Gyan Sodh Reports-Final

GYAN SHODH
Linking Students with Grossroots Knowledge
Organised by
Honeybee AP
National Innovation Foundation
Honeybee AP
GYAN SHODH National Innovation Foundation
CONTENTS
Gyan Shodh……A social Internship - 2

A Journey Which We Wish Never Ends.. - 8
Village Knowledges
Kamalapuram Village - 15
Chityala Village - 20
Chinna Vangara Village - 25
HACHU THANDA - 27
Kasimdevpet Village - 30
Madipally Village - 32
CHINTALA Village - 35
Tummala Boyalu Village - 51
Korraprolu Village - 57
Srisailam - 68
JANGALAPALLI Village - 85
Reflections on Gyan Shodh by Participants - 88
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Honeybee AP
Gyan Shodh……A social Internship

The idea of Gyan shodh came into being when Tejaswini Reddy, a student of BITS,
Pilani approached Prof Anil Gupta for providing an opportunity for a group to spend a
month of their inter-semester holidays in social work. Since most of them are from AP,
Prof Gupta referred them to Honeybee AP. We found it as a unique opportunity and
commenced working on it.
We at Honeybee AP, decided to identify an objective, which should appeal to all
the stake holders in the activity, namely, the students, the villagers, the society and
other supporting agencies. In the last three and half years of my association with
Honeybee AP, I found a silent admiration in the society when we talk about the wealth of
knowledge in rural and unorganized sector. We were always supported and
encouraged. We were also respected for the unique task we are pursuing in highlighting
the rural knowledge in the form of “Palle Srujana” - a quarterly published in Telugu. As
the knowledge was being acceptable universally, we decided to name the event as
“GYAN SHODH” – A Social Internship. We defined the objective as:
“ To provide an opportunity for young engineering students to interact with
the rural environment, and create database pertaining to the villages visited
comprising of the creativity, traditional knowledge, problems solved and
unsolved and suggest approaches and solutions.”
We prepared a paper on the objectives, methodology and work schedule and
sent to NIF for consent. Prof Anil Gupta and his team have promptly approved the plan
and extended their assistance by providing resources and resource persons. Paper
submitted to NIF is enclosed.
As we went through the “Gyan Shodh” during Jun 09 for 10 days, we have learned
much more than we ever expected. Students were ecstatic about the experience and we
were amazed at the effect it had on their thinking and approach to life. My simple
observation was, all the students were more humble than they were prior to the event.
One student went straight to meet her grand parent to seek knowledge from her
without wasting any more time.
Students’ feedback was very encouraging and each one of them assured us that
they would return in their next holidays for similar exercise, with more friends.
Interactions with students in the beginning, between the visits to the villages and
during the final presentation and feed back sessions was very lively, energetic, honest
and enriching to each one of us. Our experience is inexplicable but we felt that we found
a way to informally yet firmly and permanently link the youth of this Nation with rural
knowledge.
As we evolved ourselves along with the “Gyan Shodh”, we found many spin offs
form this event. We discussed amongst ourselves and shared our thoughts with many
students, Educationists, parents, Govt officials, elders of the society etc. We found
encouragement from all quarters.
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Honeybee AP
Honeybee AP conducted “Gyan Shodh II” during Sep 09 for 16 students of PG

Diploma in IPTMA (Intellectual Property and Technology Management in Agriculture)
from NAARM,Hyderabad. This involved a visit of 4 groups each consisting of four
students to four different Chenchu villages located in Srisailam forests of AP. Again the
results were very encouraging. Students accepted all the hardships, though some of
them had visited villages for the first time, but they valued the experience a lot. This
time students paid for the entire duration.
Reports prepared by the groups of students during Gyan Shodh I &II are compiled
and placed in this book. Reflections of the participant’s post-Gyan shodh are also
appended.
In our view, “Gyan Shodh” should be conducted for all students as ‘National Duty”
for at least seven days in 1or 2 villages while they are in college. This should be
voluntary yet should be treated as part of their obligation to the country. Purpose of
Gyan Shodh should be:
§ To familiarize students with rural environment, knowledge base, concept of
development, connecting with people who are in harmony with nature.
§ To capture and document the knowledge base of the village .
§ To create database of village knowledge for the entire country.
§ To mentor local entrepreneurs.
§ To mentor children of the village by the students for life time in an emotional
relation. We found this happening already in 5-6 cases without prompting.
§ To provide the students a factual, first hand perception of the Development
plans initiated by the Govt, their impact and influence on the villagers. This
would be a dispassionate feedback for the Govt.
§ To build a linkage between the youth of this country with people in informal
sector.
§ To link the youth with nature through first hand and practical understanding and
comprehension through experience. This hard earned knowledge etched in the
minds of these students will always help them in their life time to arrive at more
village and nature friendly decisions wherever they would be. Qualitative
decisions would emerge in the process.
§ Knowledge captured will be made available as “open source” to all.
§ NIF under its mandate will pursue the knowledge so captured for validation,
value addition and incubation ensuring the rights and benefits thereof to the
knowledge owners.
§ To organize a Nation building activity.
Among the many spin offs of the “Gyan Shodh”, mentoring of children by the
students has come as a pleasant surprise to us. While the students stayed in the village
for 2-3 days, children called them as “Anna or Akka” and build an emotional
relationship in that short duration. There were tearful farewells when the students left
the village finally. This emotional relationship built on a foundation of pure human
value of compassion can be up scaled and sustained for lifelong by communication
between the student and the child from village. Imagine a situation where, a bright
engineering student of this country mentors 2-3 children from the villages and shares
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Honeybee AP
his exposure and knowledge for years on a continuous basis. The change and the
growth will be immense, exponential and it would come silently.
The knowledge of the villages captured by the students during the Gyan Shodhs,
has a great potential when we place knowledge of entire 3.5 lakh villages on the internet
for free access. We feel that the growth of villages would be faster as their presence is
felt universally. There would not be any village which is not visited and its knowledge
captured and placed in open source for access by everyone. This is possible to achieve
in period of 5-7 years if the activity is scaled up and spread over the country with certain
intensity and passion. Creation and management of such data base would also result in
considerable employment.
If the duration of “Gyan Shodh” is kept longer, the students will also highlight
the appropriate technologies required by the villages. We can assign such technological
voids and needs to the Engineering colleges, research establishments, to incorporate
them in the specific development plans of the region etc. Provision of appropriate
technologies to each village will enhance the productivity of the Nation substantially as
it amounts to optimizing the effort and least utilization of resources at village level,
whichis not attempted by anyone now.
Honeybee AP is fully convinced that “Gyan Shodh’ can bring silent knowledge
revolution in the society by exposing the Nature and the villages to the young minds of
our country in a voluntary maner. We propose to conduct the ‘Gyan shodh” events in AP
through out the year for the college students. Support and resources are required to
pursue this mission form NIF and other Govt agencies.
We sincerely hope that our dream to build linkages between the young minds
and Nature, villages, and rural knowledge of this country will become true sooner than
later.
Sincerely yours
Brig P Ganesham, VSM (retd)

Coordinator, Honeybee AP
Hyderabad
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Honeybee AP
“GYAN SHODH”
SOCIAL INTERNSHIP
10th JUNE to 10th JULY -2009
Organised by:
National Innovation Foundation (NIF)
Conducted by:
Honeybee AP,
102 Vayupuri, post Sainikpuri, Secunderabad, 500094
Contact Persons:
Dr Vipin Kumar,
CIO, NIF cio@nifindia.org
Brig P Ganesham,
Coordinator, Honeybee AP,
honeybeeap@gmail.com, 09866001678
Location: Warangal, Kurnool and Visakhapatnam districts of

Andhra Pradesh
Duration: 10 June to 10 July 09
th th
Objective: To provide an opportunity for young engineering students to

interact with the rural environment, and create database pertaining to the
villages visited comprising of the creativity, traditional knowledge,
problems solved and unsolved and suggest approaches and solutions.
Areas of work:
l Scout Traditional Knowledge and Creativity
l Assess problems and offer solutions
l Record the unsolved problems and report to them to
Honeybee AP
l Record the solutions already found and explore the
possibility of their fine tuning/refinement
l Address drinking water and irrigation issues
l Examine the method of exploiting the local resources,
employment generation activity, use of horizontal
markets etc.
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Honeybee AP
Preservation and continuation of folklore, arts and dance.

l
Prepare Biodiversity
l
Observe the women and children related issues...

l
Focus on areas not addressed by Govt and other NGOs

l
Build database of potential projects for engineering,

l
agriculture and management students.

Familiarize the villagers about NIF and HBN
l
Broad Plan:
A group of three internees will spend three days in each village. They
then move on to another village. There will be a day in between for feedback
and discussion involving all groups. In three weeks, each group will cover
5-6 villages. It is likely that 10-15 internees are likely to participate in this
project.
We propose to spread the activity in three different parts of Andhra
Pradesh. Local NGOs, Govt organizations, and volunteers will support the
Project. An intensive pre-project survey will be carried out and based on
which detailed programme, and logistics will be finalized by Honeybee AP.
All participants have been asked to arrive at Warangal on 10 Jun FN.
Organizations Involved:
l NIT, Warangal
l ITDA
l Journalists in Warangal
l Local Volunteers
l Honeybee AP volunteers
Programme:
Date Activity Location

10 Jun Assemble and briefing Warangal
11-13 Jun Interaction with Villages Dist Warangal
14 Jun Feedback and discussion Warangal
15-17 Jun Interaction with villages Dist Warangal
19-21 Jun Interaction with villages Dist Warangal
23 Jun Move to other area and briefing Srisailam
24-26 Jun Interaction with villages Kurnool Dist
27 Jun Feedback and discussion Srisailam
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Honeybee AP
28-30 Jun Interaction with villages Kurnool Dist

01-02 Jul Feedback, discussion and Presentation Hyderabad
KIT TO BE BROUGHT BY INTERNEES
1. Necessary pairs of clothes (preferably 5 pairs)
2. Bed sheets (2)
3. Footwear preferably sandals/snickers (Flat bottoms)
4. Personal Medicines
5. Camera and voice recorder (Optional)
Contacts HONEYBEE A.P:

1. Brig. Ganesham - 98660 01678
2. P. Chandrakant Sharma - 93900 36900
3. Satish Reddy - 91772 57078
4. Shwetha - 96664 12347
5. Anush - 96660 76128
ABOUT YOURSELF
Name:
Address:
Emergency Contact Number:
College Details & ID no. :
Blood Group:
Allergic to:
Personal Skills:
How did u know about NIF:
Your expectations from GYAN SHODH:
Reflections after GYAN SHODH:
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Honeybee AP
A Journey Which We Wish Never

Ends..
- Tejaswini
Finally introducing to you the driving force behind us
Brigadier Ganesham Sir... He is the most dynamic and
inspirational personality one could
ever meet. One of the remarkable
features about him is that given a
situation, he critically analyzes it in
every possible direction and infers a great deal of
information from it. Every word from him is either from
experience or by his analysis...which greatly affects our
thought. One can gain an experience of years by
spending 2-3 days with him. Every moment spent with
him was enlightening.
And this is the whole team of pioneers who took
part in this Odyssey
Pratap, Meraj, me, Shanti, Pavan, Ram naresh, KP,KG(Rakesh, Venki,Bala, Jeshurun,
Joy, Subash and Tarun were missing)
Friday, August 14, 2009
The saga continues.....
Thus the whole conversation was like the narration of the telugu magnum opus, Pathala
Bhairavi, the yester years sci-fi movie and we were in a confused state of mind about what to
believe and what not to believe.
On 13 of June, we were back to NIT Warangal and all the teams shared their experiences.
th
All of us faced more or less similar kind of funny and cryptic incidents. The next day we had a
feedback session with Ganesham sir analyzing our pastoral experiences.
15 morning, we continued our mission touring the next set of villages around Mulugu
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namely, Kamalapuram, Bussapuram, Jangalapalli and Kasimdevpet of which we were assigned

Kamalapuram, an agency area farthest from Warangal. Our accommodation was in the house
owned by a woman,Jaya Lakshmi.
We can call her the Mother Theresa of Kamalapuram. She runs an NGO named Shakti
Seva Society that basically works for women empowerment and eradication of child labour. The
NGO has adopted about 20 villages and initiated about 30 SHG’s around Kamalapuram. It has
eradicated child labour to a large extent, and there a lot of poverty alleviation done through well
designed and coordinated social programmes that has brought down unemployment drastically in
this area.
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Honeybee AP
Moved by the pathetic condition of the adivasis in their village and with the burning
desire to stand on her own feet, has started this NGO. She is an altruistic and selfless woman who
relentlessly works for the betterment of the rural society . She runs a rural bridge camp for school
dropouts providing quality education and inculcating good conduct.
Fine, let’s get back to our adventure. As the places we had to visit here were quite far from
Kamalapuram, Jaya Ma’am gave us her bike on which me and Meraj rode. (I never rode a bike
past my neighbourhood :P and now riding doubles, on a main road at 40-60Km was a scary thing
to me. But I shrugged off my fear instilling confidence myself saying, come on Teju not a big
deal…you can easily do it.) We were accompanied by Bhaskar sir, (Pavan was the pillion rider on
his bike) who is an employee of SSS.
This is the temple of Adhivasis

The first place we visited was Thondiyala, 15 km from Kamalapuram. The village is the
home to adivasis named Koyas (tribal community). Here, we find no house made up of bricks and
mortar. You only find thatched roofs made up of mud and wood. We met a tribesman named
Kanthayya here. Till this day, we find very few people from scheduled tribes who have
completed their graduation. It is his sheer persistence that enabled him to complete matriculation
in those days of Nizam’s rule when it was a rarity to find a school in your vicinity. He has excellent
grasping power. He explained us very vividly about the traditional agricultural practices and the
culture they followed. Though we are in our early 20’s, the inertia in us always dominates the
agile nature but, it was different with this octogenarian, he had the nimbleness of a young kid and
moved around so quickly showing us the artifacts of his days. He explained us the preparation of
Ambali and Gattika (staple food of the tribals made primarily from corn and barley) in great detail
and he demonstrated the preparation of oil manually. He was a shrewd interpreter too. His
mellow wisdom was quite influencing. He said, “Don’t go just by words children…take the
opinion of others also and analyze, test and confirm the information u get before u proceed to do
anything”. Aah! I thought this person is a masterpiece.
Malluri Ghutta
Our next visit was to Malluri Ghutta , a

small hillock. I had a wish to go to Tirupathi on a
bike. Somehow my wish was partially fulfilled
through the uphill bike trip to Malluri Ghutta. It is
situated in the midst of a dense forest and has a
temple of Lakhshmi Narasimha Swami. The priest
in the temple narrated to us the story behind it.
Legend has it that a king named Dilip Karna in
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Honeybee AP
200A.D got a dream in which Narasimha Swami asked him to construct a temple for him. In the
similar way he told us a mythical story behind the incarnation of other Gods too.
It was an amazing experience going around the forest relishing in the verdant greens. It
was so dense and beautiful, completely covered by branches, climbers, roots and trunks of big
trees and they don’t even allow a single ray of sunlight to enter. We saw a tree trunk which has a
circumference of 8m. And there was a small stream of water called Chinthamani. It is considered
as a stream of great medicinal value as it flows down the mountains that are a repository of several
herbal plants. We were not sure of all those, but the water was so tasty and our taste buds tempted
us in going back to stream again and again to savour the elixir of life.
While returning we were very happy and thought every student has to surely go for such an
internship. I felt this job to be more exciting than being just a traveler, more charged up than being
a journalist and more knowledgeful than being a scholar. It was an experience that has made us
aware of the plight the rural India faces and also about the diminishing culture of the ancient India.
Conversing about all this with Meraj, I saw the speedometer and said, “Wooh…we are travelling
at 60..65..and 70 km/hr.” For boys crossing 120km/hr is a great thrill but, for me crossing 60km/hr
itself was an achievement.
That evening was one of the best remembered and treasured one of our lives. We went to a
place named Regula Gudem, nestled in the thick forest, 5km from kamalapuram. There is no road
connectivity to this place and we set on an adventure into an unknown territory!!! I will put down
the verses of a beautiful poem by a friend regarding this journey…
BhanuTejudu Bhaggumantunna,
Karumegalu Kammukosthunna,
KatikaCheekati alamukontunna,
Kaalasarpalu tirugutuntunna,
Kaaru adavilo saagina ee sahasa yatra..
Vesindhi ee jeevithaniki o cheraganimudra..
It was an eloquent sonnet. Anyways this wasn’t by me… Ok..Let’s continue with our
adventure:
We drove on a Hero Honda and a Honda City and unfortunately half of our time went into
dragging them in the sandy road. It was a very narrow road, sufficient for a bullock cart to travel
and if we skid off the road, it would take 10 min to lift both of them and travel. And we slipped
around 50 times in our to and fro journey.And a more horrifying thing was that the place is
inhabited by a lot of snakes. It was a harrowing experience we would soon like to forget.
Regula Gudam
After the painful

struggle we reached our
destination - Regula
Gudam. It’s a tiny village
consisting 38 families in it.
While thinking about the
unwholesome experience,
it started raining. Adding to
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Honeybee AP
our woes was the fact that the village has no electricity. We were afraid and confused about how
we would return. But, soon all those worldly pains subsided and we started our job of interacting
with people knowing about their culture, tradition, food, livelihood and medicinal practices.
These people rely on hunting and the 170 acres land distributed by the government to grow food
crops. (but the downside is that they don’t even know how to cultivate properly). There is one
small govt school in the community and a tube well was constructed by Jayalakhmi Aunty with
her own interest.
We looked outside and the rain hasn’t
stopped yet. We feared we would have to stay the
whole night there. They offered to play hosts for
the night serving us their local delicacies,
consisting of the just hunted wild boar :).The very
thought of it sent my head spinning ,and we
politely refused. Their hospitality was very
pleasing though.
People over
here are so
innocent and
primitive, you
w i l l g e t
reminded of
Early Man
s e e i n g
them.The women here wear a lungi and a jacket. And they
don’t have access to basic medical care. Two kids succumbed
to snake bite due to the inadequate medical facilities and they
couldn’t even take them to a nearby doctor as they don’t have
any transport facilities. SSS and government officials urge the
locals to migrate to nearby cities and the government has
promised to provide housing for them under the state
government’s housing welfare scheme ( Indiramma Illu
Pathakam). But none of them is ready to leave the forest land
they are accustomed to and would want to find subsistence in
their own forest with better government oversight in
providing better education, health care and empowerment.
What do you infer from this, Friends?? I think this issue
qualifies for an interesting conversation that can lead to some
purposeful initiatives for this ignorant people.
The rain receded… And we made our return journey. We were involved in similar exotic
activities, this time in darkness.Even if we stumbled across a snake we would never know.
Somehow our adventure was a pleasant success as we came back alive :P
This was a saga where in we embarked on an unprepared and aimless journey identifying
our aspirations and dreams and to an extent were able to realize some of them with some
impressive deeds.
Do drop in your valuable comments …….
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Knowledge is a journey. And our journey in search of knowledge was not to libraries,
labs, etc but to villages where scarcity and poverty lies.“Scarcity is the mother of invention”
and “Poverty doesn’t make a person uncreative” Our journey was following these principles.
Fourteen of us reached NIT Warangal on June 10 and we had an orientation session with National
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Honeybee AP
Innovation Foundation, Honey network about the kind of work we would be doing in the villages
by Brig. D Ganesham Sir (Honey network AP co-ordinator).We were shown videos of the many
ideas incubated by villagers.
Want to have a look at the rural innovations- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_ho7xhgWV8
We were then divided into 5 groups and sent to 5 villages around Thorrur mandal namely Dubba
Thanda , Hachu Thanda, Chityala, Chinna Vangara and Madipalli. We had to stay for 3 days in our
respective villages exploring them.
P.S: Thanda is nothing but a community or a small hamlet.
Myself, Meraj and Pavan went to Dhubba Thanda and were received by a warm welcome by
Mani, son of a librarian and got accommodated in the same library for 3 days.
The first day we were looked upon like foreigners in the village and everybody were staring at us.
We went around the Thanda, enquired few details, came back, read the newspapers in the library
and slept. With the help of Mani, we befriended several kids in the village. Mani, this boy has just
completed 10 standard but, you must get to know him to understand how mature and intelligent
th
he is. He has got the brains which we seldom find even with a sane graduate. Regarding his
communication skills, this chap can persuade and win even Anil Ambani in just 10 good minutes.
We conducted a small biodiversity competition for the kids to collect different varieties of plant
species and to narrate their uses.
Here is Mani,Pavan,kishore
We met Mani’s grandfather named Somaji who is well above 90 years. You can call him as
the Nelson Mandela for this Thanda. He studied till 4th standard in those hard old days of Nizam’s
rule. This person fought with the tyranny of the Nizam’s and distributed 300 acres of land to all the
people in his community who rightly deserved the entitlement to the land. To this day, everyone in
the Thanda praises his selflessness and shower utmost respect on him. We learnt from him and few
other elders about the tradition and culture of Lambadi’s.
This is Somaji and his Wife.
It was eccentric to get to know that their marriages

used to take place for 6 long months. And their marriage
tradition is quite interesting and hysterical. It seems
during the engagement the bridegroom is bet by the
bride’s brother four times at the same place. And the
bridegroom has to stand till his father in law asks him to
sit. Finally the bride is sent along with him after 6 long
months on a cow. Girls what do you say???...Kaash...:P
...the tradition should have continued everywhere. Right?
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Honeybee AP
13 June, it was the last day in the

