In a small village in Tripura, only seven people now speak in 'Saimar', a language bound to die out when its speakers do, leading inevitably to the loss of a generation of tradition, knowledge and native wisdom.
Meanwhile, in Jharkhand's Godda district people who are known as the koilawallahs (coal-carriers) make a living out of carrying tons of coal on their cycles for 40 kilometers or more, for wages with which they "can't even afford to buy chappals."
Such stories involving near-end tribes, endangered skills and poverty-struck people from stretches of the unexplored and least reported villages in the country find a place in the just launched digital archive People's Archive of Rural India (PARI).
The archive, is a website that consolidates still pictures, video films, text articles, and agrarian reports featuring the 'Everyday lives of the everyday people' and can be freely accessed at - www.Ruralindiaonline.Org - by anyone who wants to take a look at one of the world's most diverse and complex countryside.
A particular section on the website, 'Rural in Urban' throws light on migrant workers who have settled in bigger towns and the metros.
The web portal, launched in December this past year is the brainchild of Ramon Magsaysay awarded journalist P Sainath, who along with other scribes and technicians wove the idea to archive pictures and narratives of people in rural India and their daily struggle to survive amidst all the hardships that the urbanised world seems to be in oblivion of.
Besides the archival value, PARI aims to generate news from the hinterlands with its reportage from villages across the country.
"Rural India is such a rich territory to provide content for journalism. There is no such region anywhere in the world," says Sainath, who was here recently to exhibit the archive.
"The great legacy of Indian journalism always engaged with ordinary people and real issues. (Bhimrao) Ambedkar engaged with the fundamental issues of caste discrimination, Raja Ram Mohan Roy the first Indian owner of newspaper 1866 Miraat ul Akhbaar (in Persian) and from beginning his journalism was driven by issues like sati, child marriage, widow re-marriage. Now we don't engage with issues...
