Lagaan, Tikawali style

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">FARIDABAD, Haryana: An Apple Macintosh computer, a digital movie camera and five young boys huddled in front. There''s nothing striking about the scene, except that the boys are from a non-descript Haryana village, and they are working on what will be the third movie written, shot and edited entirely on their own.The movie, as the makers admit, is inspired by Aamir Khan''s <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Lagaan</span>. <br />Tikawali, the village the makers of the movie are from, has been chosen as part of a pilot project on digitisation of villages, a joint effort between Media Lab Asia -- an academic research programme funded by the Government of India with the help of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- and Jiva Institute, a Faridabad-based NGO. <br />An hour''s drive from the Capital, the village has many surprises up its sleeve. It runs its own cable channel where movies, educational programmes, news capsules and even advertisements shot entirely by villagers are shown. The budding movie-makers are given training at the Jiva institute, and avail of the facilities there to make their ideas come to life.<br />Tikawali is also testing out a new software, <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">baatchit</span>, which is completely language-independent. It is based on an audio-visual interface, with categories like Kheti, Pashu, Shiksha, Swastha Vahan, Sarkar etc. <br />When a villager moves the mouse over a category, he hears a voice call out the name of the category. "The villagers are excited by the visual medium and they want to explore," says Harish Gautam, one of the residents. "They can learn about schemes the government offers and then make use of them. They are fully aware when they go to apply for the scheme, and no one can dupe them," he adds. The software, developed by Media Lab Asia with inputs from Jiva, is still in its testing phase. If implemented across the country, it can be a stepping stone to a "connected" India.<br />But, can is the operative word, as Stephen Rudolph, director of Jiva, points out. "Technology cannot drive development," he says. Why would a villager want to sit in front of a computer and browse unless it gives him what he needs, he asks. "One can''t come in with hi-fi technology and expect the villagers to lap it up," he says. "Those are the dreams of those who sit in ivory towers. A computer and an Internet connection cannot solve the problems of a villager who needs water for his crops." <br />And to address this need for sustainable development, Jiva runs vocational courses for the villagers. The villagers keep accounts on the computer. "It is the perfect example of technology sustaining development," says R P Chauhan, president of Jiva. <br />"Villagers respond to technology just as the body responds to external elements. They absorb what they deem useful," says Rudolph. And an example of this absorption was seen when the young movie-makers rushed with their digital cameras to the scene of a fire near the village. They had interviews with the fire chief, eye witnesses, and a complete "breaking news" package was telecast over the local cable channel. <br />Whether digital India is a realisable dream is something only time will tell, but it has made a quiet start in this Haryana village. </div> </div>