th
Thanda and we were very much disappointed

that we couldn’t gain substantial information, or
find any viable innovations or herbal medicines.
That afternoon we met a person named Vinay
Kumar. This bloke is an all rounder. He is a
teacher, businessman (real estate and hotel
business), innovator, Ayurvedic Doctor and an
expert at Yoga.We sat with him for 2 hours. And
the whole conversation was rather more
interesting than a movie,that our focus
remained undiminished listening to him.
Unfortunately we forgot to get a recorder the
same day. I will narrate u the highlights of the
conversation that took place:
It seems his grandfather learnt this cryptic art and dedicated his whole life and wealth
trying to convert Copper to Gold. Finally he made it, but met an untimely death without revealing
the alchemy he mastered. This person is now continuing the same job reading the books written
by his grandfather trying to unravel the intriguing art. He said it took him 25 days to read one
page. He also made it a point to mention centuries old ayurvedic treatments which included
healing a person who has suffered cardiac arrest. It goes like this–
Ø A heart attack patient should be made to sit in blistering sun. Take two lemons and
extract some juice and inject required quantity of mercury into it according the
height of the person and place them in front him. He said the lemons would fly up to
his chest and dance till the heart attack is cured.
It’s true that mercury becomes volatile in the hot sun hence, the lemons fly but the
concept of curing heart attack this way was something we couldn’t understand and
left us with lingering doubts.
Ø To a person who consumed poison, a small drop of ingalikam powder when kept on
his tongue would throw up everything present in his stomach and make him fine.
And the list of primitive ways of finding the cure for every illness and health related
complications is unending. He said all these ayurvedic plants, saints, etc are present in Srisailam
forests. He also told about an interesting climber named thippudu thigalu (swirling creeper). It
appears that once if our feet touch them, we will roam around the forest for 15 days without
knowing ourselves. In between he said, “If you are interested to talk to a soul I can make it
possible. Are you ready?” We didn’t have any answer. Suddenly we shivered for a while and it
took a while for us to shed the fear. All this would seem as sheer superstition and we may find no
good enough a reason to believe in it.
He said every person has an aura surrounding him which tells his nature and he also told
pavan that if he took bath and did meditation for sometime he could tell pavan’ s future too. Poor
Pavan, he said he didn’t want to know. He told us that there is some kajal (the same one which we
see on the eyes of katikaparlu) when applied to the eyes we can scan everything i.e., the land, the
past and future of a person, etc. Once he had unearthed the treasure which lied in the underground
of a person’s house. And it was no surprise that he works for the archeology department. Finally,
while leaving as we took his phone number in a book, he said that the book wouldn’t reach its final
destination. We didn’t understand and went away bewildered. Then he called me back and asked
if my defective eyesight was 6.5. I said its 8. He suggested me some herbal medicine. Of course,
he poured out suggestions on how Meraj and Pavan should grow fat.
I don’t know what’s running in your minds now friends..But after the whole conversation,
I was bit excited and felt like visiting Srisailem and the forests over there once.
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Honeybee AP
A cliché that all you people have been repeatedly hearing-This is my first blog. I had been
wishing to write one from long time. Finally, the day has beckoned...
I am doing B.Tech, 3 year in Bits-pilani. From my first year, I always aspired to do an
rd
enterprising internship that would match my career interests. So as intended, I applied to many
prestigious institutes like IISc, E4SI, ISB, IIIT, IIM A and also a few start up companies. And a
day arrived when I was left with much disappointment for I was deprived of a positive reply from
everyone. But much to my amusement and surprise, I received 2 mails the same night, one from
Anil Gupta Sir, (IIM A) blessing me with an opportunity to do a social internship in Andhra
Pradesh villages with a motive to uplift the grass root innovators (www.sristi.org) and he said I
can also include my friends in this great initiative. The other one was from a start up firm named
Daily Dump which was ready to provide an internship with a stipend of Rs.6000 and the task was
to market their products in the nearby villages.
Now I had to choose…
My friends and my mind said, “Teju, enough of social service till now. Concentrate on
your career.” Whereas my heart said, “Teju com’n working in villages where the real and exotic
India lies, uplifting grass root innovators sounds like a more exciting job than marketing some
mundane products. And as Sir was willing to allow my friends to partner me in my social
initiative, I sensed an amazing chance for our juniors to get well acquainted with the knowhow of
the social conscience and this experience would help them in understanding the villagers and the
way to go about dealing with them.
Akash(President, Nirmaan) and my friend, Bala Phani Chand appreciated my idea and
encouraged me. Somehow I managed to convince 13 of my juniors and friends for the internship
with the help of many. But the dismal thing was the fact that I was the only girl among them. As the
project was conceived by me, I had to start even though my father was not interested to send. The
day before I called my intermediate friend, Meraj and mentioned about the internship and she said
she would love to join me. Thus started the odyssey….
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Honeybee AP
A Report on
“Kamalapuram Village Knowledge”
Thorrur mandal, Warangal District, Andhra Pradesh.
GYAN SHODH
By
Poluri Tejaswini
Pavan Kumar Reddy
Meraj Sulthana
In partial fulfillment of “Social Internship” organized by NIF, Conducted by HoneybeeAP.
15 June-17 June
Warangal District
KAMALAPURAM:
We reached this place around 1.30 pm. People here believe that the first Lotus was born
here and hence named it as Kamalapuram. This is an agency area and has a huge paper factory
named BILT which is 40 years old. We resided in Jaya Lakshmi’ s house who is running an NGO
named Sakthi Seva Society which works on Women Empowerment. She also runs a Rural Bridge
Camp where in the drop outs are collected and trained in 10 months to reach their main stream
education.
We have also met a reputed Ayurvedic Doctor named Dr.G.Devayya who discussed the
following medicinal practices:?
l Leaches are used to remove the toxic blood present in few parts are swollen.
l The leaves of Nalleda plant are put in fire and the ash formed is mixed with honey and
pippadlu and made into s hen eaten would decrease the fat content.
l Alovera Paste+ Jilakara+ Sugar =reduces the heat present in the body
l The juice of Saraswathi and Guntagalijara Leaves are mixed with 2kg cow milk, 1 kg custard
oil changes white hair to black hair.
l Duppikomma is rubbed against against a stone,the powder thus obtained is used for head
ache.
l The seeds of Dry chillies+coconut oil is also used for curing head ache.
l Jaggery+1/4th kg goduma ravva +100gm ghee are boiled together and should be taken early
in the morning to cure migraine.
l Vasaki(addasara)- leaves of this plant +sonti+voma+pippadlu should be grinded and the
mixture should be taken for curing fever.
l Leaves of Gadda garugu +oil is used for decreasing swelling.
l Pickle of Nela usiri is used for curing jaundice.
l 20g sulphur+10 g mercury +oil should be applied like body lotion around 4pm to cure skin
diseases.
l Erra galijara (punarnava) –curry of this is used to solve for indigestion problem.
l The stems of chitra mulam are used for blood cleaning.
l Panchathikta guggulu + Aarogya Vardhini(usiri)- used for curing pimples.
l The seeds of Bhavanchi are dried +cows toilet is used for treating Leprasy.
l The juice of Nelamulka fruits will solve bald head problem.
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Fruits of Alla neredi, pickle of elaka fruits should be used for stopping motions
l
Dried mixture of Karaka, usirikaya, thanikaya and thati bhellam when applied to body would
l
help in reducing Fat and curing Piles
lCofee Powder- Vasaki flower+roots of sugandhapala + rose flowers+ thangedi
flowers+dhaniyalu+shonti(all in equal proportions)
lThippathiga + 10gms honey should be taken to cure the fever of small kids
lShonti+voma+jilakara+ dhaniyalu+pippadlu+lavangalu(all in equal proportions) when
taken after lunch would cure the Gas Trouble problem.
lCurry of Ponnaganti is used for decreasing the eye sight problem.
lThe juice of Thulasi+Vavila leaves should be taken into the nose. Then the water deposited in
the brain comes out of the nose
lThe Leaves of uthareni plant+ neem +bharenka plant+pogaku kattelu are fired and the ash
formed is mixed with pacha karpuram+pippadlu+lavangalu+yalukalu. This helps to cure
bleeding from the gums.
lScorpion Bite- the juice of uthareni leaves is applied and then a cotton cloth is fired and
should kept on the place of injury.
lThe juice of kondapindi leaves is used to destroy stones inside the stomach.
l(1/2kg pachijonnalu+1/2 kg wheat+1/2kg ragulu) are tied and soaked in water. The
germinated seeds are dried and grinded. This when taken would cure Sugar problem
lAasthma- 10gms shonti+20gms pippadlu+5gms jajikaya+ 5gms japathri+2gms
miriyalu+10gms voma+1 karakkaya.This mixture is grinded and honey is added and made
into small balls and taken regularly.
lNathi thaggadaniki: vasa+bolatharam+saraswathi leaf should be grinded and taken both
mornings and evenings.
lTo decrease the bad smell from the mouth: pachakarpuram+jajikaya japatri+
kumkumpuvvu+ pippadlu + dried grapes should be grinded and taken in the form of small
balls.
Few medicinal plants found during Biodiversity competition are:

1. The juice of Munaga leaves when given to cattle reduces their stomach ache.
2. The stem of Juvvi tree will help in water purification
We visited 4 places around Kamalapuram namely Thondiyala, Malleru Gutta,
Regulagoodam and Oriya Colony
Thondiyala:
This place which is 8km from Kamalapuram is a typical village where in all the houses are
made up of just mud and wood. These schedule tribes called adhivasulu still practice the age old
traditions in all walks of their life like storing the grains in a container called Ghumma . We met a
person named Kanthayya who is the oldest learned man. He was born in 1935 and had studied till
6th class in those days of Nizam’s rule. They used to cultivated crops like Jonnalu, Sajjalu.
Explaining about the then agricultural practices
l Few pest repellants he mentioned are Kodise rotte(stem) ,Vishamushti which are mixed in
irrigation water.
l Another interested plant called Eama rottaku which is tied to the wooden sticks and are rooted
at four corners of the field. The air which flows into the field comes in contact with the leaves
of this plant and acquires a special characteristic of destroying the pests inside the field.
l The stems of Booriga Tree are used for making baskets as it has light weight and is strong.
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Ippa Flowers
l are used for preparing alcohol and are given as prasadham in Bhadrachalam.
Ippa seeds are used for preparing oil which is used for cooking, lightening and for hair.
He also mentioned the procedure
Few medicinal plants he mentioned are
lJeedi seeds are heated and the acid that comes out is applied to cure the wounds.
lThe juice of Guntagarida leaves when put on the forehead relieves headache.
lDog bite is treated using Uduguchattu.
Festivals:
Vithu pandaga: Celebrated just before planting the seeds, praying to their goddess
Sammaka-Sarakka for the prosperity of their agriculture.
Pachha pandaga: Celebrated by thanking their god for a good beginning of their
agriculture.
Problems:
Briefing their problems they told that they have no good transportation, education ,health
facilities. Despite having sufficient underground water resources they rely mostly on rain water
as they could not afford for digging bores.
Mallurigutta:
This is a hilly area as the name itself indicates, located 10 kms from Kamalapuram.
Lakshmi Narasimha Swami temple is located on the top of this Hemalaya hill, amidst a thick
forest which occupies around 5km radius. The priest of the temple narrated the story behind the
establishment of it.
The story is as follows:

During 2nd century B.C. a king named Dilipakarni conquered this place and he resided
along with his army. One night he heard a voice in his sleep which ordered him to stop conquering
places and killing people and asked him to dig the mountain at a place where bright light appears
at Brahma Muhurtham to find him (Lakshmi Narasimha swami). Thus the temple was established
and is believed that the problems of the people who come over there would be solved. Situated at
the beginning of the temple and inside the forest there is small water flow which comes from
mountains. This water is said to be pure and cures all the diseases as it crosses the roots of many
herbal plants. Also this temple has a board which explains the list of all herbal plants that could be
found in the forest.
RegulaGudam:
This is a small village with around 38 families located 5km from kamalapuram. These
Adhivasis had migrated from Chattisgadh forest and are called RasaKoyas. Their language is
called Gondi. They rely mostly on the forest for food. They go for hunting animals like Rabits,
dhuppalu, forest pigs, udumulu (they catch these with the help of wild dogs), deers with the help
of bow and arrow.They use the stem of kanuga trees for brushing. The women over here wear
lungis instead of sarees. And the marriage here takes place without any dowry. The festivals they
celebrate here are Kothala Pandaga and Ginjala Pandaga and they worship goddess called
Muthyalamma.
This small village has a school named Alter Little School and the villagers here have
around 187 acres of land which they cultivate and consume among themselves. They have only
one well from where they get the drinking water. They rely on rain water for their irrigation.
During summer they don’t find any work and thus find it difficult for their livelihood. And this
village has absolutely no electricity and transportation facilities. Despite of all these problems
they are reluctant to come from this place.
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Oriya Colony:
This colony is in the town itself. These people have migrated from Chattisgadh in 1977 for
some labour work. Since then most of them settled here and became accustomed with Hindu
Culture and traditions. Few interesting practices they follow are: Before every Dasara they cut the
trunk of burugu tree in the forest and get it to the village without putting it down anywhere. They
hope this tree would bring prosperity in their lives. And the temple they have doesn’t contain any
statues but has only paintings of gods and goddesses.
Village Visited: Dubba Tanda
Period of the Project: 11 - 13 June 2009.
DUBBA THANDA:
This village is 2km from Thorrur and 55 km from Warangal. It consists of Lambadas who
migrated from suryapet 100 years before. Somaji, a 85year old person is the founder of this
Thanda. He studied till 4th class in those days of Nizams rule. This person fought with Nizams
and distributed 300 acres of land to all his people. Thus even today everyone in the Thanda praises
his selflessness and gives him utmost respect.
The marriage of Lambadas used to take place for around 6 months. They celebrate 4 festivals in
between
1. Vayubhandhe- The bridegroom is made to sit and take bath amidst 4 pots which are put in
4 corners of the house.
2. Ghota: Panakam is made and distributed to the whole village
3. Ghot: During this festival a sheep is sacrificed in the name of God and the meat is
distributed to all families in the village.
4. Finally the bride is sent to the mother in law’s house on a cow.
The following are the festivals they celebrate:

1. Panidhadhi: This is the biggest festival they celebrate. Whole villagers fix a date every 3
years and celebrate this festival.
2. Seethala: During this festival animals are made to cross a tree under which 7 stones are
put. Thus they believe that their cattle would be healthy.
3. Bathakamma:This is a 9 day festival during which wheat seeds are germinated and the
finally left into the lakes. They celebrate this for the prosperity of their fields.
Dress: The Lambadas have a typical dress. Of course most of them are not wearing this
dress these days.
Bangles: These bangles are made up of ivory. During marriage the bangles worn on the
forearm are shifted to the upper arm and new bangles are worn again on the forearm. The
bangles worn on the upper arm would be removed if her husband dies.
Chunni: This is beautifully decorated with mirrors all around and these mirrors will be
removed if her husband expires.
Kadiyam : This is worn during marriage to the right leg of the bride.
They also have typical ornaments which are made up of gold, copper and silver. Also most
of the scheduled tribes put designs on their skin with pachabottu which is a kind of style
for them.
On the last day we met an interesting person named Vinay Kumar. This person does real
estate business, hotel business; he is a teacher and also an expert in Ayurvedham.
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These are few interesting things he mentioned with us:

1. For body pains to be cured vamu should be heated and mixed with honey and should be
applied.
2. Right leg/Hand Paralysis: Juice of pillade leaves should be applied.
3. Left leg/hand Paralysis: Juice of Ekapeeta (this tree grows under jilledi tree)stem should
be applied.
4. For a person who took poison a small drop of ingalikam powder when kept on this
tongue would oust everything present in his stomach.
5. For kids who always cry for food- he said there will be few insects which eat away the
food given to the kid and these can be removed by applying the juice of somidi leaves like
oil. Then pour water on his body from 10 m and we can see the insects coming out of the
kid’s body.
He also mentioned about a small innovation which was exhibited during science fair
by his children. And that is:
A copper wire is to be wound to an iron pulley and during one pull of the pulley we
can generate electricity that can be stored and used for 2-3 hours.
We have also conducted a bio diversity competition and had good response from the children in
the village. The following are few medicinal plants we heard about:
1. Body pains-Adavi vankayalu or jilledi milk
2. For black hair-Cows toilet or mudhamandaram leaves
3. For Sugar-Usiri kaya+Honey
4. For allergy- juice of pamodia leaves should be applied.
5. To control water from ox’s eye valasya leaves juice is used.
6. Fracture- Modhuga leaves juice is to be applied.
7. Goru chittu- milk from salendra leaves is to be applied.
8. Neredi fruits will help to melt the stones present in the kidneys.
9. For any cattle diseases usually indragadda leaves juice is applied.
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GYAN SHODH
2 Honeybee AP
A Report on
“Chityala Village Knowledge”
GYAN SHODH
By
Patnaik Shanthi kiran
Vemuri Krishna Pavan
Salla Ram Naresh
In partial fulfillment of “Social Internship” organized by NIF, Conducted by HoneybeeAP.
10 June-19 June
Warangal District
1. INTRODUCTION
Gyan shodh, a social internship organized by NIF, conducted by HoneybeeAP from 10 th
June to 19 June, created a platform for us to gain very immense and precious knowledge hidden in
th
villages. We, the engineering students of BITS-Pilani collected such knowledge which helps NIF
to create a database of village knowledge and find solutions to some of the problems faced by
villagers.
I Patnaik shanthikiran along with Krishna Pavan and Ram Naresh were allotted Chityala
village (vaddikotthepalli, thorrur mandal) to know the village knowledge. It took 3 days to scan
and get to know some important practices in the village which were about to fade from this village
life.
Chityala is a village with a population of more than 2,500 with 2000 voters including 800
sc/st’s with one Zilla Praja Parishad school, the only educational centre of this village. This village
is beautifully surrounded by agricultural lands and two rivers on both sides (east and west) to
quench the thirst of farming lands. The major practice for survival here is Agriculture but the
village is famous for the traditional medical practices and especially for treating sexual issues like
impotency, STD’s etc.
2. Traditional Practices
Most of the traditional practices of this village are Medical Practices and then comes the
agricultural practices and some cultural practices. Almost all the recordings are done from the
very old people of the village and this work really made us happy as the knowledge that we have
collected from them would have got extinct if we would not have recorded and the happiness is
because the purpose of our stay at chityala is solved.
2.1 MEDICAL PRACTICES
1. Baalinthalaku:[Given by Avula Somakka]
Elthuru, thogara madhuvu, gummudu chakka, chennangi, uppu chakka all should be
mixed ,boiled,crushed and juice is extracted from it. This helps them in avoiding non-functioning
of limbs.
Later pipperlu, vayumaralu, kakkeroni, manchi miryalu, sonthi, modi, suthikaaya
maathara, baironi, chinthamani should be mixed and powder of 5mg shoulg be taken in the
morning and night everyday.
Diet: kandipappu, chinthakaaya, tomato etc should be used.
Ellipaaya kaaram should be used with rice and godhuma rotte. Avoid oil and use Ghee if
necessary.
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If Baalintharaalu gets fever: Dhumpa raastham chakka should be rubbed against stone and
juice is taken. Palugu stone is heated and put in this juice and allow it to boil.This juice when taken
orally causes vomiting/motions by cleaning stomach and thus reduces fever.
2. Fever, Cold and Cough:[Given by Ravula ShashiRekha]
Vaamu, turmeric, salt, nalla vusiri, china paapidi veru, mulkeru should be powdered,
dried and stored in bottles.
Dosage: morning 5gm
For High fever: Nalla mulkeru puvvulu, Thimmeru puvvulu should be taken and juice is
extracted by crushing them in cloth. This is mixed with nalla usiri veru, china papideru, karkaya,
turmeric and salt.
3. Impotency:[Given by Rapolu Raghavulu]
Marri chettu vudalu should be taken and take ash of it and mix with singapuri
vudi(strike against stone and collect juice). This is filtered and mixed in Naatu saara (liquor).
This functions like ozomen. Also use Nalla vusiri, salt, turmeric powder and all should be mixed
and made like tablets. Use this for 7 days( morning, afternoon and night).
4. Kamerlu:
A) Paccha kamerlu: take 10 leaves of Bitterguard, 1/4 thulam of jilakarra and make juice out
th
of it. Use 20-30 gm of water. This should be filtered and taken weekly once( should not be
stored)
Diet:
1 day: vari, paccha jonna rotte, kudumu etc
st
2 day: ellipaya kaaram can be used

nd
3 day: kandipappu, ellipaayakaaram, pappuchaaru, bitterguard, tomato, etc should be

rd
used.
B) Ubbu Kamerlu: The process is same like the above but use aamadaala leaves instead of
kaakarakaya leaves.
C) Katte kaamarlu:
Symptoms: fever at nights, body becomes thin and dry, no aakali.
Any of the above two treatments can be used.
5. For free Urine ( remove pain and burning sensation)
Hamsapaada leaf ( also called cheppa thatta leaf) juice should be extracted, add sugar and
take 20gms of the mixture orally.
Dosage: daily morning for 3 days.
6. Vaapu rogam:
Gunta galjeru leaf, all parts of neela gurimidi plant in equal proportions should be boiled
in water, mix pothu thatigola ash and drink.
Mix some of this liquid in bathing water also .
7. Female muttushula(bayisthayye mundhu ocche noppi):
Gadidha ganapaku should be dried in shade, extract juice from it, take half tea spoon of
this liquid and add 5gm of salt.
Kaaki donda gadda (root) should be dried and powdered. Mix this powder in milk and take
in the morning orally.
Leaves of Paathala bhairavi tree should be crushed and mixed with water to make it like a
bread piece, add sugar and take 3 times daily.
Diet: leafy vegetables,salt and mirchi should be taken less, ganji vanchani annam for 3
days.
8. Breathing problems:
Salt,nadella and vomu are mixed and extract juice from it.Take this liquid orally.
9. Ganeria:
Hamsapaada leaf should be finely crushed and that juice is boiled with red hot palugu
stone.This liquid is iltered and take orally for 3 days. use it in the early mornings (padakadupuna)
Also, take karkaaya beradu powder(after removing seeds) and add karpooram powder. Apply this
mixture to penis and let it free for air.
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10. Female kusuma rogaalu:

White guggilam should be finely crushed and juice is boiled till the foam is removed seven
times (7 times pongaali).Take this liquid and add navabothu ( patiki bellam) powder in it.
Also, crush roots of pindi poola tree and boil it with red hot palugu stone and take orally for 3 days.
And boil muduru vepa chettu till it becomes red and store it in matti gariga.add sugar for taste and
take orally for 3 days.
11. Vedi chesthe:
Mosaambaru (3 thula), nalla bellam (3 thula) should be mixed and use this paste like tablets in the
morning, afternoon and in the evening.
(should not take tamota,brinjal,spinach,chicken,fish,mangoes etc)
12. Paralysis:
Gorita leaves or Ganuga leaves (0.25kg) should be crushed finely and add (0.5 kg) of nuvvula
nune and boil. After allowing it to cool filter and massage body with it 3 time a day.
13. Impotency treatment:
Marati moggalu, dhumpa raastam, kalinga raastam, naaga kesaraalu, gorojanam, kumkuma
puvvu and jaajikaaya should be taken in equal proportions, crush and mix it in honey and prepare
like a black paste and use 3 times a day.
Orally take ginger paste (50gms) early in the morning (padakadupuna)
Take naanapettina manchi sanagalu in mornings and evenings daily.
14. Scorpion bite:
The jeebili (gulumu) of buffalo should be applied on the place where scorpion bites.
2.2 TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES

1.MOTA: Used in villages for getting water from wells for agricultural practices. Photographs are
available.
2.YETHAM: Used for getting water from well with less effort.Photograph available
3.CRUSHER: Used to crush any agricultural produce to use it for home purposes.
The photographs are with R.Venkat Ranga Reddy and working can be obtained from R.Srinivas
reddy of chityala village.
3. BIODIVERSITY COMPETITION
A competition was held at Zilla Praja Parishad School of chityala village for 8 ,9 and 10
th th th
class students in which students are asked to collect as many number of herbs as they can and
explain atleast one of its importance. A variety of leaves are obtained and finally prizes (sketch pen
sets) are given to the winners. The leaves are as follows:
1. raale tree leaves : chaluva
2. raale flowers: Chaluva
3. Mulka kaaya: All breathing problems
4. Gunta Galjeru: Boiled with oil and applied to hair for strong and black hair
5. Jilledu: to easily remove thorns from body and also apply(along with nuvvula nune) to limbs
to remove pains
6. Utthareni : boil this in nuvvula nune and apply externally to belly to reduce the size.(Borra
thagguthundi)
7. Karamanda (aloe vera): take the paste (present inside the leaf),add sugar and take orally to
control the blood flow of menstrual cycle) Take this for $! Days early in the morning.
8. Picchaaku: apply the crushed leaf for limb dislocation and pains.( kaalu vaapu and
benakadam)
9. Malle / Ganneru: Apply the milk of this leaf near the Bulged cheeks ( champa gaddalu)
10. Banthi ( marigold) : applied for bee bites.
4. RECIPE CONTEST
An old lady of above 70 yrs named Punagujju Laxmi, a great devotee of Lord Rama, actively
participated in this contest and won the prize (tiffin box) for her two pickles which were in use
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some 30 years back.

