Explore Rural India and Meet Inspiring Storytellers – Without Leaving Home!
Only five of the centuries-old hanging wooden bridges that link the most isolated communities in Ladakh’s Zanskar Valley still stand, and I stepped dangerously on one of them. observed the close-knit romances of four generations of women in a secluded hamlet in Uttarakhand. joined the long-standing custom in rural Maharashtra of worshiping untamed tigers. I walked a few kilometers in the Wayanad area of Kerala with a 63-year-old “walking library” that brings books to those who want to read but can’t. discovered how the South Garo Hills of Meghalaya’s tribal culture contributes to the preservation of the region’s biodiversity. I experimented with forgotten ancient superfoods with a Himachali couple who were over 70.
I was pacing up and down my terrace in Dehradun exactly a year ago, worried about how India’s tourist sector, particularly community-based tourism, would fare during the lockdown brought on by the epidemic. As part of my ten-year journey to discover India’s hidden gems, I longedly reminisced about the many touching times I had spent with homestay hosts, guides, dhaba owners, crafters, natural medicine practitioners, musicians, local environmentalists, and others.
I had the luxury of using my money to switch to new digital chances while staying at home, despite the fact that my income as a travel writer had completely stopped. However, even though smartphone and internet availability is increasing, the dearth of digital skills and customized possibilities in
Together with Osama Manzar, founder of the Digital Empowerment Foundation, and Malika Virdi, sarpanch of the Sarmoli Jainti Van Panchayat in Uttarakhand, I launched the non-profit digital project Voices of Rural India in August 2020.
By presenting stories from rural storytellers from Spiti to Kerala in their own voices, we’ve been attempting to transform digital storytelling in India.
Voices of Rural India is using digital journalism to generate income for isolated villages in the near future. Long-term goals include establishing a storehouse of local culture and information, recorded in local voices, and fostering the development of digital storytelling abilities at the grassroots level.
Through the words, images, and videos of the very people we travel to visit, the rest of us confined to our homes have the opportunity to virtually tour rural regions of India. For me, it has expanded my post-COVID bucket list to include some incredible, motivational Indian towns!
Namrata Shah, a travel enthusiast who left the corporate sector to pursue new opportunities, and several enthusiastic volunteers have joined our team to help with editing, publishing, social media, SEO, training material creation, WhatsApp group management, and other tasks.
I was shocked to learn during my month-long stay in Sarmoli in 2016 that this isolated Uttarakhand town gets together each summer to run high altitude marathons, do yoga, and go birding! At that point, the concept of @voicesofmunsiari emerged, an Instagram account that would be managed collaboratively by the villagers and share their daily lives with the public. In the years that followed, we arranged a photography and Instagram course in Sarmoli village and a smartphone collecting drive via my blog.