If they go, I will lose everything, I know those people (CPI-M men) will come and kill us and burn down my house again," said the mother of 11-year-old Bulu Mir who was injured in October last year.
The bullet hit the child while he was playing with his friends. Even though Bulu survived he is suffering from serious trauma.
According to official figures, the death toll in Nandigram is 35 but as per BUPC's data, it is about 150, including those who are missing.
After major unrest engulfed Nandigram, Chief Minister Bhattacharjee assured people that there would be no chemical hub and no forceful acquisition of land.
"Who says there will be no chemical hub here? I don't believe in what the government says. Ask them to give it to us in writing and if that does not happen, our protest will continue," averred BUPC president Sheikh Sufiyan.
The West Bengal government, which is the world's longest serving democratically elected communist rule, and the Indonesian conglomerate, Salem Group had agreed upon establishing a hub here in July 31, 2006.
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