1. Raale puvvu pickle
2. Budda gaashe pickle
These pickles were really tasty and have some good medicinal values. Most important
point to be noted here was that she fed those pickles and food for us with her hands.
5. SANMAAN
As a token of appreciation, a shalw is given to Rapolu Raghavulu, an elderly man with
medicine as his profession.Though many people in the village co-operated and gave valuable
suggestions and practices, we chose him because of his habit of sharing knowledge with the
society just for the sake of survival of the knowledge and not for his own, also the main theme of
our project.His saying “Naatho idantha pokunda janaalaki upayogapadala” impressed us a lot.He
said he is also in search of people like us to record his knowledge without getting faded out along
with time. It is really fortunate that we went to him in his very old age and almost forgetting
everything.Out of all the people we met in this village Raghavulu deserves more than this
appreciation and so we did.
6. VILLAGE KNOWLEDGE REGISTER

To record all the other practices that we could not cover in three days and also to make a
note of any new innovations in the village, a register is kept with Village Administrative Officer.
This will definitely help our purpose and let us know the information about many such
unexplored things in the village .
7. IMPORTANT CONTACTS IN THE VILLAGE

1. R.SUDHAKAR REDDY (M.A) –PROVIDED US WITH FOOD AND ACCOMODATION
2. R.VAENKAT RANGA REDDY (M.D) –FOR ALL TYPES OF VILLAGE VIDEOS,
PHOTOGRAPHS AND OTHER COLLECTIONS MADE OUT OF HIS OWN
INTEREST
3. R.THIRUMAL REDDY (M.S) FOR MODERN AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES
4. R.SRINIVAS REDDY—FOR ALL TRADITIONAL AND OTHER OLD
AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES
5. NARASIMHA RAO—VILLAGE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER TO WHOM OUR
REGISTER IS HANDED OVER
6. DASARI NARAYANA—TREATS BONE FRACTURES
7. THANDA MALLAIH—TRADITIONAL MEDICAL PRACTITIONER, FAMOUS IN
MANY VILLAGES FOR SEX RELATED TREATMENTS
8. KANDULA SOMAIH—IMPOTENCY TREATMENT AND SEX SPECIALIST
9. AKUTHOTA CHANDRAIH—ANIMAL AND HUMAN BONE FRACTURE
TREATMENT
10. EEDURU MATTHAIH—VETERNARY DOCTOR
11. RAPOLU RAGHAVULU—AYURVEDA RMP (FAMILY TRADITION)
12. PUNUGUJJA LAXMI—RECIPE SPECIALIST
8. INFORMATION OF OTHER NEARBY VILLAGES

Madi palli (thorru mandal): treatment during 2 month of pregnancy for a male birth
nd
(100% results)
Annaaram Sharif village : Yakub sahib baba dargah—an example of communal
harmony. 80% hindus visit that dargah. All Yakayya’s in Hinduism are named after this dargah.
Nenala( Nelakuduru Mandal) A muslim Guy very famous for treating any kind of fractures.
9. SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

Though seems like a commercial aspect, we need to focus on the publicity part. It is a must
that a good publicity is required even for our voluntary purposes to let us know well to the people
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and get them into their lives quickly. By giving publicity our objective reaches deep into the
minds of the people and obviously our purpose will get deep into the hearts of the people which
will help all of us in getting into a better network.
Publicity in the form of banners or posters regarding the village knowledge register and
our goals which later leads to mouth publicity and get settled well within the villagers.
People from any village feel comfortable whenever there is someone to listen to their problems. It
will be better if we record them too and submit to district collectorate with some feasible
suggestions.
Its really a great feeling to be part of this internship. It is for the first time that we had
scouted for a social cause and gained some traditional knowledge and village experience. Its
really worth more than just a social internship with our coordinator Brigadier P.Ganesham who
made this tour very interesting and exciting. His guidance and philosophy of life taught us many
lessons.
We hereby heartfully thank Ganesham Sir, NIF, HoneybeeAP, Chityala village and all the
known and unknown hands that helped in this exciting journey.
Thanking You
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GYAN SHODH
3 Honeybee AP
A Report on
“Chinna Vangara Village Knowledge”
GYAN SHODH
By
Subhash Achanta
Tharun Reddy Bethi
Rakesh Thonukunoori
In partial fulfillment of “Social Internship” organized by NIF,

Conducted by HoneybeeAP.
11 June-14 June
Warangal District
Details of the Project:
In the 3 days of stay the team visited the whole village and four Thandas (Place where
people stay) namely
1) Kishta Thanda
2) Bangarchilla Thanda
3) Ompu Thanda
4) L B Thanda
Coming to the name of the village Chinna Vangara is named after Pedda Vangara which is
the bigger village and Vangara can be understood as ‘Vankara’ in Telugu means A Curve. The
village can be reached by travelling 60 Kms south east of Warangal to Thuroor and another 10
Kms inside. The whole village has farming as the main profession and there are also people of
other professions. The village has a small lake on the outskirts of the village and also a temple of
Mahashiva built by the Kakatiyas (1083-1323). The eldest person in the village is an 88 year old
herbal doctor Mr.Chakali Ramulu. The village also had a very great Herbal doctor Late Mr.
Chenna Samulu; His name is still popular after his death in all the villages around. He is popular
because he formulated a cure for paralysis at a very early time when there was not much of cure.
The team visited various people and many elders of the village and got to know that they consume
Ragula Java in summer and in other seasons for strength and to support their long living. And
more facts and knowledge given by the villagers are as below.
l Untagaljeru - For Cough and cold
l Pindikura – Purifies urine. Made with powdered dry leafs of Chennemgaku, Murkupuvvu and
Bedasavaram. The powdered leaves are added in equal quantities with Mirchi Powder,
Traditional Indian spices and Tamarind. It is consumed in little quantity before food.
l There were few varieties of Basmati which have disappeared over the time, they are :
Thaidalu, kakirekkalu and Chittimuthyalu. It is said that their flavor and fragrance are
incomparable.
Chakali Ramulu has provided many herbal practices. They in detail are as below:
For Heart Pain – Nallamodi Chakka and Madavari Verulu with Jaggery.
For Joint Pains – Boil Neem leaves with stem and apply to the affected place.
For Neck pain and back pain – Maddi Chakka and dates mixed and consumed.
For Back pain – Thumma Chakka, Pepper, dried Ginger, Pippallu, Modi, Karakkayalu
and manchi madhuram.
For Obesity – Thati Bellam with Vaamu or Voma.
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Honeybee AP
For Natural Kaajal – Garlic, Turmeric and Coconut oil mixed and applied under eye.
For Energy – Nallathatigaddalu and milk
For Cough – Turmeric and milk.
For Cracks in Feet – Jeediginjalu and nallanuvvulu with Bellam paakam.
The Thandas in Detail:
Kishta Thanda:
The Thanda is around 100 years old. The families of the Kishtas have been heading the
village since inception. It is named after the person who found the place and started the Thanda.
The oldest people in the village are Bura, Jatoch, Sanath, Lacchu, Sura and Ramu. All the
traditions in the village have disappeared in the last 15 years.
Bangarchilla Thanda:
The Thanda is below 80 years old. Has a story for the name of the Thanda and the story
goes that the migrants were travelling by the Banjara vaagu and the found a golden idol of some
god and the name Bangaru (Gold) Chelme (A place to drink water) has been formed. The village
head Mr.D.Baksha gave few tips for pesticides and herbal medicines. They are:
· Pesticide for killing the pests on the farm. Soak Neem fruits with seeds in a pot of water for
4-5 days and then mash the whole mixture with hand and then drain the water and spray the water
on the farm and he guarantees that the pest won’t return for more than a year.
· For Snake bite – Tella Usiri must be rubbed against a stone with water and apply the
mixture under the eyes and if there is no affect then directly consume through mouth. He claims
that the snakes won’t come around 10 meters around the tree.
Bhaksha’s brother Bhajja provided the following details:
l Tella medhuvu drops to be taken for three days for white cloth disease,
l Deekamullu for Swelling.
l Peddamanichekku for strength of Man and Animals.
l Elakanaagoru for craziness and drowsiness in animals.
l Nallausuru for digestion and cough in man and animals.
l Gadidagadapaku for Vaatham.
Ompu Thanda:
Ompu Thanda is a very young Thanda which was separated just some 10 years before from the
Bangarchilla Thanda. The name Ompu comes from Ompu (turning) as the Thanda is on the
turning of the Bangarchilla Thanda. The Thanda is very small and mainly depends on agriculture
and cultivate paddy.
L B Thanda:
The name L B comes from Lotla Banda (Stone). The government people renamed it for
convenience. The Thanda is around 100 years old and the eldest person Paapulu gave some
information:
l Segunda which is a mixture of segunda leaves and starch is fed to cows for good health.
l Tangedu Verulu for Sunstroke.
l Vaali tree roots for paralysis.
l Flowers of thorny stems in rivers and milk or Starch or butter milk for Itches.
l Ramunda flowers or roots and Tangedu for paralysis.
l Billala tree to be boiled and consumed for good health.
l Ringini tree and oil for cough.
l Puttagadda mannu and dung and sakagadda flowers and starch are good for buffalo.
They used to eat rice only on very special occasions.
Another important observation made after visiting all the villages was that the oldest
people in all the Thandas and the village did not eat much of rice in their childhood or their youth
and they consumed only Jawar Rotis, Mokkajonna gadika and Pappu gadika.
26
GYAN SHODH 4 Honeybee AP
A Report on GYAN SHODH

Organized by: National Innovation Foundation (NIF)
Conducted by: Honeybee AP
Introduction
The following report covers the details and experiences of scouting during our stint with
Honeybee AP’s Gyan Shodh internship. Our group of fourteen students was divided into five
groups which were supposed to cover two mandals namely Thorrur and Mulugu in Warangal
district. Each group was allotted a village (or Thanda) and had to stay in that village for 3 days and
record details regarding the village. Our group was allotted Hachu Thanda in Thorrur and
Bussapur in Mulugu.
Group details:
Hachu Thanda: T.Kalyan Goutham, B.Bala Phani Chand
Bussapur: T.Kalyan Goutham, B.Bala Phani Chand, Rakesh
Our report of the above mentioned villages is as follows
HACHU THANDA:
History:
The word “Thanda” means a group of houses in the local Lambada language. Hachu
Thanda gets its name from its founder Hachu. Hachu Thanda is inhabited by Lambada people and
is located in Chintalapalli village, Thorrur mandal of Warangal district. These people originally
migrated from Suryapet to other places like Kalledu, Ambapuram and then to Chintallapalli
village.
Initially this place had two Gugulothu and two Baanothu families and these 2 groups live
in two halves of the village separated by a small road (This is not a necessary condition). In the
recent past they have been joined by the Dharavathu family. The residents of this village belong
to the Scheduled Tribes of the Lambada families. The villagers claim that their ancestors waged a
living by selling salt from Bandar (Machilipatnam) to Hyderabad.
Agriculture and Food:
The main occupation of this village has been agriculture since a long time. As there is no
water body close to the village, their ancestors faced a severe water problem and had to transport
water in leather bags. Hence, they mainly grew less water consuming crops like Jonnalu,
MokkaJonnalu, Raagulu, Soddalu. Their staple food had been Gatka which is supposedly highly
nutritious and a main reason for the long lives of their elders. Another major ingredient in their
meals was Bathhaaku which they say is very nutritious and hardly available these days. They
used to brush their teeth with coal powder. Their consumption of milk is very less even these days
as they mostly leave the milk for the calves. In summers, most of them drink toddy as an
alternative to curd. Also due to the sparse vegetation in this region during summer, they rely on
dal and pickles for meals.
The types of soil found in this region are Red soil, Black soil, Soudu (White, Black).
During rainy season, when water is easily available, they grow only Paddy. In the other seasons,
they grow crops like cotton, groundnut, turmeric, mirchi, pesalu(moong dal), kandulu,
aayindaalu, senagalu, nuvvulu. The types of rice which they grow are Saamasuri(BPT), 1001,
1000, erramalli, jejelu. Groundnut remains the widely grown crop in this region.
Health:
In the early days people and cattle both suffered from very few diseases which can be
attributed to their food habits and working style. In the case of diseases, they say they used leaves
and Pasaru of certain trees and tied a Mantram after taking the blessings of Muthyalamma
goddess. Some said that revealing the names of these trees would result in the loss of their power
and the treatment would become ineffective. But some others gave away the names with no
hesitation at all. According to the second oldest man in the village, there were 33 plants which
served as medicines. The plants which he could recall were Naalaguridi, Thangidi, Naalathaati,
Nallausiri, Sibbitheega, Murudhundagadda. He said the specimens of these plants are rarely
27
Honeybee AP
available in their regions. They are usually found in forests. The bio diversity competition proved
very helpful in collecting information in this regard. Children were the main source of our
information everywhere. The information collected is as follows:
Jammaai chettu: The leaves are boiled in water and tied around the swollen area around
legs and the water is used for bathing in case of fever.
Gorintaaku: The paste made from leaves is used for covering minor wounds and is
believed to have antiseptic powers.
Vaamula chettu: In case of fever, leaves are put in warm water which is used for bathing.
Neem tree: Its fruits and leaves are used in medicines. Fruits are soaked in water and used as
pesticide and detergent.
Navinaara chettu: The skin of this plant is peeled and boiled in water and used for tying
bandages in case of swellings on legs.
Mudhhamandhaara chettu: The paste of its leaves applied on hair to maintain and
darken the color.
Culture:
The main festival which they celebrate is Teej. They celebrate it for nine days. The whole
village gets together and sacrifices goats as an offering to goddesses. Lambada marriages are
celebrated with great pomp and show. Earlier the proceedings of the marriages used to start three
months in advance and end three months after the marriage. The bridegroom was supposed to stay
in the in-laws house for the whole of this period. But now the marriages don’t last for more than 2
days.
The people of Hachhu Thanda adhere to a very basic standard of living. This village is an
epitome of people living in perfect harmony with nature. Being situated slightly away from
Thorrur, this village still hasn’t imbibed the urban culture. The diversity in the culture and
lifestyles of Hachhu and Dubba Thanda show that geographic parameters can indeed influence
these factors adversely. The major problems faced by the Thandas in the region area all related to
drinking water. In some cases, we even got a hostile reception while enquiring about these
problems. Also in the rainy season stagnant water poses a grave threat for sanitation in this area
and many people fall sick during this season but they somehow seemed to have got used to this
whole cycle of seasonal changes. The Lambadas have a rich cultural heritage of which most of
them are not aware. For example their marriages and festivals are very distinct from others. While
the elders were talking about these issues, many people including children used to gather around
and listen intently. So it is evident that people are interested to know about their culture and roots
but just that these kind of activities are not conducted.
Bussapur:
The village Bussapur they say was named so by the then state chairman Jaheeramuddin
according to the oldest man in the village Syed Nizam Ali(90+ yrs.) who used to work as a daily
wage worker (coolie).
This village shelters people from various castes and is a perfect example of communal
harmony. We observed that majority of the muslims in this village work as daily wage workers
and most of them either do not own land or own little pockets of land. The other castes in the
village include Reddy, Goulolu (Gouds), Gollolu (Yadavs), Boya, Koyya etc. Over the years, the
village Bussapur being very close to the forest, people in a move to occupy land have cut down
trees to a large extent. So much is the extent of deforestation that all the land around the road from
Bussapur to Lakkavaram has been occupied by the villagers. And most of these villagers are from
the lower castes who didn’t own land before and worked as coolies for others. Government has
already distributed land to the farmers in the late 80’s. Now they demand that the govt. should
allot the rights to their new lands.
This village never has any shortage of water. This can attributed to the good rainfall in this
region and also due to Lakkavaram cheruvu which is spread over an area of 10000 acres and stores
rain water. This lake has 13 islands which are scattered amidst the lush green jungles and make the
place blissfully serene. The tourist department has constructed a hanging bridge connecting the 3
islands recently. This has turned the place into a major tourist destination in this area. The
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Honeybee AP
government has a lot of ambitious plans to convert this into a full scale tourist destination. But
according to the local sources, it is not going according to the initial plan. They say that the local
authorities are not releasing the funds allotted to this scheme properly. The tourist department has
proposed for the setting up cottages, yoga centre, restaurants, small scale zoo with distinct
wildlife etc on these islands. An other important tourist attraction is the temple built by Kakatiyas
in Bussapur. This temple is currently being renovated by ASI and will be an added attraction for
the tourists visiting the bridge. The unique feature is that Shiva and Vishnu are in the same temple.
Also, the temple here has some incomplete unique carvings with bold and socially unacceptable
sexual connotations.
But the village elders say that all this development will indirectly hamper the village
culture and eventually lead in the loss of values and morals. The other way of looking at it is that it
offers employment to many villagers. We personally feel that tourism has already had a profound
influence on this village. A lot of knowledge about their ancestors has already been lost and even
the villagers of Bussapur have become very commercial which is probably inevitable for any
tourist destination.
The EGS scheme of the govt. didn’t seem to be working well in this region. From some of
the brief conversations with farmers, we found out that most of them are misusing it by just
signing attendance and collecting the wages without actually doing any work. Also, some of them
asserted that there is no more work available, and hence these practices.
The major source of drinking water for this village is small “Chelimi”, which
continuously oozes out fresh water in all seasons. It is surprising to see that a small ditch of 2ft
radius caters to the drinking need of the whole village. The water here has been tested by the govt.
authorities and declared as “mineral water”, free of impurities.
The marriages here are celebrated in the usual styles. Hindus use pallakis and Muslims use
horses in the processions.
Our conversations with some toddy farmers gave us some insight into the toddy tapping
business. Toddy is tapped from various varieties of palm trees. In AP we largely find 2 varieties of
palm namely “Thaati” and “Eetha”. Toddy is tapped from both the plants but Thaati Kallu is
widely preferred. It is tapped 2-3 times a day depending on the plant and its age. Toddy is usually
drunk fresh to savour the taste. Also storing the toddy for more than 12 hours increases the alcohol
content and makes it sour. A pot of toddy of 1lt approx. is sold for Rs.10 and is common
throughout this region. The Goud community (Goulolu) in the village divide all the palm trees
equally among themselves and tap them daily. There are three types of Thaati trees namely
Podhaada, Parupudhaada and Pantadhaada. Podhaada is used only for “Thaati nunjalu” and toddy
is collected from the other two varieties. To prevent the ants from climbing onto the trees, they use
a paste called Jeedi, which is spread around the tree. This paste is made by heating the Jeedi seeds
from sides in a an inverted earthen pot with a small orifice at its bottom. The gum seeping out of
the hole is collected and used. But these days they use the engine oil residue from tractor engines
which is an easier and cheaper alternative. Some of the farmers speculated that this change might
have resulted in the advent of the deadly pest called “Mogi purugu” which eats away the whole
“gela” from which toddy is collected rendering the tree totally useless. Also, this pest spreads
easily to other trees in the vicinity, hence they cut down the affected tree immediately and burn it
down.
The oldest man gave a few herbal medications of his age. He could recall only a few names
but couldn’t exactly tell their uses. They are Nalluppi chettu, Nela Korri, Machhe thunaka,
Swappaari, Naagamushti. Nela Korri was apparently used as a cure for most of the diseases. The
bark of the Narramaamidi tree was churned into a paste and used with bandage for broken bones.
29
GYAN SHODH
5 Honeybee AP
A Report on
“Kasimdevpet Village Knowledge”
Mulugu mandal, Warangal District, Andhra Pradesh.
GYAN SHODH
By
Joy Samuel
T. Jeshuran
Venkatesh

10 June-19 June
Warangal District
* To eradicate white hair

Idea procured from: VENKATAMMA
Method: daily applying buffalo ghee to hair before having head bath.
* To cure pain near naval region
Mainly caused due to sudden upset of a nerve near the naval during carrying heavy weights
Idea procured from: B.SRINIVAS RAO
Method: first tying thread around touch me not stem,then tying that around belly or hanging
it to neck,so that it touches stomach.this should be done on Thursday or Sunday.
The above stem should be exposed to voodh poga or sambrani and haldi(pasupu) should be
applied to it.
* Cure for scorpion bite:
Method: Apply potassium permanganate with sugar over the place where the scorpion
bite.after that apply small amount of water.the poison of scorpion comes out of the body with the
smoke due to chemical reaction.
* Cure for sexually transmitted diseases:
B.SRINIVAS RAO feels that even AIDS can be cured with this medicine.
Method: take duseri teega(tender leaves) ,crush it till it becomes pulp.decant the juice of the
pulp in another jar.mix 2 tulala jeela karra(jeera) and 4 tulala sugar and drink the medicine just
after it is made.
* Cure for shula noppi:
Method: mix manchi sanaga pulusu,sonti podi and miryalu ,mix well and drink the juice.
* Cure for racha pundu:
Method: tie parakala chapa on the wound and change the parakala chapa for every 2 hours.
* Cure for all allergic wounds including scalp wounds:
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Honeybee AP
Method: chaladala(white ants) putta’s wax should be crushed and mixed with oil and it
should be taken as medicine(drink).
About the village :
As the name suggests kasimdevpet (kasim and devi) ,the village is an excellent example of
unity in diversified India .the village has equal of proportions Muslims and Hindus .both the caste
people are so united that it would be really a very tough task to identify the caste of a person
unless they tell. And a specialty about the Muslims of this village is that they don’t speak Urdu
,which strengthens the above statement.
In and around the village kasimdevipet with in a distance of 2 km there are 2 thandas.one
is ram nagar thanda named after ramnagar palli.It seems that the founder of the thanda () hails
from ramnagar palli,and the other is rammayya thanda named after the founder himself
rammayya dora.exept for the name and location both the thandas have completely the same
customs and traditions.the people of the thandas speak lambadi language. Only the younger
generation of the thanda are well versed with telugu .the older generations know a very little
telugu.coming to the customs and traditions bathukamma is the biggest festival that they
celebrate .
31
GYAN SHODH
6 Honeybee AP
A Report on
“Madipally Village Knowledge”
GYAN SHODH
By
Joy Samuel
T. Jeshuran
Venkatesh

