The Village Context: Changes over Three Decades

Abstract

This chapter describes the rural setting in which the study village, Gove, is situated. It is located in the Deccan plateau of Maharashtra State, on the north bank of the Krishna River about 14 km north east of Satara city (Figure 2.1). Driving from Pune to Satara on the four-lane Mumbai-Bangalore expressway, the turn off to the village is about ten km before Satara. Taking a deteriorated but mainly paved road for about four km to the village of Limb, and continuing a short distance to the river, Gove can be seen on the opposite bank. In 1975 the road from Limb to Gove was motorable for about five months in the dry season. During the monsoon the river had to be crossed by boat and the road to Limb became a quagmire of slippery, knee-deep mud. A daily bus service from Koregaon to Wai cut through the village during the dry summer months, and there were three buses daily from Limb to Satara. Now, by contrast, the village is in constant communication with the outside world, thanks to the building of a bridge across the river, completed in 1982. Buses, auto rickshaws, trucks, and other motor vehicles share the pot-holed road with bicycles, ox carts, and pedestrians, plying not only from the main highway to Gove, but also to communities further inland.

Today, returning to the village from Satara, the river had swollen dangerously and, to give the boat enough leeway to reach Gove on the other side, we had to wade further up the bank (where the boat was anchored) in knee-deep mud that felt like quicksand. I was part of the first group of those waiting to cross. We made it safely, drifting downstream quickly with the current, everyone chanting “Krishna Mahadev Ki Jai.” The next crossing, however, was nearly a disaster. The boatmen, tired from their exertions, did not push the boat upstream this time, and it missed its landing spot and started swirling down the rapid current. Miraculously, the boatmen spotted three men who were dragging out a tree that had fallen into the river, and threw them a rope. They managed to catch it and pull the boat to safety.

(Gove village, Field notes, 1976)