Bridges in Vaigai River

Bridges are not only physical constructs…but philosophical constructs also. Some philosophically prefers bridges over walls without realizing bridges are nothing but walls modified. Is it not so?

The “connection” that bridges normally provides between two parts has its own mystic effect. It not only connects, it modifies certain, destroy certain, it illuminates certain, it drives away certain, it creates certain conflicts, it encourages corruption…it alter the human psyche and consciousness. Ask Rameshwaram islanders, they divide the island’s time line into before the construction of Pamban bridge and after the construction of Pamban bridge.

Bridge Quotes “The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn” “Education is all a matter of building bridges” “We build too many walls and not enough bridges.” “Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers.” “Being nice is one of many bridges on the road to Happiness.” “Love builds bridges where there are none.”

When engineers construct bridges, along with mortar, social ethos are also get mixed up without their knowledge to make it as a symbol of the time.

Bridges in Vaigai River

River Vaigai has seen many bridges over it. The first bridge I have used it is in Kunnoor near Theni. I am a man of Vaigai Water. Of all the bridges constructed over Vaigai River, my first vote goes to the erstwhile Yanaikkal Kalpaalam. It was the first to connect the north and south of Madurai. Maduraites might have seen how lovely & dynamic it was. Bridges are built to pass over. But Kalpaalam was designed not only to pass over, but also to pass over poverty for many by generating livelihood opportunities. It invited everyone to use it.

Thanks to our policy makers, when they decided to construct a new over bridge, they have not completely destroyed Kalpaalam.. instead modified it to make the present to meet the past.

Bridges in Vaigai river within Madurai city fascinated me. I made an attempt to portray it. Those who are better endowed than me are invited to improve upon this, because these bridges deserve better tribute >>>>>>> more on bridges in Vaigai

I acknowledge Mr. Karunakaran (2003) and Mr. Udayakumar (2009) MSW –Community Development students for their field work support

Madurai - Understanding an Urban Ward

அறிய அறிய கெடுவார் உண்டோ ?
Will anyone suffer by constantly exerting himself to learn?

Social Work as an academic discipline emphasis on learning from the field much before other academic disciplines realized its importance.Indeed the strength of the professional training lies on its field work learning. In field work everybody learns- not only the student trainees, but also the teachers.personally and professionally I learned a lot along with my students who were placed under my supervision.
But field work has its own limitations. Unless the students are self motivated it is impossible to motivate them if they decide to comply mechanically to the timings and report submission.
As a teacher of community development, I was assigned community settings for supervising the students. Not only the understanding the intricacies of community is beyond the comprehension of some of the students,the problem will get compounded if the students come from other than community development specialization.
An on average I used to get 20-22 students to guide for two semesters and out of these numbers one or two students are genuinely interested in field work.Supervising these students is always a pleasant experience. We will become co learners and develop a bond transcending teacher student relationship.
In the year 2007-08, I had some ten first year MSW students under my supervision and I decided to involve them in an idea which I was incubating for several years i.e. to understand an urban ward as a community.I selected K.Pudur (Ward No.5 of Madurai Corporation) out of convenience - located closer to our college, can be reached by walking.
Though in 2003 itself I made an attempt to involve students to understand an urban ward and I left it abruptly because I realized that it is beyond my capacity to motivate the students.
In 2003, I was relying only on participatory tools (see the brochure in slide presentation printed for that purpose).Since understanding an area can be facilitated only by using maps and government supplied eye sketches cannot be of much use for our purpose,I learned the art of making customized maps using GPS (for details see first visit to Mekkarai-Thanks to Dr.T. Pavendar of Madurai Kamaraj University and Dr.Gladwin of People's Action for Development, Vembar for their continuous support). Besides this, my exposure to the concept of ABCD (Asset Based Community Development) gave me enough confidence to "handle the student's interest" With this new experience I involved the students in an asset mapping exercise using participatory tools including PGIS.It was really a revealing experience worth for my entire life. We walked on almost all the streets, taking tracks and points using Garmin GPS and created a scalable maps which exactly overlapped with Yahoo as well as Google maps.Besides the facilitating skills for PLA,PGIS (Participatory Geo Information System) demands exposure to the ICT also.I realized ICT can be effectively used for social mobilization and empowerment.
As the proponents of the ABCD says, we realized the focusing on the strength of the communities is quite different from focusing on the problems of the community. Every community has its own strength and communities survives on their own. We learned when a foundation is laid for constructing physical structure,foundation for community life is also made simultaneously. The streets, lights, water and other public consumption facilities facilitate and regulate relationship within and outside the community. It is true "a community is a contributor of resources and allies and a provider of pitfalls and opponents". Within 400 ha of the ward area, we found more than 70 production units of various sizes, produces goods and services which enriches life of communities which they never seen. Apart from these,there are hundreds and hundreds of commercial establishments.We need to open all our senses in order to understand the meaning of the word "interrelationship" and "interdependency".Even to produce a broomstick to clean our houses,we need to depend on raw material from far away places,perfectly orchestrated by several people.There is a constant and dynamic interaction between people and places.What we learned is made us humble - realized the greatness of scholars and practitioners who dedicated their life to understand the communities and enriched our collective capacity to handle the community affairs with ease and economy.
We found that the ward is endowed with a rich social capital with more than 100 social associations and institutions.
I won't say that the ward is heavenly - we found poverty, conflict, exploitation, corruption and indifference.. Our communities,to put it Robert Chambers words, are complex, diversified and risk prone and to address this what we need need is open minded learning,innovative micro level experiments.