10 June-19 June
Warangal District
Introduction-
It’s a village almost 200years back
.Its 7 kms from Torrur which is about 60km
from warangal.Its developing
village.Kishore Reddy started a foundation
for the benefit of village in the
remembrance of his brother late Nithin
Reddy.He started Nithin foundation for
providing education,medical&water
facilities,etc to the villagers. we went round
the village with the help of Ashok Reddy and
3more children namely Rahul,Sunny,Vinay.
They helped us a lot in moving here and there
introducing us with the villagers. We were
highly surprised on looking the way they live.
Initially we felt that there is nothing in the village but later on going deep into their lives we felt
,we are nothing compared to them. villagers use the nature to their best. They woke up as early as
possible nearly by 4 in the morning and then start their daily activities. Their main way of living is
agriculture. They cultivate rice, corn, tamarind, etc. we will be describing them deeply later on.
There are many oldest things which we will be describing one by one.
Chelama:
This is one the oldest well about 200 years
back. As said by the local doctor, water is highly
pure and tasty, which is supported by the
villagers. All the villagers carry water from here
for their drinking purpose. Even though they get
municipal water through pipelines, they will get a
minimum of two pots from this well .
The reason behind its purity is unknown
upto now. Although at the bottom of this well
there is a big stone they have never seen water
insufficiency these many years. The people
refuses to remove that stone expecting that the
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Honeybee AP
water may get impure after removing it. But it was a big mystery of availability of water
sufficiently these many years. Hope some sort of research might be done to discover the secret
behind it.
BURJU:-
Its is almost 400 years back. It is the
store house of weapons of thieves. They use
to store these weapons in this place with a
protection in front.The entry is different, we
need to go to top with the stairs provided
around it .an opening is made at the top
thorugh which steps are provided to get
into it. They use to make a sound(dandorra)
to let the villagers know their presence.
There is another gurju which is 200years
old. These two are said to be Kishore
Reddy’s property.
TEMPLE-
It is a temple of Anjayaneya.It was constructed 100 years
back. prayers were done daily with great devotion. the places along
with the temple is well decorated during festivals like srirama
navami.its a custom for the newly married people to take blessings
infront of the god.
After a few years a harijan with devotion went into the
temple and touched the statue. Due to the caste difference the
Brahmin worshiping the god left the place saying that he is not
going to conduct the prayers. From that moment the temple was
closed 10 years back.
Water heater-
This water heater works on the principle of
THE HOTTER THE WATER THE LIGHTER IT
BECOMES. on the top of a closed copper vessel
filled with water there are two iron pipes one inlet
and one outlet. Inlet is connected to the tank at the
top. and outlet is used as the tap directly into the
house.
ADVANTAGES-it costs nothing except the coal to
heat the water.so it is very cheaper than electric water
heater.
DISADVANTAGES-as the pipes are very long from
outside to inside the efficiency of the heater is
declined.as the copper vessel is not covered there
may be a heat loss.hope with a little changes it
can be made used to every one.
MASTER PIECES-
These are the master pieces done by
yakayya a 21 year old boy studying degree. He
uses match sticks, ice cream sticks,”nuvvulu”
etc,. It represents the creativity of madipalli
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Honeybee AP
village. He was appreciated by

chiranjeevi.He got many prizes in
many competitions
SCHOOL-
Education makes the
difference between the man and
animal. Every child should be
provided at least with the primary
education. The madipalli children
are very lucky to have a primary
education. The school walls are
painted with India map, along with
our national leader photos such that the students will

recollect them when they see them
AGRICULTRE-
The main occupation of the villagers is obviously
agriculture .There are different types of crops
They are:1.PADDY, 2.CORN, 3.TURMURIC,
4.COTTON, 5.CHILLIES, 6.NUVVULU,
7.AMUDHAM, 8.PESARLU, 9.GROUNDNUT.
Of all these paddy, turmeric, corn, cotton are the
major crops produced.
Water facility for the agriculture is not good. There
is no fresh water lake for the usage of the
crops. There is a well but it is too bad for the
cultivation
Due to the lack of the water they are
not able to cultivate chillies.
Here in this village we mainly find
four types of lands. They are
1.RAGADI(more fertile)
2.ERRA JAKKA(moderate fertile)
3.TELLE DHUBBA(less fertile)
4.SAVUDA NELLA(not fertile)
In savuda nella, the water does not
sink.
DISEASES:
For RICE :1.THELLA MACHA, 2.DOMA KATU
Conclusion-
Lastly, madipalli is developing village it is provided with many facilities which a
common man is required. It has got many innovating brains which are the future citizens of our
nation. Here water agriculture is well developed. They are well provided with school,water tank,
etc tit has got many old costructions.hope with he help of honeybee these wil be little improved.
Coming to the drawbacks, the poor people are becoming poorest as these facilities are not
reaching them. they are suffering with water problems, caste differences etc.
34
GYAN SHODH
7 Honeybee AP
Project Report on
Gyan Shodh
Exploring knowledge in the depth of nature
COURSE
IPTMA 531
Submitted by
Amol Nalawade
Nagababji Neppalli
Sahida Kamri
INTRODUCTION
Gyan Shodh is a journey for searching of knowledge, creativity and innovations at
grassroots as well as understanding people and their lifestyle in rural villages. It is very important
to study the rural lives for development of the nation. Gyan shodh is not only for documentation of
traditional knowledge, identification of innovations present in rural area but also mutual sharing
of knowledge. Men, women and children of village are taken into consideration equally to
contribute to Gyan Shodh and to the society.
NIF
The Department of Science and Technology help establish the National Innovation
Foundation (NIF) of India, on Feb 28th 2000, with the main goal of providing institutional
support in scouting, spawning, sustaining and scaling up grassroots green innovations and
helping their transition to self supporting activities. The foundation has a Governing Council
chaired by Dr. R. A. Mashelkar, Former Director General CSIR and President Global Research
Alliance. Professor Anil K. Gupta, President SRISTI and Professor Indian Institute of
Management Ahmadabad, is the Executive Vice Chairperson of NIF. For the last seventeen years
the Honeybee Network and Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and
Institutions (SRISTI) have been scouting innovations by farmers, artisans, women, etc. at the
grassroots level. The main aim of NIF is to help India become an inventive and creative society
and a global leader in sustainable technologies without social and economic handicaps affecting
evolution and diffusion of green grassroots innovations.
HONEY BEE NETWORK

The Honey Bee Network is the biggest network of grassroots creative and experimenting
farmers and artisans in the world. It provides a voice to creative farmers, artisans and grassroots
innovators. The network identifies creative unsung heroes of the society, supports, rewards and
facilitates the protection of their work. Innovation augmentation and sustainability of solution is
core to the networks philosophy. The Network works with people working on sustainable
technologies based on traditional practices or “green” innovations.
SRISTI
SRISTI, which means creation, was born in 1993 essentially to support the activities of
the Honey Bee Network to respect, recognize and reward the creativity at grassroots. Based in
Ahmadabad, Gujarat, SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable
Technologies) is a registered charitable organization that is devoted to empowering the
knowledge rich-economically poor people by adding value in their contemporary creativity as
well as traditional knowledge. It has helped establish GIAN, NIF, MVIF and AASTIIK.SRISTI
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Honeybee AP
was set up to provide organizational support to the HBN. The objectives were: systematically
documenting, disseminating and developing grassroots green innovations, providing intellectual
property rights protection to grassroots innovators, working on the in situ and ex situ conservation
of local biodiversity, and providing venture support to grassroots innovators. SRISTI manages
the Honey Bee database of innovations, and supports the publication of the Network’s newsletter
in three languages, English, Hindi and Gujarati. Lately SRISTI has being focusing on more
concerted ways of hitherto neglected domains like women’s knowledge systems, value addition
through a natural product laboratory, and innovations in education.
FIELD VISIT
NAARM (National Academy of Agricultural Research Management) had taken initiative
to organize Gyan Shodh in collaboration with NIF (National Innovation Foundation) and Honey
Bee networks. We 16 students of Post Graduate Diploma in Intellectual Property and technology
Management in Agriculture (PGDIPTMA) of NAARM were participated. 16 of us were divided
into four groups, each group consists of four. For Gyan Shodh four villages were selected near to
Dornala and each group was allotted a village for scouting and documenting Traditional
Knowledge and innovation (if any).
Dornala is a village and a Mandal in Prakasam district in the state of Andhra Pradesh in
India. Gyan Shodh was held on 11th to 13th September, 2009. The four villages which were part
of Gyan Shodh are mentioned below:
h Pedda Manthala (22 Km from Dornala)
h Korraprolu (15 Km from Dornala)
h Chintala (14 Km from Dornala)
h Tummala bayalu (17 Km from Dornala)
Team members are:

hAmol Nalawade
h Nagababji Neppalli
h Purwa Rathi
h Sahida Kamri
CHINTALA
We four team members visited Chintala, in Nallamala forest of Andhra Pradesh. Chenchu tribes
live in the village; population is approximately 250.Their traditional way of life has been based on
hunting and gathering. In general, the Chenchu relationship to nontribal people has been largely
symbiotic. Some Chenchus have continued to specialize in collecting forest products for sale to
non-tribal people.
Culture:
The Chenchus are referred to as one of the Primitive Tribal Groups that are still dependent on
forests and do not cultivate land but hunt for a living. Caste Hindus living among them rent land
from the Chenchus and pay a portion of the harvest. Dalits also settled among them with the help
of the Chenchus and learned agriculture from them, and the nomadic Banjara herders who graze
their cattle in the forest also have been allotted land there. The Chenchus have responded
unenthusiastically to government efforts to induce them to take up farming themselves. Because
of their long association with Hindu hermits and their refusal to eat beef, Chenchus are considered
an unpolluted group by caste Hindus. People have lots of livestock such as cattle, goat, sheep, hen
etc.
OBJECTIVES OF GYAN SHODH

Gyan Shodh, as a major scouting, networking and dissemination program, was being carried out
with the following objectives:
1. To know the culture of the villagers and their way of living by meeting oldest man and
woman of the village, sharing our knowledge and feelings to them.
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2. To learn about the experiences of the farmers engaged in organic farming and inform other
farmers about the same.
3. To document their traditional herbal practice and how they manage with natural calamities.
4. To know vast Biodiversity of Nallamal forest.
5. To know process their way of hunting and gathering goods from the forest.
6. To encourage the curiosity of the children about variety in organic farming and to discover
the knowledge of bio and crop diversity among rural people.
7. To meet the people who solve their problems through their presence of mind and inborn
ability, store their knowledge and felicitate them.
8. To compile and disseminate the knowledge, which is fast disappearing and establish a
dialogue between the old generation and future generation
9. To know the recipes which are adopted by the villagers and their food habits.
10. To identify the talents and knowledge of the children of the village.
PURPOSE OF GYAN SHODH

Gyan Shodh was first time done by NAARM. We had completed Gyan Shodh
successfully with following purpose:
h To build linkages between excellence in formal scientific systems and informal knowledge systems
and create knowledge network to link various stakeholders through application of information
technology and other means.
h To promote wider social awareness, and possible applications, of the know-how generated as a result
of these initiatives in commercial or social spheres and encourage its incorporation in educational
curriculum, developmental policies and programs.
h To document available traditional practices from extinction and protection of those knowledge by
law. Documentation also gives proper rights to the knowledge holder and prevents misuse of it.
h To create awareness about the importance of the knowledge present within rural people and how it is
necessary for development of the nation. Without rural development, progress of a nation is not
possible.
h To understand the degree of implementation of various Government policies and awareness of
different government schemes among rural people.
h To understand and experience of rural verses urban area, what we lag what they lag. Observing the
nature closely because is full of knowledge.
Our Success Mantra:

We had take Gyan Shodh as a learning as well as enjoyable tour. Thus we could work hard
with enjoying each activity. We were very close to nature and natural lives. We respected them as
well as their culture, thus they could also consider us as one of them during those 2 days stay.
METHODOLOGY
First Day of Gyan Shodh :
The First day of Gyanshodh started from Doranala to Chintala village in Prakasam
District in Andhra Pradesh on 9th Sept 2009. The planning and preparation before the Gyanshodh
had set the stage for the realization of an exotic experience beset with tantalizing challenges. We
reached to Chintala village within 30 minutes and school is our entry point in the village. The
coordinator who is accompanying with us introduced us to the School Head master and teachers,
and then he left from there. Then the time came for us to really start our work with our own. This is
the residential school of about 250 children and we enquired about the school, from where this
children are belongs to .This is way we entered into the village.
Title of Activity: To familiarize with the village

Purpose of Activity:
Visit of first day is just to make familiarize with people in the village and know about
village and their activities. To make the people in the village about, whom we are and why we
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were here. Main objective is to find out what are innovations exist in the village and as well as
traditional knowledge and their cultures.
Strategy adopted:
As we know in any village, head of the village is a huge resource for anyone and without
his consent it would be difficult for us to explore. He can be great mentor and guide for us in this
journey. So we enquired about him and a teenager has taken us to his house. We were lucky that he
was there in his house when we went to his house. He is in early thirty’s, had given us warm
welcome and there was good interaction occurred between us. He introduced us to the people in
the villages and the following
information we collected from them. The name of the village head is Hanumaiah.
About the village

The village is concentrated in heavily dense Nallamalai forest areas that combine
inaccessibility with limited political or economic significance. Their main lively hood depends
on hunting and gathering from the forest, it is the principal occupation and some people will be
carrying out farming or agriculture activities. The cast system which is originated long back
however has not changed and village belongs to single cast know as chenchu’s. The majority of
people are illiterate where we can find only few people whose education is up to secondary
education.
Culture and Tradition:

The villagers depend on nature for ninety percent of their food supply. Traditionally
Chenchu’s roamed the jungles, living under trees and in rock shelters. The common food was
honey, the roots of trees, plants, and the flesh of animals caught in hunting. A typical day was
spent in gathering the fruits and roots to be eaten that day. People leave home in early morning
between 5 to 6 am and around 10 to 11 am they comeback from forest. Gathering may be done in
small groups but is still today a solitary activity without cooperation from others. Hunting is also a
solitary rather than cooperative effort that rarely produces much game. Hunting is done with bow
and arrow, occasionally with a gun. No trapping or snaring is done. Very few things are
cultivated—mostly tobacco, corn, and some millet—and little provision is made for “a rainy day”
(i.e., there is no storing of grain). There is division of labor between the sexes: men hunt, gather
honey, and make baskets; women most of the household works as well as prepare food. Gathering
is done by both sexes although the men may go further afield, even spending two to three days
away from the community. For their protection they use bow and arrow which is made by them. A
few buffalo, cows may be kept in a village for milk but are not eaten. There was an interesting that
they never sell their milk or curd, they just share between them. They live in hurts but it is very
neat and clean. They use cow dung in their courtyards which provides smoothness and absorbs
rain water.
Language:
In this village people talk in Chenchu’s language with the Telugu accent. Their language is
also known as Chenchucoolam, Chenchwar, Chenswar or Choncharu. In general physically they
are short in height with long head, well defined eyebrows with the flat nose. They have jet black
curly hair and their complexion varies from wheat gray to brown. People have broad faces. They
are characterized by independence and personal freedom. Young people are free to marry
whomsoever they like and can get
apart whenever they like. Their present habitat is confined to the rocky hills of the in the
Nallamalai hills, extending on both sides of the Krishna River. They live in bee hive shaped tiny
huts with wattle walls. They are appreciated as great climbers.
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Religion:
They worship number of deities. They mainly believe in Bhagaban taru who lives in the
sky and look after them in all their doings. Another deity they worship is Garelamai Sama, who is
the Goddess of forest. She is believed to protect them from the danger, especially when they are in
the jungle. Apart from these they pay homage to Potsamma- the God who cures the diseases like
the small pox and Chicken pox, Gangamma, the deity of water, Mayasamma, the deity who
protects the them from enemies. They have also adopted certain religious practices from Hindus.
Innovators / knowledge people:

Searching of knowledge holder is also major task for us, so for that we scouted every street
and we could catch few of them. It was big difficult for us to explain to the knowledge holders
about our purpose of talking to them. They were not accepting us to share their ideas, they just
showing that they forgotten everything and now saying that they are not knowing anything.
Thanks to Hanumaiah the village president (head) had explained to them about us that we are
there help them not to take their things. They explained about their marriages how it was usually
happens .Generally the old man in the village act as priest for deciding the date and venue. If there
is difference between parents of bride and groom about their marriage acceptance then they will
ran away to the forest and spend time in the forest for about 10 days. Then after returning back,
they will accept them. We reached Doranala at 8PM it was very tiring day then after completion of
our dinner, we had a review of our first day experience in the village with our mentor Brig
Ganesham. We shared our experience enthusiastically.
First day experience:

As out sider no hard feelings they had, every body gave warm and hearty welcome. They
provided us a bench to seat offered us tea. In all possible manner the helped.
Second Day of Gyan Shodh :-

We started at morning 7 am of second day of gyanshodh; it was a sunny day So we had
taken all necessary things like water bottle, biscuits, umbrella and honey Magazines, Gifts,
Shawls etc. In our team ,Sahida had Ramjan Fast so that Rest of us had Breakfast in Harita Resort
at Dornola. Then we moved towards chintala Village. We are very energetic and ready to explore
the our village. we reached at 7.30 AM , First we went to school, all students welcomed us by
stood up. students having common breakfast on the ground which is in front of school. Idali &
sambar is the menu in breakfast .they offered us and we tasted , it was really delicious. Then we
met all the teachers and explained our activities to them and they had positively responded also
they gave assurance us that they are going to help us in talent hunt. Then we started to explore the
hidden creativity of chintala village. We started from last corner of village & from last house.
There we met old woman of village her name is Nagamma .When we entered in her home she was
cooking food. She welcomed us initially she was thinking that we all came from government.
Then we introduced our self that we are students not government people & we explained our
purpose to visit her village. She was very happy by hearing that we were came for learning from
her and villagers. She explained her story also explained her traditional knowledge about
the medicine plants, Farm Practices etc. from here our objective was started. We documented all
the information she had given to us.
After that one young person came there, it was surprise package for us because he was
speaking little bit English. He ensured us that he will guide us in this journey. First we went to
forest which is heavily dense and filled with rich biodiversity. While walking towards forest we
saw those lots of people are engaged in working under National Rural Employment Guaranty
scheme. They all were happy while working. Then we all with our village friend went deep in
forest while going there we faced with very drastic situation actually one villager came there and
he actually stopped us from going into forest. He strongly told us that you should not shoot the
forest rout. He was thinking that we are going to show this all route to urban people & that could
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be dangerous to them. But our village friend solved our problem at that stage. Then we moved to
deep forest where our village friend showed us different medicinal Plant. He showed us one Plant
which is useful over fever. He also showed us the root of plant which is useful for paralysis,
diabetics, headache etc. Then our journey of forest & we
moved towards the village with more satisfaction & fulfillment. Then we met the President of
village Hanumaya . Then he gathered four knowledge people in his home for us to share their
knowledge. It was marathon for us because everybody sharing their knowledge very
enthusiastically. We documented all the information which they had shared with us. We provoked
them to talk about innovation & secrets, Traditions, culture etc. Then we informed to all villagers
that we are going take recipe competition at evening. They prepared lunch for us . They brought
rice for us which is very costly for them and they generally used this rice for their guest & festival
times. The lunch was very delicious & testy & it was served very in very hot. He assured us that he
will again take us to forest to find out biodiversity. Naga & Amol had lunch there. Then we Moved
towards the school in search of young talent.
Talent Hunt at School :

After lunch we moved to School to observe talents present among students and also
awarded them. Head Master of the school helped us in all possible ways. At 3 pm School children
were gathered at their school play ground, Nagababji addressed the gathering in the local
language and successfully convinced our purpose of Gyan Shodh . Then Children were allowed to
show their talents. We were surprised by discovering diverse talent in the field of dance, singing
song, drawing, crafts made by paper (boats, birds, pistol, camera, aero plane, and cap) among the
children. One boy called Rabindra Nayak who studies in class seven had developed an
innovation. It was a paper fan works with walk man motor and battery. Though the idea was not a
new but it was developed by rural boy who has not much exposure of technology but the approach
was quite impressive. To encourage him we gave him a special prize. Three boys were selected for
1st, 2nd, 3rd prizes for dance, singing a song and drawing respectively. All the participants were
also awarded.They also played Kho-kho and Kabbadi. School teachers and all students
participated open heartedly and supported us completely.
Scouting & Documentation:

Small raining was there then we moved towards the president house . He was very
passionate to take us to forest. He showed us different medicinal plant which they are using for
there disease treatment . He showed plant which is used for hunting the animal. Actually they feed
that plant root to the pet dog after eating that plant dog can catch the any animal in the area of 2
kilometers. If big animal is in the area of 2 kilometer then it makes different sound so that people
in the village will be alert from that big animal. He Showed us some plant which we are describing
below
No Name of Plant Uses

1 Dadir Leaf Fever
2 Pulla putraku Eye Pain /Remedy
3 Chitramullam Back pain
4 Nallamu Fever
5 Pedapurudu Drying of lips & Polio
6 Diala chattu To Build apatite
7 Galarlu sanpalleru To feeding dog for helping in hunting.
8 Not Available No sweet taste Plant
Then we moved towards the Village. We taken sign of president on PIC form because he is
only knowledge person who had given information. Then we conducted recipe competition & we
selected two recipes & we awarded to the female who has prepared that. We also facilitated old
male & female of Chintala Village by offering shawls behalf of HONEYBEE network.
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At last it was time to close our journey from village chintala which is rich in culture,
traditions, knowledge, hospitality etc.
CONCLUSION OF GYAN SHODH

The singular conviction that stands above all else after the yatra and the immense energy, talent,
creativity, tolerance that was evident with the people, is about the ability, resourcefulness of the
people of this land, their enduring capacity and the power of people force. The idea that people
have it in them to be innovative and creative to be able to solve their problems and run their lives.
Like any institution, community, society, this land is not without her problems and shortcomings,
but the value systems and the unspoken, unwritten laws of society that are her own are very well
able to also take care of the problems that will crop up, and restore order. What has happened is
that people have lost the confidence that they are able to take control of their lives. What has also
happened is that they have been given new value systems to replace their own, which does not
work for them, and we have in our hands a fractured society. A group of women in Chintala were
talking to some of us about their life, problems, and society. One of the women, Nagamma spoke a
long while about her life, daily routine, all the work that her friends and she have to do: her day, as
other women’s’, starts very early and ends very late, since she has to finish her morning chores at
home like cleaning and cooking, then go to the fields for work, come back and again take care of
cooking and cleaning. They also have to seasonally take care of crushing grains.She does not get
much support from her husband for all this work that she does. In the midst of all this, she has
managed to save enough money to send her daughter to a boarding school in town. And so life
continues. After telling all that, she added in the same breath, that we (shodh yatris) have come
here to meet them, we only have to teach them things since they don’t know anything, “we women
from the villages are no good, we don’t even have the time to keep ourselves beautiful, we work
the whole day and by the end of many a day have neither the time nor the energy to bother about
our appearance.” When she said that she did not realise that they have spruced up the place and
themselves for us, the guests! All that people need is for their confidence and faith in themselves
to be restored, their collective force will conquer the world. It is of course another matter that it is
not in their spirit to want to conquer the world, as it is meant today. They would build their own
brand of globalisation, that of endurance, an empathetic understanding of the world and how it
works and happiness. Anything else that we think they might need is secondary.
The Shodh yatra aims at unearthing and honoring traditional knowledge and grassroots
innovations that have not only enriched the lives of men, women and farm labourers but have also
significantly contributed towards the conservation of biodiversity. Honey Bee database is shared
with farmers in their local language through Mobile phone, Video camera and print publications,
posters and some time through street plays. A mobile exhibition on medicinal plants, posters,
artifacts, working models of innovations, etc. , is used for making the presentation more relevant
to the local context. During the Gyan shodh , following major activities are generally taken up:
The Honey Bee multimedia database has taught us a great deal about demystification of
information technology and its use for empowering local communities and within them the
creative women and men. We are convinced that this technology if applied properly with the right
kind of sensitivity to local cultural and ecological diversity, can transform the capacity for
imagination and experimentation. A great deal of discussion today on sustainable development is
top down, one way, and often based on information and alternatives produced by the formal
sector. The Honey Bee database has demonstrated that by building upon the knowledge of the
poor people, we can not only enrich local repertoire of ideas but also trigger initiatives some of
which may transform into innovations. Whether institutional capacity to respond to these
innovations will also simultaneously increase could depend upon the emergence of horizontal
knowledge networks managed by local communities and individual
innovators, aided by the volunteer scientists, IT experts, media planners and educationists.
The Honey Bee metaphor can indeed make a difference if it can permeate our vision for
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promoting learning, experimentation, innovation and institutional transformation at the grass

root People & Grass root community. We found that language is very major problem to scouting
& documenting rural invention . In our group only one member is familiar with the local
language, he only Understanding the crux of rural people living ,method of their living. As there is
only one person from us knowing local language it is constraint of our group & due to that we
didn‘t asked to much questions to rural people about their living.
One great thing we found that these chintala rural people have lot of Traditional
Knowledge .They know about forest trees which are useful for Treatment for various disease , but
problem is that These people are not willing to tell us about their these knowledge. One fallow
from Chintala was not happy from our video shooting & photographs.He was only one fallow
who always follow us this mean that he is not willing to share his traditional Knowledge with us.
Even he don’t want to show the routs of Forest. His perception that if this routs are shoot then all
urban area people come to know about their secrets & routs of Forest which could be dangerous
for them & due to that it could be Problem for their daily bread .
Male are dominant in family as compare to female in chintala. They are doing all the farm
work as well as they do hunting in forest in remaining time. One key observation is that these rural
people don’t know about invention & innovation but actually they all are doing something
innovative & our work was to observe & document these invention .They are very curious about
guests , as we visited chintala they really have taken our care. People now getting money & food
& work under the National Rural Employment Guaranty Act, government scheme and all people
now are happy. They are working there & living their life happily .Some people are already got the
House under the government scheme.
Illiteracy is the major problem of this village & We found that only 3-5 People can only read the
language. But the good thing is that the next generation of these people learning well in local
school. Some people children studying in Hyderabad school & because of that these people happy
for that. Local school is well established & about 300 student studying there. Lodging & boarding
are available in that school. Students are very innovative & energetic. Every & each student is
talent in different activity. One bad thing we observed that lot of people are badly addicted by
alcohol. Even they are drinking alcohol in day & just sleeping in whole day. As male are dominant
in family female can’t do anything to solve this problem. Otherwise all people are innocent & they
are living their life happily. We have mentioned some events we organized at Chintala Village , we
also mentioned the purpose of these event.
Recipe Competitions:
The recipe competitions are organized for the women in the villages. The women who
prepare the most interesting recipes using the minor millets, lesser known crops or crops with
medicinal values are given awards and participants are given certificates. The whole objective is
to make the people aware about the unique nutritional value of the indigenous crops and their
importance in maintaining the ecological diversity.
Village meetings:
The objective of the meetings during the Gyan shodh is to initiate a dialogue on
innovations, traditional knowledge and creativity, so that people with outstanding creative
potential can come forward to share their innovations and knowledge. Mutual exchange of
knowledge will not only encourage the innovator and the traditional knowledge holder to think
more creatively and critically but also would help him/her to know about other experimenters in
different parts of the country
Walking through the villages:

