The New Bharat: Stories of those who beat the odds to create legacies that are transforming India

You can't take the village out of India. Or me. Most urbanites (I grew up in Bengaluru) have had some experience of Bharat-the other 69 per cent of Indians who live in the hinterland. I have vivid memories of visiting my maternal grandfather in Bhagamandala, in the foothills of Talacauvery in Kodagu where the mighty Cauvery bubbles forth as a tiny spring.

From 1965 onwards, I regularly went to Cherangala, his village, to stay with him while he was alive and to pay res­pects at his grave after he died. We had to go by foot to his house from the bus stop in Bhagamandala. It was a five kilometre walk through lush paddy fields bisected by the gurgling Cauvery, which was more of a stream than a river. The house did not have electricity and we lit kerosene lamps at night. Food was cooked using firewood-the akki (rice) rotis baked on them were delicious. We plucked cashew fruit from the garden, roasted the seeds on burning wood and ate the kernel piping hot. We bathed in a pond surrounded by a thatched enclosure. There were no toilets, we took refuge in the nearby bushes, always watching our backs for snakes and other wildlife. It was only in the early 2000s that change became visible in the village. We did not have to walk to the house any more, we could use the motorable road that passed right by it. Electricity poles had come up and, when the lights failed, the hum of gensets