I thank the students who by their enthusiastic involvement proved that field work can be made as a pleasant experience. Is it not Field is our Supreme Teacher and work is our humble offering at the feet of our great master.

Introduction to Community Asset Mapping
Slide show on Asset Based Community Development

Introduction to Community Asset Mapping

Wait for another post to learn the outcome of this field work in K.Pudur vegetable Market

Washerman in Madurai City

The extended class rooms for MSW students

My interest towards the marginalized communities is the result of my experience as supervisor for the fieldwork programme of Master of Social Work (MSW) students placed in Tamilnadu Theological Seminary's "Labour and Peasant Center"(TTS-LPC) and IDEAS Institute of Development Education and Action Studies). I have seen with my own eyes how the seeds they have sown before two decades have grown into big trees and provided shadow and shelter to those who needed it. There are several instances, I sincerely attempted to remove the misconceptions about these agencies with some of my friends. I used to get sad with those of my students who were not serious with the works of these agencies and in fact shouted at them that their indifference amounts to urinating over a goldmine than to digout the precious metal there. But those genres of students who used the field work learning opportunities provided by these agencies are shining in the field of development. If TTS-LPC opened my eyes towards urban informal sector, IDEAS took me close to Arunthathiar community.
Why washer man?

The coordinators in TTS-LPC- Rev. Koil Pillai, Mrs. Nirmala Victus and Mr. Jawahar were source of encouragement to me and my students.It is a joy to spend time with them and their staffs during the supervisory visits.I hope that my wish to document the feedback of all my students who did their field work with these agencies may be materialized through this blog..Though there is a lot to write about the work of these agencies, I decided to share my observation about Washer man in Madurai City as a mark of my respect and regard to Miss. Vanitha (one of the good student we had) daughter of Sri. Chinnathambi who did washing when I was a student and then as a warden in our hostel during 70s. His honesty was remarkable and he handed over the students’ the money they forgot to take away from their clothes given for washing. It is this quality of honesty that makes the people to trust on the washer man. Is it not that people who get services from others like plumbers, mechanics, painters, domestic servants and street vendors always suspect them and watch them constantly. Though washer men also belong to the same category of poor, they are trusted upon by others and that make the people to handover clothes worth of thousands and thousands to the washer man and in turn washer man never betrayed our trust.

TTS & Washer man
I still remember the discussions carried out in TTS-LPC, when they thought of organizing a union for washer man of Madurai. Continuous interaction with the washer man subsequently during fieldwork took me to Aruldosspuram, popularly identified as a washer man colony and then to Vaigai River, their work spot,that gave me several wonderful insights about life and livelihood. At my request a student took a research project on washer man and I remember still vividly the time spend in Aruldosspuram and in Vaigai River.
For me research was an excuse to be with them. Personally it was not the outcome of the research, but the process and the clarity we got it from the attempt which was more important.
I feel that this post and the link to the work we did with washer man community is definitely not an attempt to share our work publicly but to gratefully acknowledge the how the seeds sown by (TTS-LPC & IDEAS) have grew.To be with the marginalized sector is not a fashion but of a commitment was a lesson we learnt from these agencies.

Though I was interested to continue my observation I could not do it for personal as well as my inability to inspire my students to continue it. But to be with the washer man will definitely give insights about the livelihood options pursued by our subaltern brethren. I don’t have any regret to put our observation that we did it a decade before rather I feel that our observation has not become obsolete and no one has brought out any document or made any fresh observation about the washer man in Madurai City – so this attempt is a mark of making fresh commitments.
If you feel that it is worthwhile to take few minutes to see the document to mark your concern for Madurai Washer man community, you are welcome and I consider it as a previlage

Washerman & Washing
Draft to comment

Madurai Vegetable Markets- Sociological Museums

Mr.Udayakumar & Ranjithkumar II MSW CD(R&U) have been placed in the Unit for Madurai Studies for their III Semester Field Work and they were assigned to study about the Vegetable Markets in the Madurai City. As our previous work in K.Pudur ward and in Pudur Market revealed that vegetable markets seems to be sociological museums -one can learn about many things. This duo have taken more than 200 photographs about the markets and created a table descrbing the features of the vegetable markets. It is decided to georeference the markets in the Madurai city,with the help of Dr.T. Pavendar. Completing that task may take little more time but we have determined to do that. Working in the markets made us to realize that both the policy makers at the national as well as state level and the local governments ignore these markets without realizing these markets potentialities to promote decent & sustainable livelihoods for a sizable sections of the urban population. If the policy makers decides to seek the participation of the poor vendors,keeping away the power brokers, many,many things are possible.We dont know what makes our policy makers to be blind and insensitive to some of the basic issues. We hope that our work in the markets will bring forth learnings that are truely revealing. Wait for that revealing moments

Project Planning