The most important event during the Shodh yatra is to walk through villages, urban areas
if these fall on the way, forests, deserts, mountains, valleys, sea-shores etc., with an objective to
discover, learn and share. The Shodh yatris meet many people on the way and interact with them.
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Very often the casual interaction turns out to be an interesting source of information about some
creative experiments. During the walk, the mutual knowledge sharing among the Shodh yatris is
also an interesting experience
Challenges to scouting rural inventions :

1) Language is major barrier to scouting & documentation of rural invention .the invention
might be more useful than which is mentioned by inventor but due to language barrier he
might be not shared everything.
2) The Rural People have very bad experience of government people and they were thinking us
as government servant so due to that they were not willing to share with us. also they do not
willing to share forest roads, they just shown us forest externally they might thinking that if
they will disclose their invention then it could be harmful for their future livelihood.
3) They did not know about invention & related term until they know what they are doing
something new there is no issue of document it.
4) Illiteracy among the rural community also one of the challenge for identify the rural
innovation because they are not aware of outside world.
5) Most of the Rural people are not aware about the technology which they are using, which
might be innovating in market point of view.
6) The major challenge for an innovation is establishing the connect with the market. Most of the
innovators at grass root work in isolation and consequently the marketability of end result
remain doubtful. The most important aspect is to enable knowledge sharing between market
and suppliers. This connect can definitely bridge the gap between the market player and
enable suppliers to leverage on information for gaining extra returns for their produce.
7) They always thought us that we are from government & always demanded money.
8) Local school also not paying attaint ion to village so that people remained illiterate
SUGGESTION FOR GYAN SHODH :

1) I saw that all people are not happy to sharing their knowledge, we would like to suggest that
please conduct meeting of all people before visiting village.
2) First make aware all people about what rural people are actually doing which is different from
others & which is valuable.
3) Visiting period is very less so try to increase it.
4) Instead of living to resort , it is better to live in one of the village where we are going for
scouting
PHOTOS
IMPLEMENTS :-
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SCOUTING & DOCUMENTING:-
SCHOOL ACTIVITIES :-
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RECIPE COMPITATION :-
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OLDEST MAN & WOMAN:-
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REFERENCE
http://www.nif.org.in/
http://knownetgrin.honeybee.org/honeybee.htm
http://www.sristi.org/cms/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenchu
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NATIONAL ACADEMY OF
AGRICULTURE RESEARCH MANAGEMENT
SHODH YATRA
REPORT
10/3/2009
Submitted By:
Lavanya
Makarand
Pavan
Shailendra
Introduction
Shodh yatra is a medium to discover the hidden gems of the rural India. The idea behind
such journey is to restore the inventive and experimental ethic that can be a major source of
innovations, creativity and conservation in any society. Shodhyatra helps in horizontal
dissemination of the knowledge which is very important for a society to grow as a whole.
It is an initiative by National Innovation Foundation and Honey Bee Network AP.
Shodhyatra includes scouting the knowledge in the rural area. The visit was organized by
NAARM and Honey Bee as a part of our course module. The main aim of the Shodh Yatra is:
l To learn about the experience of the farmers in sustainable farming.
l To meet the people who have acquired knowledge from the nature and felicitate them.
l To compile and disseminate the knowledge
The report covers the details of our visit to a tribal village named Tummala Boyalu. The
village is 17 Km far from Dornala on the way to Srisailem. It was one of the four tribal villages
which were chosen to be visited during Shodhyatra. The group decided for this village includes
four members- Lavanya, Makarand, Pavan and Shailendra.
The major activity done during Shodhyatra was, visiting the school campus to discover
the young creative minds present in the village by organizing some competitions. Unearthing
traditional knowledge and grassroot innovations of the village which have not only simplified the
life of the villagers but also helped in sustainability of the environment, methods of crop
protection, cattle rearing and improved implements developed by the villagers.
CULTURE OF TUMMALA BAYULA

The conscious cultivation of cultural expression is more an urban than a rural
phenomenon, for cultural performances, literary meetings, and religious discussions occur
mostly in towns or cities. Cultural development in different parts of the state under different
historical circumstances resulted in the occurrence of recognizable variations in dialect, in caste
structure, and in other traditions, all of which ultimately served to diversify the rural arts. Rural
cultural media such as balladry, puppetry, and storytelling are indigenous to the area; use of these
media in social and political communication is also common. The penetration of the mass media,
especially of radio and television, into rural areas has helped to bring an awareness of classical
traditions to the rural communities and of rural arts to the urban population.
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Tribes of this village and surrounding area called as “chenchus”. The Chenchu Village is
known as Penta and consists of a few Huts. The Village elder is the one who takes the major
decisions and does the Counseling. Chenchus are the Aboriginal Tribe who still considers hunting
for their livelihood rather than farming. Selling meat is one of their major activities. Their food
consists of gruel made from jowar or maize, and boiled or cooked jungle tubers. They mix
tamarind fruit with tamarind. The Caste Hindu which lives with Chenchus take Chenchus land on
rent and pay by giving a portion of their harvest to Chenchus. They are the food gathering tribe
who mostly speak Telgu.
The Chenchus collect jungle products like roots, fruits, tubers, beedi leaf, mohua flower,
honey, gum, tamarind and green leaves and make a mearge income of it by selling these to traders
and government cooperatives. Main occupation source of these people are 100 days government
provide employment, remaining days they are working in their own farm and hunting in forest for
gathering food. There is resemblance of Harappan items and tribal material objects Dancing girl
and Pashupati seem to be tribal. Social scientists consider only contemporary processes like
sanskritisation and ignore upward universalisation from tribal communities to great tradition.
Festivals
Traditions - There are many rituals
which are followed on this auspicious
day of New Year.
On this day people bring cow dung
water and sprinkle it on the ground in
front of their houses. Not only this,
many make colorful designs on the
entrance.
Ugadi is the day when people

perform these ritualistic acts and
gradually pray for the mental,
physical and financial prosperity. In
fact it is held that Ugadi is the perfect
day to start new ventures.
Dandari’ dance in tribal schools-

As on normal evenings in their villages, the students will be given training in the dance
form for the entire period up to Dasara. The help of either dance experts or parents of the students
themselves will be taken so far as dance practice is concerned.
Between Dasara and Diwali, the students of a particular school will form into a Dandari
group and visit another school close by. These students will give the dance performance at the
other schools. The Dandari groups to go visiting other villages giving performances.
“We will link this part-time activity with the whole process of education in the tribal schools in
due course. There will be other aspects of tribal traditions which will slowly be introduced in these
schools. The idea is to let the tribal students keep in touch with their traditions”.
Marriages-
The marriage of Chenchus is known as Pelli and takes place through negotiation among the elders
or by the choice of young couples. Generally the marriages celebration is for 2-3 days. One most
important thing is that there is no dowry system for marriage they contribute money from both
side.
The Chenchus have a strong faith in the Gods and Godess. They worship their dieties with
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great devotion. Lord Eshwara among them is known as “Lingamayya”, and Shakti as
“Maisamma” or “Peddamma”.The Gods are prayed with great pomp and show.
Art-
Self Reliant, the Chenchus have learned various small arts, like craftsmanship (bow
AND arrow) to make their lives more easy. On the other hand, Chenchus prefer to do most of
their things on their own.
Agriculture Practices:
Agriculture is the main occupation for the tribal people. They grow crops not for
commercial purpose but for feeding themselves. Sometimes due to high rainfall and adverse
climatic conditions they cannot even go for cropping, but they just depend on plants available in
forests. Besides that they even go for hunting the animals in forests (Deer, rabbit).
Agriculture operations:
Major crops grown: Bajra, Sorghum, Red gram, Chilli
Seed bed preparation; generally before sowing, they used to prepare the seed bed which
involves the following steps.
1) Weeding
2) Burning the weeds
3) Ploughing
Weeding: For weeding purpose they use sickle, five to six members will be allotted for weeding
purpose in 1 acre. They used to remove the weeds with along with the roots. After removing the
weeds are placed in large heaps.
Burning the weeds: After gathering the weeds it was piled and then put into fire. The main
purpose of burning the weeds is to destroy the fungal spores of weeds completely, and to prevent
the dispersal of weed seeds.
Ploughing: They used to plough the field to make the soil friable with the help of oxe.
Irrigation: There are no irrigation facilities in the village(like wells,bores etc.) for irrigating the
crops. There they depend completely on rainfall for irrigating the crops.(Rainfed irrigation).
Type of soil: The types of soil found in this region are Red soil.
As water source is not available, they grow mostly less water consuming crops like sorghum,
bajra etc.
Plant protection measures: Hardly will they be purchasing the plant protection chemicals like
pesticides from Dornala but mostly they are not using any plant protection chemicals. After
sowing they will be doing some operations like weeding. But in crops like Redgram, sorghum
after sowing they won’t perform any operations in the field including weeding because of the soil
& climatic conditions of that village. They won’t apply irrigation and no applications of plant
protection chemicals but despite of not applying chemicals, weeding and irrigation they used to
get good yield.
Harvesting: No harvesters are used for harvesting the crops in that village. Harvesting will be
done by hand picking, and sickle will be used for some crops like sorghum, maize.
Fig: Gum collected from tree
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Storage structures: Each of the houses contains beautifully mud made structure for the storage of
grains.
National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), was initiated in that village by
late Sri Y S Rajashekhara Reddy. According to this scheme, three persons from each house are
employed on a daily wage of Rs100 for 100 working days. The works under the scheme going on
are removal of weeds and making the waste land into cultivable land.
The first day (11 sep.09) we went to school. As we entered into school, the students of the
th
school were playing games. When all of them saw us, they immediately started running towards
us for interacting with us and shouting, Good evening sir. The school teacher was also there at that
time, she was also playing with school children. We interacted with school teacher and introduced
ourselves and said that we all four members have come from National Academy of Agriculture
Research Management, Rajendra Nagar, Hyderabad (A.P.) for SHODHYATRA and it’s a three
days visit.
After that we just had an overview of the school, regarding the infrastructure and facilities
available in that school, there we interacted with headmaster of the school and we collected the
information regarding number of students, total number of faculty etc. In last we told to mam we
will come back tomorrow taking all information’s regarding to the school then all children was
saying bye bye sir.
Next day 12 Sep 09, we come back to school in morning time, we were introduced with the
Head Master of school Mr.Srinivas then we were started the questions to the head master the
school. He told the name was that Government ST Ashram School. This is only one school in
village. There are no facilities for higher study. Some of villagers were saying that we want
continuation studies for our children but there is no scope for higher study. In Government ST
Ashram School, there were eight staff members; seven were male and one female. The strength of
the school is one hundred twenty (120) in which eighty students’ remains living in a Hostel and
this school up to five (5 ) standards. The school having good infrastructure, good water facilities
th
for student, having much space for playing games, providing good meals to school children’s.
The school is having staff quarters for staying within a school. After getting of the information
regarding school then we had organized sports competition in a school for entertaining to the
students and gave best prizes to good performance in competition. The competitions were for
both boys and girls on Painting, Running, Rangoli and picking ball. We were provided charts for
making drawing on the charts, students were very excited to take part in a painting competition
and some of them made an aggressive painting which can’t do other student, they had so much
creativity to do something. The other competition on Rangoli for girls especially which was more
adventurous because they were making through stones on floor of the ground which was very
critical for us to make this type rangoli, one children had made with color full rangoli which was
very good.
After that we conducted picking ball game which one of the best games for children they
were fully enjoyed this game, first we conducted for boys and then girls. In continuation of games
running competition was also there, children got some position for prize. After finishing the
games we organized prize distribution for first, second and third position. Those students who got
first, second and third position ,the prizes were there according to the position of the student . We
arranged prizes like pencil box which containing rubber, sharpener and pencil, magic balls,
sketch pens etc.
After completing prize distribution we were own willingness distributed biscuits to each
of students then they were feeling good. Then went to each of village home for gaining
information.
Electricity
Villagers have solar system as source of electricity but they are facing problem of
maintenances.
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Water facilities
The major source of drinking water for this village is government hand pump which
continuously gives fresh water in all season which free from impurities and water for cultivation
is not available, they were fully dependent on rain for cultivation. So they were growing crops
according to the rain which in scientifically terms Rainfed crops.
Traditional Knowledge:
The tribal villagers “Chenchu” have some knowledge that has been orally passed to them
from their forefathers and they are preserving the knowledge by regularly practicing it in their
normal life. This “adaptively acquired knowledge” has become an important part for their
survival. The village has a good biodiversity across its surroundings. Nearby forests are good
source of variety of plant species.
The villagers have been using herbal plants for the treatments for several diseases. They
were beautifully adapted to the diversity across the surroundings and interacted with the plant
species which are present nearby them. The villagers have been using the traditional practices
since generations. Some of the treatments for snake bites, scorpion bites, insect bite and skin
disease were known to them. If the villagers suffer from any skin disease, they use to rub leaves of
a plant named “Edumudra Aku” on the infected surface. The bark of the tree named “Nemmali” is
used for the treatment against snake, scorpion or any insect bite.
The villagers have their traditional way of igniting the fire, but this practice is generally
disappearing with the use of matches and lighters. The traditional way involves rubbing of the two
stick and generating fire. Now the villagers use this method when the matchsticks go wet during
rainy season. An important property of these wooden stick is that they generate fumes with fire
even when they are wetted. This makes the properties of the stick very unique.
An old man named Bhumani Ankanna is considered to be the most knowledgeable person
of the village. He was having knowledge of about 1200 herbs which are used treating number of
diseases. He is known by large number of people from the nearby areas. The people from nearby
districts come for their treatment to Bhumani and they go with satisfaction from his treatment.
Bhumani has some bad experience with the formal society. Couple of years back, some people
from the educated society came and gathered information from him and he told them whatever
they asked about his herbal treatment and shared it politely. After getting the knowledge from
Bhumani they never returned to him, at least to say thanks about the knowledge he shared. This
experience created a bad image of the formal society. Now he did not want to share his
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information with the others. The knowledge that he has acquired by living in nature and from his
forefathers will go along with him because he has a child who is also not keen about the
occupation of his father. His son has chosen carpentry as his job and working in cities.
Fig: Bhumani Ankanna

Dasari Ankamma, a lady from the village has good knowledge about the leaves of the
plants which she normally uses for making food items. These leaves are gathered by her from the
forest. He shared with us an event when she went to Ahmadabad through Honey Bee in an event
organized by National Innovation Foundation (NIF). The food prepared by her during the event
was praised by the people who visited it. Dasari Ankamma has also a good knowledge of herbal
leaves which she shared with us.
Fig: Dasari Ankamma

At last the day came when the trip was going to be ended and we honored the oldest
woman of the village by giving a shawl for sharing her knowledge with us and the community. We
requested her to share her rich experience with the children’s of the village so that they could also
get aware of their culture and tradition which will help her in preserving their culture.
CONCLUSION
We observed that tribal people have tremendous knowledge regarding the traditional
agriculture practices which play major role in sustaining environment. Though they have not
much infrastructure facility, they are living happily with their own culture and knowledge. The
knowledgeable people of the traditional knowledge are sharing their knowledge with the young
generation.
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A Report on
“Korraprolu Village Knowledge”
Dornala mandal, PrakashamDistrict, Andhra Pradesh.
GYAN SHODH
By
Anil Hooda
Aruna Nadipalli
Yamini Jadhav

10 June-19 June
Warangal District
Our Acknowledgement :
We the students of National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM)
at Hyderabad pursuing a Postgraduate Diploma Course in Intellectual Property Rights and
Technology Management are grateful to Brig. P Ganesham for providing us the opportunity to
become part of “Shodh Yatra “. And also we are thankful to National Innovation foundation, Sristi
and Honey Bee organization for organizing such kind of educative and highly informative yatra to
areas considered as cradle of knowledge. Brig. P Ganesham who is the NIF collaborator for
Andhrapardesh and guest faculty for one of our course (“Innovation and Technology
Development”) created interest with in us to take such yatra. And thus we also asked to him plan a
similar yatra for us and within no time he had planned a “Gyan Shodh” a yatra to seek knowledge
and information from the people.
This yatra has brought to us many learning and true understanding of life. This helped in
changing our perspective towards life and made us to think about our duties and responsibilities
towards the society. It really provoked us to think towards such issues and problems which really
need government attention and support. Simply sitting in the class and imagining things of the
outside world does not bring out the reality. This outside exposure of nature and the knowledge
which we have gained is really a value addition for all of us.
SHODHYATRA- A WAY OF EFFECTIVE LEARNING

THROUGH NATURE JOURNEY
“Shodh Yatra - a journey for the search of knowledge, creativity and innovations at
grassroots level” is the definition we had learnt from Brig. P Ganeshan, who is a National
Innovation foundation - NIF collaborator for Andhrapardesh. Ours is a batch of sixteen students
pursuing a Postgraduate Diploma Course in Intellectual Property Rights and Technology
Management from National Academy of Agricultural Research Management in Hyderabad
(NAARM). In our third trimester we have a course named “Innovation and Technology
Development” for which Brig. Ganesham is guest faculty. It was he from whom we got the deep
insight about the work of National Innovation Foundation and we came to know about Shristi and
Honey Bee Organizations which are working for scouting Grassroots Innovation and Traditional
Knowledge especially from the Informal system. He talked and shared his experiences about
various previous “Shodh Yatra” which he had conducted so far and also inspired us for the similar
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yatra which he named as “Gyan Shodh”. It was planned for four villages in Sri Sailam area of
Kurnool district in Andhrapardesh.
As part of academic curriculum we had three day field visit to Srisailam area from 11 to 13
Sep 2009 along with the course faculty Brig. P Ganesham for scouting and documenting the rural
innovations and traditional knowledge.
We all sixteen were divided in four groups having four people in each group. Each group
has been allotted a village for “Gyan Shodh”. The four villages were Pedda Manthala,
Korraprolu, Chintala and Tumala Bayalu. The village allotted to our group was Korraprolu,
situated 15 km from Dornala, the place where we had pleasant stay of two nights. NAARM had
provided us with all the basic equipments required during “Gyan Shodh”. We were carrying some
magazines, documents and forms pertaining to NIF and Honey Bee network which we had to
distribute to the people during the “Gyan Shodh”. We purchased some gifts to give it as prize to
children and women for the competition regarding traditional knowledge which we had to
conduct in the village. There was great excitement and enthusiasm among all of us about the
“Gyan Shodh”, before we actually step in to the villages; NIF (National Innovation Foundation)
volunteers did a lot of ground work for us.
BACKGROUND STUDY
National Innovation Foundation was set up by Department of Science and

Technology in February 2000 at Ahmedabad. The tagline of National Innovation Foundation is
“in support of grass root innovations” which is very apt in signifying the importance of grass root
innovations especially in the country like India, where 70% of the population lives in villages and
also they are closely linked with nature. These innovations are meant to be problem oriented for
specific locations and thus are very effective in meeting requirements of the rural people.
Objectives of NIF are well defined in terms of how they are going to utilize these innovations for
nurturing nation’s wealth and prosperity. These objectives are as follows:
o To help India become an innovative and creative society and a global leader in sustainable
technologies by scouting, spawning and sustaining grassroots innovations
o To ensure evolution and diffusion of green grassroots innovation in a selective, time-bound
and mission oriented basis so as to meet he socio-economic and environmental needs of our
society
o To provide institutional support in scouting, spawning, sustaining and scaling up grassroots
green innovations as well as outstanding traditional knowledge and helping their transition to
self supporting activities. It seeks self reliance through competitive advantage of innovation
based enterprises and/or application of people generated sustainable technologies at
grassroots level
o To build linkages between excellence in formal scientific systems and informal knowledge
systems and create a knowledge network to link various stakeholders through application of
information technology and other means
o To promote wider social awareness, and possible applications, of the know-how generated as
a result of these initiatives in commercial or social spheres and encourage its incorporation in
educational curriculum, developmental policies and programs
The network partners of NIF are:
Honeybee network:
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The concept behind honeybee is to develop a networking so that rural innovators are benefited.
Sristi:
The concept behind Sristi is to strengthen the creativity of grassroots inventors,

innovators and ecopreneurs engaged in conserving biodiversity and developing eco-friendly
solutions to local problems.
GIAN:
It is a setup responsible for providing incubation support to grass root innovations

and traditional knowledge from the regions of west and India.
Introduction about chenchu’s
Chenchu’s are the Hindu Tribes - the Aboriginal Ones who are found in the Central Hills
stations of Andhra Pradesh.
Chenchus are the Aboriginal Tribe who still considers hunting for their livelihood rather
then farming. Selling meat is one of their major activity. Their food consists of gruel made from
jowar or maize, and boiled or cooked jungle tubers. They mix tamarind fruit with tamarind. The
Caste Hindu which lives with Chenchus take Chenchus land on rent and pay by giving a portion of
their harvest to Chenchus. They are the food gathering tribe who mostly speak Telgu.
The Chenchus collect jungle products like roots, fruits, tubers, beedi leaf, mohua flower,
honey, gum, tamarind and green leaves and make a mearge income of it by selling these to traders
and government cooperatives.
Colors of chenchu:
Chenchu - The Craftsman

Self Reliant, the Chenchus have learned various small arts,
like craftsmanship, to make their lives more easy. On the other
hand, Chenchus prefer to do most of their things on their own.
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The Reversed God

The Chenchus have good faith in god and goddess.
The Lingamayya, a form of lord Shiva and the Hindu
Diety and the Godess Maisamma-the Shakti are the
most reversed ones.
The Culture of Chenchus:
Traditionally the Chenchu Village is known as Penta and

consists of a few Huts. The Village elder is the one who takes the
major decisions and does the Counseling. The marriage of
Chenchus is known as Pelli and takes place through negotiation
among the elders or by the choice of young couples.
The Chenchus have a strong faith in the Gods and
Goddesses. They worship their deities with great devotion. Lord
Eshwara among them is known as “Lingamayya”, and Shakti as
“Maisamma” or “Peddamma”.The Gods are prayed with great
pomp and show.
Traditional Chanchu
Day One:
Students giving information about “Honeybee”
Getting introduced:
After reaching to the village at about 14:00 hours in
the afternoon we were introduced to that village with the
help of Mr.Bangarraju, who is working closely for that
CHENCHU tribe people. Before introducing our selves
to them, he had given some information about the
village, and he wanted us to frame some questions to ask
the villagers. First we were introduced to a villager
Mallayya, them we had a walk around the villages for
one hour. We step into each and every home, by
introducing ourselves and distributed Honeybee magazines.
About the village: Korraprolu, Dornala Mandalam, Prakasham Dist, Pin code: 523331.
Andhra Pradesh, India.
Korraprolu was the village allotted to our group for “Gyan Shodh”.It is a small village
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situated 15 km from Dornala, the place where we all were staying in an APTDC resort. It is
located within the Nallamala Forest area, which is surrounded by low hills and vegetation all
around. The village is inhabited by over hundred families of Chechu tribe which completely rely
on these forests for their livelihood. They use various kinds of forest products for their day to day
life.
The village is connected to the city through mettaled road and had provision of pucca
houses, primary health centre, water tank and primary school. Due to the dam in Sri Sailam, the
village has got 24 hours power supply. Thus it holds all the modern facilities which a village
should have. The daily occupation of the men in the village is to collect the roots of medicinal
plants for selling. The women stay back in the houses to take care of the children and the old
people and to carry out the household chores.
It is a very small village, about hundred families residing with a population of 400 people
including children. They were residing there for the past 80yrs. This village is very close to nature
with full of greenery and with proper cement road. Children and old people are more in number
compared to younger people.
Introduced with Village Sarpanch: Village sarpanch name is Kondaiah, 30yrs old, 7 th
close dropout, with two children and wife, having 2 acres of land with Chilli crop. He looks after
the requirements of the village, like water facility to crop lands and domestic purpose, power
supply; he has been putting pressure on higher authorities to establish high school in the village
since three yrs. He shared all the experiences, about the traditional practices they are following, he
told us that most of the elders in the village were died without sharing knowledge with others, as
we said the importance of sharing with others he had taken an oath then he and his village will
share the what ever the knowledge they know with others.
Temples: At the entrance of the village there is temple of lord Hanuman. It is small
temple. Last year they laid statues of nine planet gods (Nava graha), with around 10 pundits,
which costs about 30 thousand. There is rest room next to the temple for visitors.
Hospital: There is PHC (Primary Health Centre) at the
village entrance, this is main health centre covering four sub
centers namely Mocharla, Pillaguntla, Dornala, Yedavalli. This
PHC is with three rooms, four beds, one ANM nurse and
compounder. Building for the hospital is donated by the village
sarpanch. Working hours are from 0900 to 17:00hrs.
Map showing area under PHC
Living conditions: Almost all the villagers were living
in slab houses provided by the Government. But still some
people they are living in hut made-up of bamboo sticks and wild
grass, which gives them cooling effect. Except four to five families all are having electric supply.
Water facility is by hand pump, and drinking water tank constructed by the government.
Except old people and children all the villagers were going to forest at 7:00 hrs in the
morning, returning at around 12:00 to 13:00 hrs, taking lunch and again going to forest returning
at 17:00 to 18:00 hrs. Some villagers are going for farming works, construction works in near by
villages.
Food habits: Chenchus leave in harmony with nature. They take from the nature only the
amount they require. In their daily consumption they are including such vegetables which they
can easily from fro forest like curry leaves, wild brinjal, some roots and tubers. They cook rice
along with Ragi, preparing chapati of Korra (Fox Millet), Sajjalu (Pearl Millet).
Livelihood: By selling the produce what ever they are getting from the forest like Honey,
Bamboo, Rita (Shikakai), Sapindus ( Soap nut), roots of a plant Plalagaddalu ( Asclepiadaceae)
are cut into small pieces dried and sold to the Govt. or private organizations, which is used in the
preparation of sherbet and tonics.
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For 1kg of honey they are getting Rs.80/- from Govt.agencies, from private agencies they
are getting Rs.170/- to 200/- per Kg.
Honey wax: After extracting honey from the beehive, by cooking that beehive, honey wax is
prepared which they are getting more money than honey. 200 to 250/ Kg.
By selling Bamboo sticks for 100 sticks they are getting Rs.300/-
By selling the roots Suganda / Makandi / Coleus forskohlii they are getting Rs.430/- per
Kg of roots.
Roots of Suganda
These roots have been used as a medical herb to treat heart and lung diseases, intestinal
spasms, insomnia and convulsions. Forskolin may also assist in dilating blood vessels and
improving the forcefulness with which the heart pumps blood. It may help to reduce blood
pressure and improved heart function in people with cardiomyopathy. It is found effective in skin
conditions as eczema and psoriasis. It can aid in weight loss due to its ability to breakdown stored
fat.
Some people were going for Upadihami Padhakam provided by the Govt. in which they
paid Rs.100 per day.
Day: 2
Interaction with elderly people in the village:

We identified three elder people in the village
B.Ankamma- 80 yrs
N.Bujamma- 75 yrs
Mallayya - 73 yrs
We honored them with shawls. They shared their experiences, like their food habits make
them to live such a long life. They were so happy about the way we recognized them and honored
them. What ever may be the sickness they are not depending on the hospitals, they are depending
on traditional medicines.
Interaction with elders in the village

Felicitation of the elderly man for his knowledge sharing:
Oldest man of the village Mallayya shared traditional on different plants like
Roots of Naga musti plant used to cure Diabetics
Leaves of Nalem tree used to cure Malaria
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Moduga tree: Sap from the trunk of the tree collected by making little injury to the trunk.
Two to three drops of the sap is applied to the eye, if curd like substance is coming out of the eye
after 5 min, then the person is suffering with Jaundice. By applying that sap thrice in a day, with in
three to four days the person will be cured.
Gumpani tree: Bark of tree is powered, mixed with water and applied on fractured parts
like legs, arms, etc.
Mogga chettu: Leaves of the plant is used to cure internal bleeding.
Ari chettu: For curing motions (juice of that plant bark, twice in a day for two days)
Gajjaleru plant: Roots of the plant used for the treatment of all types of Jaundice.
Calotropis gigantea (L.), Jilledu
2-3 Leaves mildly heated with castor (Ricinus communis) oil and bandaged over the
testicles, changed every day until cured.
Dregea volubilis Benth, Peddaguriza Aaku
4-5 leaves with 5-10 leaves of Nelagulimidi (Enicostema axillare) were made into juice
added with pinch of pepper powder, administered immediately bandaged over the snake bite and
the juice is given orally.
Momordica charantia L ,.Local name: Kakara
Handful of leaves ground and made into juice added with pinch of sugar administered, 2-3 tea-
spoonful twice in a week for tooth ache.
Opuntia elatior Mill, Local name: Brammajemudu
Burned stem ash is applied on joints to cure pain.
Tinospora cordifolia (Wild.) Miers
Family: Menispermaceae
Local names: Tippa Tega
10-15 cm of the fresh plant powder is mixed with cumin (zeera) and sugar is administered
to reduce body heat
Butea monosperma (Lam.) Taub.
Family: Fabaceae / Leguminosae
Local name: Modugu
250 gms stem bark crushed well and applied externally on the fractured area
Mixing of bark powdered with 15 gms pepper is given orally twice a week to cure
Bone fractures [For cattle, buffalo, goat and sheep] & Grinding of teeth [For cattle]
Solanum nigrum L.
Family: Solanaceae
Local name; Kasipandlu
100 gms of ripened fruits pounded with 15 gm of pepper mixed with butter milk, given
orally once a day for 15 days.
Ruminating and digestive disorders [For cattle, buffalo, goat and sheep]
Pergularia daemia (Forsskal) Chiov.
Family: Asclepiadaceae
Local name: Dustaputeega
Latex or leaf extract applied locally
To cure Muscle disorders [For cattle,
buffalo, goat and sheep]
Student gathering information from knowledge

holder near the forest
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Innovation on scouting
Today we again went to interact with knowledge holder, and we gathered information
about the different medicinal plant, and the use of those plant parts was really amazing to us.
Name of the medicinal plant which we have came across via scouting are palllgadda , silla tree ,
nalyani , moduka chattu , nagmusti , jampan chattu etc
These trees and plants having different unique features which are known by the knowledge holder
in the village.
Pallgadda :
Pallagadda roots
It is a tree, the part which is important is root, root of the tree are taken out by using any
sharp edge knife and these root are kept for drying by expose to the sun up to 4-6 days. .
Collecting the root of this tree is the most adoptable occupation in my village. Most of the villager
goes to the jungle for collecting or cutting the root of the tree.
Use of the root part

Root of the tree are use in making the sharbat
To whom villager sell the root
A) they are selling the root to Girjan corporation ,girjan corporation is paying 60 rup per kg
B) they are selling to the private organigazation or seller , private seller are paying more money
as 100- 120 rupees per kg
Moduka chattu
It is a tree, it have medicinal value. This tree is use notonly identify the infection of
jaundice but also cure for that disease.
Step to be followed for identification of the disease:
1. A red colour ooze is extrated from the plant by giving a simple incision to the trunk portion of
the tree
2. ooze should not collected in any metal jar /pot
3 drop of the ooze is administrated in the eyes of the suspected to be infection person
4. if the color of the red ooze is change in to the white ,then it is confirmation of infection or
suffering by disease
5. if the color of the drop is remain same ,then particular person is not infected by jaundice ,it is
confirm
what is to be done if the jaundice infection is confirm :

1. Drop of that tree ooze is apply 3 day, each day 3 times
2. Precaution: a) spicy food should not eat
b) Rice, dal should eat
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Advantages: generally if a person is infected by jaundice it will take more time compare to the
traditional way of treating, traditional way of treating takes 3 day only
Opportunity:
If this drug comes in market in the acceptable form which most of the consumer accept, and it
comes in market by using a brand name then the product have ample opportunity to beat all
product in the same area for the treatment of the disease
NAGMUSTI:
Collecting the roots of Nagamusti

It is a plant, root of which is useful in snake bite. Inflorescence of the plant have a unique
character which helps in to identify the plant, plant inflorescence is like snake head.
Method for use:
1. root of the plant is collected
2. root are make dried
3. powder is made from the root of the plant
4. sugar is mixed in the powder
if this powder is used up to 2 month ,then it can solve the blood sugar problem.
AMPAN CHATTU
It is the tree, important part of the tree is used is bark
Where to use :
The powder of the root is use for any breakage in human and animal
Method of use:
1. bark is separated from the tree
2. bark is dries in sunlight up to 4-6 days
3. powder is made of the bark
4. powder is mixed with the water
5. the mixer ( powder + water ) is apply to the breakage part up to 10 days
6. after 20 days it is removed
Recipe competition:
Conducted Recipe competition for the women, here the concept was to identify their
traditional knowledge so we wanted them to prepare recipe with locally available items.
Out of six participants we selected three of them.
First prize: D. Mallamma- For the recipe Wild Brinjal curry
Second Prize: B.Nagamma- Sajja(Pearl millet) rottelu
Third prize: A.Venkamma- Ragi Malt
Herbarium competition for the children: We conducted herbarium competition, most of

the people they went to school so, fifteen children were participated in this competition. We asked
them to bring the medicinal palnt what ever they know from their elders, we have given half an
hour time to them. Here the main aim of this competition is to know how much knowledge they
are gaining from their elders.
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INTERACTION WITH CHILDREN FOR HERBARIUM COMPETITION
Chenchu’s situation and Major threats for them:

The Chenchus Tribes of the Nallamala Forest of the Krishna River Valley are vanishing
along with the Flora and Fauna? Yes, Chenchus population is dwindling because of their
inseparableness with the Nature, while the main stream population is growing with alarming
growth rate. The continuing over exploitation of forest wealth reflected in the livelihood of the
Chenchus and gathering forest resources becoming scarce. Chenchus are encountering hunger,
poverty, disease, and destitution in the habitats. United Nations identified Chenchus as the
Indigenous Tribes of the Nallamala Forest of the Krishna River Valley. The Government of India
taking special care not to be vanished had notified them as Primitive Tribal Groups.
The Government of Andhra Pradesh in conformity with the National Tribal policy, made
its policies to integrate the Tribal population with main stream, and designed welfare projects in
consultations only with the scholars and bureaucrats but not also with the Chenchus.In
implementation, the projects did not yield anticipated results because the project was not known
to the Chenchus, as they were not designed in consultations with the Chenchus. The development
personnel hardly reach them to deliver their services as their habitats situated in mountainous
areas. The Development personnel’s half commitment, corruption crippled the projects. In
addition activities of Maoists and counter activities of police, kept them in fear to not to go into the
forest to gather food and to gather forest produce to sell at Girijan Corporation, for buying food
had become a great problem for Chenchus.
Despite the above problems, some committed Government officer’s intervention,
Chenchus initiated to cultivate the forest lands to sustain their lives. The officers had facilitated
some basic infrastructure to some extent for Chenchus development But still there is need of
establishing sound infrastructure, like electrifying their irrigation wells, credit facility support
prices for their produce and training on diversified farming practices and to make their
development process in accordance with their culture but not with the policy of integrate them
with the Main Stream. The ultimate need of the Chenchus is Capacity Building inconsonance
with their culture, which is imperative to the concerned, to respond the challenges, to address, and
to empower the Chenchus before their existence is completely vanished. Chenchus need more
outreach programs on their rights, resources and capacity building.
In recent years Chenchus are migrating to the towns in search of labor for their survival. In
this process they are falling prey to HIV/ AIDS, which is a great threat to their existence of their
vanishing communities.
OBSERVATION & CONCLUSION:

“Gyan Shodh” was really a value addition trip for all of us. Through it we got the chance to
experience the life of a village. Mere sitting and listening in the class does not bring true learning
unless there is something practical to substantiate it. We learnt about the problems and issues
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faced by the people in the rural areas and what is need to be done. We found that the villages are the
immense source of knowledge and grassroots innovations. And from there we realized the
importance of NIF and the kind of challenges it has to face in gathering traditional knowledge. So
whatever we were experiencing we were relating it our leanings from the classroom. Following
are the challenges we encountered while gathering knowledge or information from them.
1. The foremost challenge was to make them believe that we are here for their own good.
2. Some of them were quite suspicious of our presence there.
3. Most of them were not ready to share their traditional knowledge or sharing it partly.
4. Most of them were showing hesitancy in interacting with us.
5. Some of them had bitter experiences in the past and thus not ready to share anything.
6. Even some of them were complaining that in the past also they shared the information but it
didn’t make any difference to their life.
7. Even some of educated people commented that these government people are not going to
do anything.
8. One woman even closed her doors by seeing us coming.
9. Men didn’t share much information regarding some of the techniques they used in making
waxes, fearing that it might loose them their occupation.
10. A great deal of information and knowledge got died with the death of their ancestors
because they haven’t transferred it to them.
But overall we were able to make out a great deal of difference regarding the theoretical
and the practical situations. The ground reality which we faced in the village exposed us the
practical challenges which one have to encounter while documenting traditional knowledge. But
the overall experience was of much more learning than sitting in the A.C class and imagining
things. We all have experienced true learning there. And in future we will go more prepared and
try to overcome our shortcomings which we have felt during this time.
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A Report on
“Srisailam Knowledge”
Kurnool District, Andhra Pradesh.
GYAN SHODH
By
Anuradha
Hari Mohan
Manpreet
Ruchica
10 -3-2009
Kurnool District
Acknowledgements
The most ostensibly brilliant works of literature result not from inspired creativity but
from a desultory frame of mind. Neither is our work a brilliant manuscript nor a creative treatise
which would raise the brows of its readers. Failing to be an ingenious master piece, the work
definitely is a success story of how human beings withstand the adversities of truculent yet
accommodating Mother Nature. The study to understand the dynamics of human – nature
interactions is the fundamental purpose of this whole work. Lots of determination, effort, and
energy and of course resources went in to this whole game plan. When everything else fails, it is
inspiration which keeps us going. In this endeavor too we have drawn inspiration from many
individuals both whom we know and whom we met for the first time. We acknowledge all those
who mentored us, guided us, helped us and of course inspired us. Thank you all!
Background study:
Gyanshodh:
There are an abundance of innovations, technology and knowledge in rural areas which
are obscure. Gyanshodh aims uncover those innovations and utilize them to enrich lives by
enabling them to reach the market. It helps identifying innovative ideas created in rural India,
incubates them, and then helps them to scale as marketable products.
The Honey Bee Network honors a dozen outstanding innovators every year from different
parts of the country and the main crux of the whole process is to recognize, respect and reward the
innovative minds of our society. These yatras strengthen the network by popularizing the Honey
Bee philosophy on the one hand and the Honey Bee Database of grassroots innovations and
outstanding examples of traditional knowledge on the other. This database has grown from 1,500
entries in 1993 to 5,000 in 1997 and over 70,000 at present. Consistent efforts are done to file
patents in some cases, add value to develop commercial products and disseminate other
innovations. In April 2003, the Honey Bee Network got its first patent from the United States
Patent and Trademark Office for Mansukhhbhai Patel of Ahemedabad for a cotton-stripping
machine. Shodh-yatris locate such innovators; they try to convince the common public that their
knowledge is safe in the hands of the Honey Bee Network.
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Aims of Shodh Yatra:

1. To learn about the experiences of the farmers engaged in organic farming and inform other
farmers about the same.
2. Encourage the curiosity of the children about variety in organic farming.
3. To meet the people who solve their problems through their presence of mind and inborn
ability, store their knowledge and felicitate them.
4. To compile the knowledge, which is fast disappearing and establish a dialogue between the
old generation and future generation.
The first “Shodhyatra” started with District Junagarh with, 18 marchers and many villagers and
officials. The representative of Junagarh Agricultural University, Shri. Ustedyabhai, The Taluka
Development Officer of Talala Taluka, The President Shri. Vajubhai Cholera of Akshayghad and
the Police Inspector of Talala Taluka attended the start of the Shodh Yatra and encouraged the
marchers. Prof. Anil Gupta talked about the objectives and the activities of SRISTI giving
different examples to give the understanding of the institute and appealed to the farmers to
experiment with organic farming in a small part of their farms. After this “yatra” many times this
has again being organized in the following villages:
Shodhyatra 7 (Kutch, Gujrat)
Shodhyatra 8 (Alwar, Rajasthan)
Shodhyatra 9 (Kheda, Anand)
Shodhyatra 10 (Tamilnadu)
Shodhyatra 11 (Uttarnchal) etc.
These villages were visited and a large amount of data has been retrieved. This data
regarding the inventions was used for documentation of rural innovations and traditional
knowledge. This information is further utilized for selection of innovations which are of
commercial value, there after they are protected.
NIF – Honey bee network:
o National Innovation Foundation was set up by the Department of Science and
Technology in February 2000 at Ahmedabad under the Chairpersonship of
Dr. R. A. Mashelkar, Director General, CSIR and President Global Research
Alliance, Professor Anil K. Gupta, President SRISTI and Professor Indian
Institute of Management Ahmedabad, is the Executive Vice Chairperson of
NIF.
o Objectives of NIF are well defined in terms of how they are going to utilize these innovations
for nurturing nation’s wealth and prosperity. These objectives are as follows:
o To help India become an innovative and creative society and a global leader in sustainable
technologies by scouting, spawning and sustaining grassroots innovations.
o To ensure evolution and diffusion of green grassroots innovation in a selective, time-bound
and mission oriented basis so as to meet he socio-economic and environmental needs of our
society
o To provide institutional support in scouting, spawning, sustaining and scaling up grassroots
green innovations as well as outstanding traditional knowledge and helping their transition to
self supporting activities. It seeks self reliance through competitive advantage of innovation
based enterprises and/or application of people generated sustainable technologies at
grassroots level.
o To build linkages between excellence in formal scientific systems and informal knowledge
systems and create a knowledge network to link various stakeholders through application of
information technology and other means.
o To promote wider social awareness, and possible applications, of the know-how generated as
a result of these initiatives in commercial or social spheres and encourage its incorporation in
educational curriculum, developmental policies and programs.
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NIF’s commitment to grassroots innovators and traditional knowledge holders is aimed at:
(a) Building their linkages with institutional scientists, technologists and designers to add value in
their technologies,
(b) Mobilizing venture capital support to help convert innovations into enterprises,
(c) Protecting their intellectual property rights and
(d) Creating a culture of creativity and innovation in society.
The network partners of NIF
Honeybee network:
o Honeybee stands for people – to – people networking in local language and assurance to
providers of knowledge that they would not be impoverished through sharing knowledge just
as flowers do not complain when the pollen is taken away by honey bees. Thus the basic
concept behind honeybee is to develop a networking so that rural innovators are benefited.
o The ethics of knowledge extraction, its documentation, dissemination and abstraction into
theories, institutions or technologies is the central concern of honeybee network.
o Honeybee’s database of innovation and traditional knowledge crosses the limit of 70,000 this
year.
The role of Honey Bee Network:
The Honey Bee Network was established eighteen years ago to connect creative people
beyond language barriers, acknowledge and reward the contribution of innovators, expand policy
and institutional space for local knowledge experts by ensuring fair share of benefits. NIF while
building upon the Honey Bee philosophy, is trying to generate a revolution in the country by
linking grassroots innovators with one another as well as with experts in the field of technology,
markets, design and other relevant formal sector institutions. The national campaign is a means to
build solidarity among creative people, by unfolding the potential of genius at grassroots. Seven
values (7 E’s) are being blended such as ethics, excellence, efficiency, environment, education,
equity and empathy. Creativity in that sense is being combined with compassion, conservation
and concern for the disadvantaged
people. The entries received by NIF are
screened for their possible validity,
uniqueness, potential social impact,
creativity or embedded valuable
traditional knowledge. The selected
entries are evaluated with the help of
group of experts and Honey Bee
Network collaborators. The most
outstanding entries are given awards and
also support for prototype development
and scaling up depending upon the social
criticality, potential impact, eco-
friendliness, economic condition of the
innovator, potential for value addition
through linkage with science and
technology and prospects of diffusion
through commercial and non-commercial channel.
Kids of Pedda mantnala with Honey-
bee magazines
GIAN (Grass root Innovation Augmentation Network):
The main objective of GIAN is to facilitate the conversion of grass-root
innovations into products and sustainable enterprise. It is a setup responsible for
providing incubation support to grass root innovations and traditional knowledge from the
regions of west and India.
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Roles catered by GIAN:

o Incubation support
o IP protection
o Venture promotion
o Benefit sharing among stakeholders
Sristi:
The concept behind Srishti is to strengthen the creativity of
grassroots inventors, innovators and ecopreneurs engaged in conserving
biodiversity and developing eco-friendly solutions to local problems.
Roles of Srishti:
o Srishti covers information like Disaster Management, IPR, Technology
Licensing, Technology Exchange, Social Entrepreneurship etc.
o Link from Srishti connects to the portal of Tech-Pedia which supports the students and rural
innovators to link with the industry people so that strategic research may be carried out with
the raw ideas of innovators and this approach will result to great inventions and also benefit
sharing will be there with the original innovator.(http://techpedia.sristi.org/)
o Srishti maintains “Innovation database”, “Srishti Library” and “Honey bee Journal Published
Innovations and Practices” are excellent tools for locating such grass root innovations and
also these databases provides legal support in case of IP related conflicts.
o The concept of “IGNITE” that is to award the innovators is also very encouraging to the
students and young innovators and which will build enthusiasm in them for creating
innovations.
o Link to Prof. Anil K. Gupta is also available is the website which comprises of various
interesting articles related to rural innovations.
Rural innovation: “A sense of traditional wisdom leads to Innovation”
Rural India teems with amazingly innovative ideas that can solve a huge variety of
problems and create enduring prosperity. It is this potential that needs to be translated into reality.
These grass root innovations have a significant impact on rural lives and lie untapped, in spite of
their potential to transform lives. These innovations would help in betterment of productivity and
profitability of operations of the farmers, artisans, handicraft persons and rural people, better
sanitation, health and hygienic conditions and environment in rural areas.
Major rural innovations revolve around some basic necessities and are problem solving in nature
such as:
o Dry land / rain fed farming,
o Innovative rainwater harvesting for rural dwellings,
o Rural energy from biomass/ agricultural wastes,
o Techniques for increasing the value of crop residues and non-crop bio mass,
o Community regulation of distribution and use of water and energy,
o Storage devices for agricultural and rural products,
o Innovative methods of managing Common Property Resources,
o Materials and designs for rural roads and rural sanitation and waste disposal.
o Rural Housing and Habitat Development- Low cost and natural calamity resilient housing
structures for providing safe habitat to rural population,
o Rural service sector,
o Financial and technological model for Health Care and Hygiene,
o Evolving package of products on Rural Tourism and Culture etc.
There are various policies run bye Government and other Non Governmental
Organizations for generating funds, required to support innovative, risk friendly, unconventional
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experiments in Farm, Non-Farm and micro-Finance sectors that would have the potential to
promote livelihood opportunities and employment in rural areas improve, farm practices, and
help in conserving the land and other resources.
Despite the efforts of Government a great area of rural innovations is still uncovered and
thus it needs a conscious effort of the young generation of our country to take responsibility to
find out these innovations deep from the heart of the interior villages and rural areas.
Location:
Andhra Pradesh, Kurnool / Srisailam, Dornala, Pedda Mantanala
Srisailam:
Srisailam is a holy town and Mandal, situated in Nallamala hills of Kurnool district,
Andhra Pradesh, India. It is 232 km south of Hyderabad, on the banks of River Krishna. The dam
is located about 245 km from Hyderabad and 132 km from Nandyal. Srisailam is located at
16.074°N 78.868°E.It has an average elevation of 409 meters (1345 ft). It is considered as one of
the 12 largest hydroelectric projects in India.
Sri Sailam Dam

Srisailam Temple is a highly revered
shrine that houses one of the twelve
‘Jyotirlingams’ of India. Located at Srisailam,
falling under the Kurnool district of Andhra
Pradesh. Rishabhagiri Hill, also known by the
name of Sri Giri, Sriparvata, Rudra Parvata
and Seshachalam, makes the venue of this
temple. River Krishna flows by the side of the
temple; here it is called as ‘Pataalganga’.
Dating back to the 2nd century, Srisailam
temple finds its reference in various
mythological texts and scriptures. Its
sculptural beauty is simply remarkable. There
are no less than 116 inscriptions in and around the shrine. Sri Mallikarjuna Swami and his consort
Bharamaramba, who are the incarnations of Lord Shiva and Parvati, are the presiding deities of
the temple.
Sri Mallikarjuna Swami Temple, Srisailam
Dornala: Dornala or Doranala is a village and a Mandal in Prakasam district in the state of
Andhra Pradesh in India. It is situated about 30 Km from Srisailam. It is also called as Gateway of
Srisailam[The famous Shiv Temple in Andhra Pradesh] Doranala is located at 15.9000°N
79.1000°E. It has an average elevation of 208 meters (685 feet).
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Pedda-mantnala: Pedda-mantanala (78° 50’N; 16° 55’E), also a small chenchu settlemet at the
foothills, is located about 22 Km South- West of Dornala on the left side of Dornala- Kurnool
State Highway. Here lithic artifacts were found spread over a large area beside a lake which
comprise miniature hand axes, unifacial and bi-facial points, scrappers, borers, blades and cores
made on fine quartzite. The raw material was derived from the out crops in the vicinity. The fresh
water lake is perennial in nature that perhaps acted as the source of water for stone-age people.
The area is rich in wild plants and animal resources.
Plan of Action
Before setting foot in the village we had in our mind the kind of activities we had to do and
the timelines, which have been framed by the group a day before the trip. An action plan was laid
down and this was subject to changes as may be desired by the coordinators of the trip.
Below is the plan which we had planned to follow for our trip, so as to make maximum use of the
time and resources.
o Reaching Dornala and village allotment
o Actualization of work
l Day – 1
o Getting introduced
o About the village
eHistory
eTemples
eDeities
o Living conditions
o Demography
l Day – 2
o Interaction with an elderly man in the village
o Recipe competition
o Herbarium competition
o Cultural events
o Filling up of the forms relating to innovations.
o Winding up and final tasks (if any)
This plan was followed to the core and details are described herein.
Day-1
We reached Srisailam – “Dornala”, at 1.00 p.m. and got ready to go to those villages that
were allotted to each of the groups. As mentioned earlier the village allotted to us was the farthest,
named “Pedda Mantanala” which was 22km away from “Dornala”. We reached the village at 2.00
p.m., along with one of the Chenchu named Mr. B. Raju. He had shifted from the village to the city
area and was well educated, well dressed, and friendly person who showed us the way to go to the
village and introduced us to few people in the village. Mr. B. Raju told us briefly about the village
and the forest life there but what we found there was much different feeling. We were of the view
that village life is full of fresh air free of pollution, a lot of free relaxing time, no tough office work,
less diseases due to pure climate, and many pleasures. But with a first sight to village, we saw that
the village was without electric power supply and was quite hot at 2.00 pm in the afternoon. We
met the school principal and another teacher Mr. Ravindra there who told us about the school, the
children, village etc. The school was with a facility of boarding too where children from
neighboring villages also studied.
On our way to the village we saw an old temple which had ancient architecture and seem
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to be of days when there was king’s rule prevailed. We were accompanied with one of the teachers
named Mr. Ravindra who was a very knowledgeable person, who told us about the tribal goddess
“Mantanala” which was made in sculptures and was worshipped by the villagers. There was a
sculpture about the battle field and other such war tools that were in a dilapidated condition. These
sculptures had been destroyed during the wars by the infidels who rebelled against the kingdom.
Though the temple was ancient it was well maintained mainly by the funds arranged by the people
outside the village who visited the temple and found that their wishes came true in near future,
thus they filled with joy and pleasure thought to thank the goddess there by offerings in monetary
terms.
We then moved to the village inside the forest along with Mr. Ravinder who gave us so
much information about the village and life there at Pedda Mantanala, on the way to the village in
a very short duration. We had to move through the dense forest which was dark in the afternoon, a
path full of rocks and bushes, bamboo trees and honeybee hives, muddy and watery patches,
followed by big grassland, and a lake full of lotus and water hyacinths. It was an adventurous
journey for us but when we thought about the tribes who had to cross that path daily in order to
reach the road, we were just speechless and got buried in thoughts about the life at Pedda
Mantanala. There was a second route to reach the road from the village which was also very long
and bouldered path where no vehicles can go. If a person in the village got ill they had to carry the
person to the road and then call upon the ambulance from the only telephone booth that was also
quite far away from the village.
The beautiful small village was located on the foothills with many rare trees and shrubs,
which are not quite frequently found in urban areas. The first site of the village gave a view of
beautiful village scenery we used to make in our childhood days, with small round bamboo huts,
mud huts and few pukka houses too. The village of the Chenchu reflects the culture and traditional
exuberance. Majority of the houses were made up of bamboo with small boundaries, that too of
bamboo. Bamboo wood of many varieties was found with ample availability, so their use was
quite obvious. We moved to one of the houses or meeting point for the villagers and interacted
with people available at that point of time in the village.
We were treated quite generously and were feeling quite honored, as people there were
very humble and down to earth they welcomed anyone who comes to their village without any
greed of help from outsiders. We introduced ourselves as students from National Academy of
Agricultural Research Management Hyderabad (A.P.) – India, who seek knowledge and
information about the Chenchu tribes, Pedda Mantanala, and the biodiversity there .They poured
whole bucket of knowledge onto us without hiding anything. Penta is the name of a village of a
Chenchu tribe. Each penta comprises of quite a few huts that are separated from each and other,
but the close relatives reside in close proximity, while the distant relatives stay far away.
Generally the elderly person the Chenchu village has been bestowed upon the power of
maintaining the social harmony and integrity of the people of the village or any individual family.
He is called “Peddamanishi”. The total population as told by them was about 90 people who
belonged to 30 families. The ratio of women was more compared to the men in the village. This
was mainly due to the dipsomaniac habits of men. The locals prepare raw country liquor using
jaggery and bark of a tree called “white thumba”. But, when people consume cheap liquor
procured from outside vendors which is adulterated, it led to blindness and other major health
problems there by leading to mortality. This was also due to the same treatment given to women as
compared to men in terms of education, food, health etc. Also, Malaria and Cholera are endemic
in this part of the forest. Majority of people also die due to these diseases.
Interestingly, these Chenchu tribes have kept intact all their traditional customs and
remained unaffected of the modern influences. Although few of the children of the Chenchu tribes
have been sent to schools, these Chenchu tribes are yet to find place in the ‘mainstream‘
educational system.
Majority of the families sustained their livelihood by farming and hunting. Hunting
was the primary occupation. The forest had major wildlife with boar, deer, few tigers, wild
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monkey “konda muchu”, and many types of birds. They go to the forest by 7 a.m. in the morning
and return back by 6 p.m. in the evening with all hunted animals, birds and fruits collected from
forest. Hunting was done by means of locally made bows and arrows of wood. They used some
modified type of arrows for fishing purpose; this is something very strange to see them using
archery either than using angles or nets for catching fishes. Honey and honey bee hive were also
major source of food and income for them.
Mr. Ravindra sharing views about the forest life remembered some memories of his
childhood when tigers and leopards were quite large in number such that they used to even come
to the village and take away the small children with them. He revealed that they were actually
reduced in number now due to frequent hunting habits and also due to the other tribes “sugali’s”,
who apply poison on the domestic animal and when tigers hunted upon them they use to die. He
sharing his views was just carried away about the biodiversity and diverse ecosystem that made
Pedda Manthanala a unique place, where biodiversity has always been an integral part of the
socio-cultural aspect of the local people. But alarmingly in recent days, its amazing wildlife and
unique ecosystem is battling the warm embrace of rapid climate change, the toxic taste of
accumulating chemical pollution, and mixed blessing of escalating development of its natural
resources. Never before wild animals and habitat faced the kind of threat they face today and just
as dangerous is the threat to the survival of species from habitat destruction. Ecological
destruction due to lopsided development projects and organized poaching has threatened the very
existence of the species. The current paradigm of development has resulted not only in the
depletion of natural resources of the state, but also threatens to wipe out irreplaceable ecosystems.
Farming is the second major practice for them to sustain their livelihood. Chenchu
meal is quite simple comprising of food prepared from jowar or maize, and also boiled or cooked
jungle tubers and tamarind. Recently, they have started growing rice that has brought a major
change in their food habits, but they belief that the previous food habits were better as compared to
present, as many women now does not conceive well and face a lot of problems when they are
pregnant. Talking about their food habits they invited to share tomorrow’s lunch with them. We
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thought to have a taste of the various dishes they prepare so we thought to have a recipe
competition next day. The village women were informed about our plans for the next day and they
all were very enthusiastic about welcoming us with the traditional dishes. Talking to the innocent
people of Pedda Mantanala time just passed away and we had to return to “Dornala”, with a lot of
knowledge and sweet memories, deep thoughts and an encouragement to return back to them the
next day to gain more and more information from them we ended our day one journey.
Day 2
The second day of our rural exploration was even more adventurous then the first one,
though at this time we were much more confident and clear about our approach and we started
putting our plans in action as soon as we landed in the village school. We met the school master
and informed him of our plans of herbarium competition and also requested his cooperation for
the same. Then we started for the village to complete other task and a list of the same is given
below.
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Following a list of our main activities for that day:

o Interaction with an elderly man in the village (HM)
o Felicitation of the elderly man for his knowledge sharing
o Recipe competition
o Distribution of prizes
o Herbarium competition
o Felicitation of teachers & innovator
o Cultural events
l Vandemataram song by students
l Tribal song
o Filling up of the forms relating to innovations.
These events are explained in detail as follows:
Interaction with an elderly man in the village

We had the privilege of interacting with a senior citizen who
is considered the eldest man living in the village. He is Mr. Viranna
Bhumani who is aged around 63 years. He is a repository of
knowledge and the length and breadth of his understanding about the farming systems, forest eco
system, herbal treatments, climatology and above all ‘life’, is simply transcendental. He talked to
us about his childhood days, the family structures, marriages in their societies, gender issues,
agriculture, deforestration, medicinal flora, human – animal interactions, food habits, health,
diseases, mortality, basic necessities, youth, politics, tribal development, food – for – work
program and of course innovations.
Early times
According to Mr. Viranna Bhumani, the life in this remote hamlet was very perilous due to
their complete exposure to the vulnerabilities of nature. He strongly believes that these
vulnerabilities to nature are the ones which make the sons of the forest stronger and indefatigable
later in life. For ages, farming was never practiced as a way of life in this remote hamlet. The
livelihoods were based completely on hunting – gathering. This
kind of pastoral livelihood left them with no leisure to focus on
development. Of late, farming along side hunting & gathering is
the way of life now in this village.
Family structures
Mr. Viranna shared his observations related to partial
nuclearization of families that is curently in vogue in this village.
His father’s generation and the generation before that lived
together with out much differences. The eldest in the family will have a say in all matters relating
to affairs of others in the family. As the members started exposing themselves to the society
outside this little village, things started changing slowly but surely. Brothers started drifting apart
and developing their own families and leaving the village in search of opportunities outside. A
complete reorganization of the family structure is what is going on in the village family system.
Institution of marriage
Mr. Viranna made an interesting narration of their customs and traditions relating to the
institution of marriage. He takes pride in telling us that the system of dowry is completely absent
in their societies. The bride is given complete freedom to make a decision and choose the man of
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her choice. In some cases, the groom’s family ends up paying some money and offering gifts to
the bride’s family in order to make them accede to their proposal. Chenchus marry among
themselves. Marriages outside their community are a rarity and the resistance offered to such
deviations is also low. This makes it clear that the chenchus are socially more advanced than many
other communities which are part of our formal Indian society. The initial marriage proposals will
be mediated by a priest whom they call ‘KOLAGAADU’. Before the families meet and sit down
for discussion, it is this KOLAGAADU who broaches up on the proposal and informs the
expectations from each side. It is the bride who will have a say about her choice. Her acceptance is
characterized by accepting to eat a special leaf which is specific to this forest. The marriage
ceremony will be celebrated lavishly and important items which form parts of the celebration are
home made country liquor and meat. Marriages are characterized by the presence of
KOLAGAADU all through the process and he continues to be engaged in post marriage
consultations also. Any dispute arising between the bride and the groom will call for
KOLAGAADU’s intervention. In total, the chenchus are an enlightened society when it comes to
life and living.
Gender issues
Gender equality is more pronounced in their
day to day life. Woman’s opinion will always be
sought when it comes to making decisions which will
have a direct impact on their family and farming. The
longevity of woman in the village is more compared
to men, the reason being consumption of adulterated
country liquor by men. The elderly man is also of the
opinion that the present generation women in the
village are working harder in the fields and forests
because their men have become sluggish and
dipsomaniac. Female literacy is higher compared to male literacy and the highest qualification in
the village is graduation (only one person). Of late parents of the girls have started putting their
daughters in welfare hostels run by the government. Some of the girls are sent to a near by town
called Nandyal to pursue further studies after completing their high school.
Agriculture
The elderly man could see a slow but steady shift in the livelihood patterns of his village
dwellers from hunting – gathering to agriculture. Apart from farming, they also have dairy and
backyard poultry to support and augment their food requirements. The common crops they grow
in the village are jowar, maize, ground nut, castor and chilly. The elderly man’s family felt let
down when the chilly crop failed last season due to bad monsoon. The family lost around Rs
6000/- which forced them to go for low input – low revenue crops like castor. One of the most
astounding observations shared by the villager relates to the impact of climate change on their
agriculture and livelihoods. The elderly man could literally feel the climate changing around him
for sure from those intuitions he gained by spending decades midst nature. The climate change is
taking a very heavy toll on these innocent sons of the forest.
Deforestation
Deforestation is another pressing problem for these folks. The elderly man expressed his
anguish for the indiscriminate mining of forest wealth that is currently happening here. He was
also worried about the possible extinction of some valuable species which have high medicinal
value. Where in some of the plants with high medicinal value used to be available with in the
vicinity of the hamlet previously, are no more present anywhere around. Now, they had to walk
deep in to the forest for procuring these valuable plants.
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Human – animal interactions

Mr. Viranna narrated some of his experiences relating to the in – situ conservation of
biodiversity by the indigenous groups living in this village. In the early 90’s there was a severe
drought condition in the village due to complete failure of monsoons which led to the drying up of
village pond which was the only source for water both for the villagers and for the animals having
their habitats in and around this area. The villagers know about a location with in the forest area
where the water table is shallow. They dug a small ditch and allowed the water to recharge. This
new water source not only catered to the drinking water needs of the villagers but also helped the
animals to quench their thirst and sustain the hot summer. This act by the villagers justifies the
reason, why it is important to devolve ownership rights on the forest to people living there and
conserving it.
Another interesting observation shared with us relates to the dwindling tiger population in
this forest area. Along side chenchus, there also lives another
sect of tribes called ‘SUGALIS’. Their hamlets are called
‘TANDAS’. Like chenchus, SUGALIS also rear dairy
animals for milk. Herds of cows are led in to the forest before
dawn for grazing and they normally return home by evening.
During the day, they are vulnerable to the attacks of wild
animals and more specifically tigers. In order to tackle this
impending menace from tigers, the SUGALIS have started
applying a poisonous compound on the bodies of their cows
before letting them in to the forest for grazing. Any wild
animal attempting to attack these cows and feed on them is
poisoned to death. These acts to protect their interests have ultimately resulted in a new disaster
like situation for the survival of tigers.
Felicitation of the elderly man for his knowledge sharing
o This was done after the elderly person has talked to us and had enlightened us in many ways.
o This interaction was going on outskirts of the village and there as a group of people present while the
conversation was going on. When we were done with it we all moved to the central part of the village
and felicitated the village who had been so kind to us and has given us his time and knowledge.
o We presented him with a shawl on behalf of Honeybee Network and NAARM.
o All this was done in front of all villagers who were present in the village at that time.
Recipe Competition
o As a part of our rural exploration we conducted a recipe competition for the village ladies.
o They were told on day 1 when we first visited the village that there will be a recipe competition the next
day and they were suppose to make some of their traditional foods for the competition.
o They made food items from Ragi chapattis and they were to be eaten with onion, red chilies and wild
nuts minced to form a paste.
o Villagers were of an opinion that one such chapatti would be sufficient for one day.
Prize Distribution
o These ladies were given first; second and third prizes and the prizes consisted of home use utensils.
o It was a new experience for us to taste those food items and when we were told about the reasons
behind consumption of those items we were amazed still about the observation power of these
villagers.
With this we ended our visit to the village per se and moved to the school with the innovator we
had identified and who was also our guide for the entire period.
Herbarium Competition:
o When we reached the school we saw that the school master had already made preparations for
herbarium competition and all the students had been instructed about the task.
o Students were told that they should hunt the nearby forest for the plants whose use they are familiar
with and also the master has told them the names of plants which are common to all forests and so they
need not bring them.
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o The prizes for the herbarium competition were given on basis of maximum number of plants collected
by a student.
o This was because it would encourage these small children to preserve biodiversity and they will
realize its importance as they grow up.
Felicitation of teachers & innovator
o After we were done with herbarium competition we went ahead to felicitate the school master and the
innovator for their knowledge and service to society.
o They were presented with shawls on behalf of Honey bee network and NAARM.
Cultural Events
o There were two cultural events organized:
o A song from children: They sang Vande Materam (Our National Song) as a group song
o One Chanchoo sang a tribal song on our request. This also reflected the pride that they take in their
traditional art.
Filling up of forms:
o After all the ceremonies were over and innovator also felicitated for his knowledge it time for us to
document his knowledge, which took most part of our day.
o The innovator was willing to share his knowledge with us and also told us about a drug which he had
discovered, though he refused to give details of his discovery as he was not sure about it and was
keeping it a secret as well, but he was positive that it will work. He also had tried this on some patients
in village.
o These forms are being attached with this report.
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Day 2 Memories
Observations
Innovations in hunting:
Chenchu tribes follow traditional archery with few modifications of the bow and
arrows. Traditional Archery has amazing history and cultural value. Traditional Archery is a
natural to a simple and serves to be quite relaxing and recreational. Roving with traditional bows
is a very healthy exercise. The bows used are a bit heavy, and requires dedication and practice to
master traditional bows. Some of the hunters had mastered in this skill, and can even target with
closed eyes, this was amazing to see.
Traditional bows used weigh around 50 to 60 pounds and were made of bamboo only. While, the
arrows were made of bamboo sticks and the iron blade joined together by means of a special gum
made up of ants which were fried and ground in some unique manner. To the end of the bamboo
stick feathers of birds cut in unique manner to facilitate targeting and quick travelling in air, were
other special attributes of the arrows used. Many shapes and sizes of arrows were made for
different type of animals, birds, fishes etc. These modifications were also for the distance and
height to be travelled, wind conditions, etc.
ARROWS BOW
Iron Bamboo
Bamboo
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Innovative Agricultural Implement (SALAMAANU)
SALAMAANU is an innovative agricultural implement developed by a farmer belonging

to Pedda Manthanaala village of Prakasham District. The implement is completely made out of
forest wood with no any metal components. The implement essentially consists of a supporting
frame to which all the other components are
attached. The supporting frame is rectangular in
shape with slots sufficiently spaced so as to
accommodate shovels and mounting beams.
Pluralities of shovels (five in this embodiment)
which are progressively tapered are fixed firmly
to the bottom of the frame. Two mounting
beams emerge from the ends of the supporting
frame. The mounting beams are locked at
supporting frame’s ends by using dowels.
Dowels are cylindrical in shape and are inserted
vertically in to the bores drilled on farther ends
of the mounting beams which orient towards the
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supporting frame.
SALAMAANU is a bullock mountable implement. It is used in conjunction with a hollow
bamboo tube for sowing purpose. As the implement is moved on the land, the shovels penetrate
the soil surface up to a suitable depth there by opening a furrow of sufficient width. The bamboo
tube will be closely moved from the rear end of the implement and the seeds will be released
through the bore of the hollow bamboo tube. After the sowing operation is completed, the opened
furrow will again be closed by making use of a GORRU which will also help in leveling the land.
Biodiversity
Documented wild herbs and their uses:
S. No. Name of the Plant Use Remarks
1 Pudumadde Healing Properties Anecdotal
Evidence
2 Mulli Eduru (bamboo) Hut making, Bow & Arrows
3 5 Akula Kura Leafy vegetable for Spinach
4 Chenchu Gadda
5 Chitra Mulam Paralysis, Wounds & Pains
6 Utarenam
7 Empalla Productivity Improvement
8 Pilla Pisuru Improves male potency
9 Malleboddu If the plant appears in the field
this reveals that rains will not occur
sufficiently for next 7 years and
drought conditions may arise
10 Wadapattaraaku Treatment of eye infection
11 Nalem chettu (Tree) Treatment of typhoid and malaria
Medicinal plants identified during “Gyan-Shodh”:
S.No. Details 1 2
1 Name of the Plant Naaru guru (Tree) Korinda teega
(Creeper)
2 Symptoms of the situation/ Severe cough for
ailment/ disease children
3 Herbal Practice (Human Human Health/
Health/ Animal Health/ Animal Health
Bip-pesticide/ Any other
4 Use of Practice/ Name In case of death of
of the ailment/ disease cattle during pregnancy
and bone fracture Influenza
5 Other Ingredients Buffalo fat
6 In case of herbal medicine Leaves
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7 Method of preparation Extracts from leaf + Size reduction

Buffalow Fat (Manage) (10 cm) taking stem
Grinding blow it from one
side, collect the
liquid in a
container, add
water and turmeric.
8 Method of Administration Drink the liquid as such
9 Dosage 3 times a day for Morning + Evening
miscarriage and 1 time (5 Days)
a day for bone fracture
10 No. of patients treated 8 Ladies and many animals Many patients
11 Precautions to be taken Don’t eat sour or
vinegary food
12 Whether the practice is:
13 a. Traditional Knowledge Traditional Knowledge Traditional Knowledge
14 b. His own new innovation
15 c. Improvement by the
innovator in already
existing practice
Conclusion
After our 2 days of rural expedition we found that villages and nature is an extremely rich source
of knowledge, but we believe that knowledge is omnipresent like nature. It is present irrespective of the
geographical location. Forget the village even people in cities are not exempted from abiding by laws of
nature and respecting nature. The moment we forget that force it backlashes us in some way to show its
presence and power.
Similarly knowledge is also present everywhere, only thing that it changes its form and shape as
geographical location changes. From the time our race learned to stand erect we are practically moving
from one problem to the other and create more problems as we move, but if in this movement and shifting if
quality of human life is improved then we are progressing and that is what is happening. This was exactly
what we saw in those 2 days as well.
The villager’s had same struggle for existence as we have in our life, they had same family worries
as we have, and their parents loved them like our parents do. Only difference was the stage were drama was
being enacted.
Given a chance we are sure that all these people will like to come to cities, but with amount of
money they had, they were very well off in that village. They had all that they needed, and had learned to
survive in that environment. Though we didn’t find anything as innovative as can be legally protected
under present system of this country, but the way the people had done things to survive was new to us. The
wants and needs of villager’s are simple and so simple improvements or tailoring of normally available
machinery serves them correctly, therefore they do it.
But, the knowledge of villager’s regarding the medicinal plants was marvelous and there is no
doubt if this could be tapped for commercial purposes lot of drugs can come to the market. But it requires
huge investments and research in a formal system to enter formal markets. Also, there is a fear that ruthless
commercial exploitation may destroy the natural environment s well, then these people will not be left with
anything.
At least all this should be kept in mind before commercializing any rural or traditional knowledge
especially the ones coming directly from womb of Mother Nature.
Lastly we would like to say that we all should stand up for this traditional knowledge and protect
what our ancestors left for us so that the treasures of nature, of this nation and of this human race may not
get lost in the race for commercialization, industrialization and economic progress.
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JANGALAPALLI
Introduction-
It’s a village almost 100years back .Its which is about 60km from warangal. Its developing
village. It has good roads, bank and a school with computer education. They have good
transportation facilities from the near by town. It is very near to the main road which connects
Etturu nagaram. Drinking water is brought from a near by well. The main occupation in the
village is agriculture. They have different skills like pottery, chiruthala ramayanam. Liquor(kallu)
is also one of the main occupation. We had introduced tree climber in this village. It has a very
good Gram Panchayat which looks after the every problem of the village. Elderly persons like
Mohan Das Sir, looks after the well-beings of the village. Village has its own market which will on
every Wednesday. We had a wonderful experience in this village. We will share in the further
discussion of our experiences.
SCHOOL:
Trees are been grown in the school.working for daily wages under the government as the
work is less an benefits is more.due to this the farmers are unable to get labour for their
work.thesse people newly built houses with the help of indiramma padkam.there is a river named
pedda cheruvu which supplies drinking water to this entire colony.these people are suffering little
bit with drainage problem.they have to go outside the road for this purpose.it creates problem for
the ladies mainly during rainy season.these people are famous for making paggam which is used
to tie the buffalows,cows etc.we had met a oldest lady nearly 98 years old.she is deaf and she is
unable to talk also.
Schools-it is well developed.computer education is done.yoga jimnastics is being
practiced over there.we met unitha,pramod, etc the 9th standard people.this school got the mandal
st
1 rank in ssc with 570marks.
CHIRUTHALA RAMAYANAM
In our visit to jangalapally the
memorable thing we had experienced is
Chiruthala Ramayanam. It is play in which a
group of people sing and dance to the stories
in Ramayanam
We organized the play in the evening
at around 7pm. The troop in the village
performed the play. All the people in the troop
are around 65years of age. They find it
difficult even to walk. As we asked them to
perform they enthusiastically performed.
Only 4-5 members performed the play while
remaining all sang.
Its very sad that the play may extinct in near future that no youth is interested to learn it and
perform as this could not meet their living needs. So its our turn that we need to support them as its
one of the old traditions of telling Ramayanam. We request NIF to gather all the people and give
them support. All the people in the troop are interested to teach for the next generations as they
think the skill should not die or go extinct.
We gifted two people in the troop, one the elderly person secondly a person who is
suffering from Paralysis. They are happy to perform for us. We are glad that we had a wonderful
experience of watching the play which many would not even get a chance to see. We finally thank
NIF and HONEYBEEAP for given this golden chance which comes once in our life time.
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POTTERY
In Jangalpally pot making is done by
Yemelapelli Sammaya. He has a age of 65.
The knowledge of pot-making is getting
perished as no one is practicing its making.
Jangalpally has 5 small villages. In early days
each village has at least one potter. But now all
the villages have only one potter. As the time
is moving on no one will practicing it. Now
the only potter of age 65 is doing them after
him who makes the pots is a big question?
In olden days Pots are not only used to
store water but also to cook, store groccesory. But now-a-days we are only using them to store
water during summer, marriages and to follow death ceremony. Not only the usage is less the
production is less because we are accustomed to steel utensils. So the potters are finding it
difficult to practice or make pots as this cannot meet their living needs. So they are doing other
jobs for their living and pot making is just a part time. Just order it you can get it in few hours.
When coming to making of them a potter needs a pot-wheel, small cloth for making it. Ash
and Sand are the main supplements for making a pot. The sand and ash are mixed in proper
mixtures with water and formed into a paste. The whole paste is kept on the plate of the wheel and
it is rotated with the help of hand and a stick. The pot gets to some shape making a hollow inside
due to force the porter makes a shape by adjusting the speed and his hands. Now with the help of
cloth he gives finishing.
After this much industrialization and advancement of technology even now the porter is
still using the same hand rotating wheel. So now its us the NIF need to make a pot-wheel which
rotates with the help of a motor and give employment for the potters. Of which many youth may
join in making of pots. Pot making is being neglected due to more hand work and less earning of
profits. So the potters are need to provided with mechanical wheel and giving him more profits.
Yemelapelli Sammaya garu is eager to share his knowledge for the next generation so that
the pot making skill will not get perished due to which we may not see pots in near future. Now in
railways our ex-railway minister Sri Lalu Prasad Yadav has introduced a scheme such that every
tea cup or plate is need to be made of pots. So this scheme has to be introduced in as any fields as
possible. So that the potters can get proper money for their living and existence.
We scouts of NIF has honoured Sri Yemelapelli Sammaya garu with a shawl and a
amount of Rs.200/- for sharing his knowledge with us, making pot as soon as we had requested
and sharing his valuable time with us.
SOME OTHER FEATURES OF THE
VILLAGE:-
They mainly
l cultivate Paddy and Cotton.
The land is “nalla raggadi” which is
fertile.
Jangalpally
l has a lake which provides
water for more than 100 acres. It is known
as “Peddha Cheruvu”.
Mohan
l Das sir sold his land to the
government and gave the money to the
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gram panchayat for the development of the

village.
Every Wednesday
l a market called “Santha”
was arranged at Jangalpally, where different
products like groccesory and animals etc are
sold. All round villages comes there to
participate in the “Santha”. Every year a
auction will be kept for the land by gram
panchayat and the money is used for village
development and municipality for
maintaining the village.
We visited SC Colony it is got so developed as the remaining village that every child is being
l
sent to the school both boys and girls. There are no sanitation facilities and drainages are not
there. Even the drinking water is being got from a well outside the village which they are used
to get from their ancestors they don’t want to leave their practice. The municipality is not
functioning properly in that colony. They don’t have bathrooms.
Mekala
l Ellamma is the oldest person in the village about 100 years old. She got blind due to
age, she could not talk even when we had tried to.
The people
l treat the stove made of mud as God. They will daily pray to it and they sprinkle
dung water(Alluku Jalladam).
As said by Mayidi Sammaya, they use “Sorakayya Burra” to make water cool for drinking. It
l
is surrounded by woolen cloth.
They use
l Kadiyallu to carry water on the
cycle, then will be a stick attached to the
cycle, to which two water vessels are
suspended with the help of Kadiyallu.
Gollolu,
l Sakallollu, Telugollu, Mannepollu,
Addlollu, Kummarollu all live together. But
mostly all left their common practices. They
mainly depend on daily wages(Uppadhi
Hammi Padhakam).
th
Promodh
l and Sunitha students of 10
standard studying in Govt. School from the
village represented in National Yoga Competition.
Sandhya
l who had completed her 10th this year has been selected to IIIT as she stood first in
Mandal.
CONCLUSION:-
We had a very good experience in the village. We have enjoyed Chiruthala Ramayanam.
We are very satisfied with Chiruthala Ramayam which many of our friends could not experience
it. We personally thank Mohan Das Sir who guided us very well and provided us the best
accommodation. At last we thank NIF for giving us this opportunity. Our special thanks to Brig.
Ganesham Sir for encouraging in all aspects.
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Reflections on Gyan Shodh by Participants

Hari Mohan
It is the diversity of experiences which makes us unique.
Though it looks like an oxymoron, yet it is the fact of the life. As I see,
‘Gyanshodh’ is an important milestone in my life not only in terms of the
richness of experience it offered but also the insights it provided. The
idea to go in search of knowledge to country side itself is awesome. The
entire program was well planned and executed. This is the reason why
there has never been a single hiccup during those three days of our
expedition in search of knowledge. Post dinner talks which centered on
life and living are highly inspiring and youth like me are in desperate
need of such a kind of hand holding at this stage of life.
One suggestion would be to increase the frequency of this program and its reach out. We
can make a lot of difference if this program reaches out to the greatest number of people. Ten years
down the line I would like to see this program being implemented across the country as a policy
initiative by the Government.
Tejaswini Reddy
The past 12 days was a journey which we wish never ends. I
personally feel every student should do such an internship in his life. We
learnt a lot of things here which no books could have taught us. All of us will
find time and surely put down our views in a blog.
Purwa Rathi
Every trip exposes us to a whole new package of experiences which may be a
mixed bag of the pleasant & hideous. So, does I had an opportunity to explore the unexploited
habitat of Chintala, a village endowed with bounties of nature, and is located at approximately 15
km from Dronala (Sri selam), situated in the periphery of Hyderabad. The trip, was designed to
expose us to the nitty gritties of rural life and how successful they had been in solving their daily
problems with the innovations made. The trip was denominated as Gyan Shodh—i.e. in search of
Knowledge.
The days were gone and we had to bid them a goodbye. There was all together a different
feeling as I turned back, as if something was left behind. I looked back to see the people, their eyes
spoke a lot though they remained silent. Much can be expressed but words are few to say how this
trip has added a new chapter to my life and has infused me with a strong feeling to devote a
significant part of my life to their cause and service.
Even I am missing badly the days I spent with you whether that be sittng
late nights for discussion or trekking or sharing personal or professional
thoughts. It was really enlightening & thought provoking adventure.
I am attaching some pics as a rememberence of this trip.
Anil Hooda
….. overall we were able to make out a great deal of difference regarding the theoretical and the
practical situations. The ground reality which we faced in the village exposed us the practical
challenges which one have to encounter while documenting traditional knowledge. But the
overall experience was of much more learning than sitting in the A.C class and imagining things.
We all have experienced true learning there. And in future we will go more prepared and try to
overcome our shortcomings which we have felt during scouting.
Aruna Nadipilli
h It was really a very good experience for me to understand the innovative thoughts of rural
people.
h It really enjoyed the rural peaceful environment and their intention to work hard.
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The way they received us was really awesome, they are more educated than literate people in
h
the urban areas.
As the
h name indicates ‘SHODHYATRA’ we searched for valuable traditional knowledge
available with them. It was really amazing the way they are making use of nature’s gifts for
curing several diseases.
hTime period to spend at the villages was too short, it would be better if it continued for atleast
one week, so that we can mingle with them in a better way.
It is better if we can start at early hours in the morning like 6’o clock so that we can catch all of
h
them.
Before starting the programme proper campaign should be done to make villagers aware of
h
what is SHODHYATRA and why we are doing this, because as we approached them they are
in the opinion that we are from Statistics Dept. to survey the population, or some other
purpose, though we told them every thing they are not ready to believe.
We should have strong grounds to tell , that we are going to help them.
h
It is better if we have our accommodation nearer to that village during that SHODHYATRA
h
period, so that we will have better interaction with them.
Sahida
“Gyan Shodh” is a lifetime experience for me. I was not exposed to this type
of rural villages earlier, now clearer about the scenario. People are very
knowledgeable as well as very friendly. Government policies should be
implemented properly.
Every arrangement is very systematically done. Walking 10 km was really

nice experience and first time I found my potential that I can achieve that
goal. As leader, you have done great job, u always motivated us. Thus we can
successfully complete the trip.
Anuradha Verma
It was a great experience to visit a place which is so close to nature. The village which was
allotted to us was Peddamanthanala which was the farthest of all villages. We had to cross long
distance and dense forest to reach the village. Besides the problems faced by us in reaching the
place, the response we got from the villagers was unforgettable. They welcomed us with great
pleasure and guided us in attaining as much information as we can. We gathered so many relevant
information’s with the help of the villagers.
We conducted different programmes such as recipe competition for women and
biodiversity competition for children. We got a very enthusiastic response from the villagers. We
distributed prize to the winners, receiving the prize they were very delighted and thanked us for
the same.
This was also a very nice feeling to see the girls in the village at the same level as boys in
all aspects of studies. In spite of being a remote village the percentage of girls was almost equal to
boys in the school, this is a big achievement for the school authority to gather so many students to
the school as well as for villagers as they have shown term broadmindedness and send their kids to
school
Overall it was a pleasant experience that I will cherish throughout my life.
Manpreet Hora
We experienced the reality of rural innovations after our three days visit to the villages of
Nallamala Forests. Our village was Pedda Manthanala which was 22km away from Dornala the
centre for our stay. We found that rural people are more close to nature and thus have more
informal technical knowledge as compared to urban people who are engaged in searching for
formal type of technologies. Though there was less time for us to gather much of the needful
information or knowledge from the ocean full of it.
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There were a lot of great experiences as passing through the forests with natural air, than
talking to kids who were very innocent keen to see us. We were like role models to them, they
wanted to be like us learning from us, which was great feeling and evoked are emotions to be such
good learners as them. The girls and boys were treated alike and were educated in same school.
Moreover the weddings practiced there was without taking dowry, this was good practice and
shows how well educated they were even living in such a remote area.
They lacked basic facilities of electricity, Transport, telephone etc but then also they could
manage the things in their own ways without complaining like us and waiting for someone to help
them. This shows how self sufficient they were and were hardworking and innovative enough to
solve their problems by themselves.
The response we got from the villagers was unforgettable. They welcomed us with great
pleasure and guided us in attaining as much information as we can without any expectation from
us.\We gathered so many relevant information with the help of the villagers which was mostly on
the biodiversity they maintained and the traditional knowledge they had.
Shailendra Kumar
Firstly I would like to thank you sir in making us experiencing
the new way to see the villages. I will say that the trip to Srisailam was
one of the most fascinating experience of my life. I have enjoyed the
trip. It was a sort of eye opener for me that really there is lot of
knowledge in the villages and really if we would be able to come up
with some of knowledge from the village, we can change the scenario
i.e. the way in which we are seeing the villages. As Prof. Gupta rightly
said in his article we are seeing the villages as a sink not as a source.
In my opinion “Shodhyatra” for which we went was overall
good and there was no problem that we faced, it was only the time
factor that didn’t allow us to go more close to the villagers and make
them share their knowledge. It was well organized and planned.
Yamini Jadhav
Gyan Shodh conducted bye NIF and HoneyBee , A.P. was really an awesome experience
for the people like us who are far away from the nature and always struggling to get a better life
without caring for nature.
This GyanShodh rendered an opportunity to us to get first hand experience of working
with an NGO for which I was desperate till date in my life.
The one thing I observed during our visit is that, government does provide or rather
pretend to provide facilities (middlemen get the maximum benefit out of it) for the tribal people
but while making policies and plans actual needs and necessities of these people are never
considered by the policy maker. As a result of which facilities provided become incompatible
with their life style and ultimately tribal people switch over to their age old practices which
sometimes may not be safe for them. E.g. In village Korraprolu, which was allotted to my group
for scouting, government has provided houses made of concrete (pakka houses) but while
building those houses ventilation factor is not considered and the houses are more like a box with
one slit. Ultimately tribal people are building bamboo huts and living in those though they are
sometime prone to danger (snake bite).
From this I got learning that, if in later point of time in my life if I’ll be in the shoe of policy
maker I should first pay attention to the local needs and their comfort. And such policies should
also be in the harmony with the local environment.
Anil Hooda
We have greatly enjoyed our “Shod Yatra” and feeling very nostalgic about it.Till now it
has been our most memorable,educative,informative and enjoyable trip. After coming here we
are feeling a bit sad and lazy because every thing is theoretical and mundane here. Within three
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days we actually enjoyed and learned many things. This has somehow changed our perspective
towards people, nature and our responsibilities towards them. We had never expected that it
would be so enjoyable and thought provoking. You have done a wonderful job by providing us
this opportunity to look in true temples of knowledge and by bringing us close to nature.
We are very grateful to you for bringing us out of our mundane activities and gave us this
opportunity to learn practical aspects of life. We the youngsters really have to seek solutions for
the problems of our fellow citizens are facing and have to become their voice. And then only our
purpose of life will accomplish. I will devote myself in bringing such changes and happiness in
the life of my fellow citizens.
Kalyan Goutham
A new perspective of looking at things, social bent of mind, and inspiring interactions
with coordinator are my takeaways from ‘Gyan Shodh”.
J Sai Pratap
Gyan hodh is an understanding of life and the way one should live.
Student force should be used to properly document the rural knowledge and take up
(Projects) real time problem solving working jointly with villagers to get sustainable solutions.
Shanti kiran Patnaik
Gyan shodh gave me an experience that can not be evaluated…..
Social internships for knowledge collection and transfer should be made part of university
education. Promoting the organizations like NIF and Honeybee by opening chapters all over the
country.
V Krishna pavan
Gyan shodh is a defining moment in my life.. I think we can make this a part of the system
of engineering colleges. I really enjoyed each and every moment of the internship. It was handled
really excellent by Brig P Ganesham sir.
The concept of the Internship is excellent. I think that every student should undergo this
type of programme in his student life. In these seven days I have learnt a lot and this programme
madea good effect on the way I think.
D.V. Pavan Kumar Reddy
I learnt look into the world with an eye of knowledge. We must involve Honeybee as a
project in colleges with some modifications.
Meraj Sultana
My takeaway from Gyan shodh are memoirs, knowledge, great, good and totally different
experience. Involvement of the students should be utilized to record the traditional knowledge
and verifying the correctness of the herbal plants for their medicinal value and utilizing them for
people.
Salla Ram Naresh Reddy
It was a wonderful experience and totally new. The idea of knowing hidden knowledge in
the villages was exciting. Students should be made to do a project.
T. Jeshuran
I am happy to be part of Gyan shodh. I could see the problems villagers are facing. I also
got the opportunity to protect and save the traditional knowledge which is going to be perished
Ch Joy Samuel
I am very happy to be part of Gyan shodh. I don’t know about villages before. I had an
exposure to the traditional knowledge and herbs. After so much industrialization, still the villages
can’t afford minimum needs which should be overcome.
Shantikiran
Before the very first meet of our ‘exciting Journey”, I thought that we need to educate
villagers regarding few things which might help them improve their living standards. But I came
to know that we have to get the unexplored knowledge that is getting extinct. I got thrilled at the
91
Honeybee AP
objective of the programme. I was very much anxious to know the traditional knowledge.
During my stay at villages, I could get to know a lot more than I got from years. Some
knowledge is so precious that I felt proud being part of collecting that and preserving it in the form
of record.
I am really very happy and glad to meet Brigadier Ganesham from whom I have learnt” hoe to lok
at life”, “how to make life exciting”, how to assess things”, and how to gain kmowledge”. His
company and experience educated us, I feel I could have spent more time with him.
I want to make this as “ an exciting journey (continuous into the future).
92

Gyan Sodh Reports-Final

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Gyan Sodh Reports-Final

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GYAN SHODH

Linking Students with Grossroots Knowledge

Gyan Shodh……A social Internship - 2

Gyan Shodh……A social Internship

Honeybee AP conducted “Gyan Shodh II” during Sep 09 for 16 students of PG

Brig P Ganesham, VSM (retd)

Location: Warangal, Kurnool and Visakhapatnam districts of

Objective: To provide an opportunity for young engineering students to

Preservation and continuation of folklore, arts and dance.

Observe the women and children related issues...

Focus on areas not addressed by Govt and other NGOs

Build database of potential projects for engineering,

agriculture and management students.

Date Activity Location

28-30 Jun Interaction with villages Kurnool Dist

Contacts HONEYBEE A.P:

Emergency Contact Number:

College Details & ID no. :

How did u know about NIF:

Your expectations from GYAN SHODH:

Reflections after GYAN SHODH:

A Journey Which We Wish Never

namely, Kamalapuram, Bussapuram, Jangalapalli and Kasimdevpet of which we were assigned

This is the temple of Adhivasis

Our next visit was to Malluri Ghutta , a

After the painful

This is Somaji and his Wife.

It was eccentric to get to know that their marriages

13 June, it was the last day in the

Thanda and we were very much disappointed

Few medicinal plants found during Biodiversity competition are:

The story is as follows:

Village Visited: Dubba Tanda

Period of the Project: 11 - 13 June 2009.

The following are the festivals they celebrate:

These are few interesting things he mentioned with us:

2 day: ellipaya kaaram can be used

3 day: kandipappu, ellipaayakaaram, pappuchaaru, bitterguard, tomato, etc should be

10. Female kusuma rogaalu:

2.2 TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES

some 30 years back.

6. VILLAGE KNOWLEDGE REGISTER

7. IMPORTANT CONTACTS IN THE VILLAGE

8. INFORMATION OF OTHER NEARBY VILLAGES

9. SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

In partial fulfillment of “Social Internship” organized by NIF,

A Report on GYAN SHODH

In partial fulfillment of “Social Internship” organized by NIF,

* To eradicate white hair

In partial fulfillment of “Social Internship” organized by NIF,

village. He was appreciated by

our national leader photos such that the students will

HONEY BEE NETWORK

Team members are:

OBJECTIVES OF GYAN SHODH

PURPOSE OF GYAN SHODH

Our Success Mantra:

Title of Activity: To familiarize with the village

About the village

Culture and Tradition:

Innovators / knowledge people:

First day experience:

Second Day of Gyan Shodh :-