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Ranipur, Panna
In the laps of Panna, Madhya Pradesh is located a very small village, which would consist of a maximum of 200-250 villagers named Ranipur. The village has a lot of uniqueness in its own but the thing which interests me the most, are the people.
The people living in there are Bundelkhandis if their ancestors are considered yet are truly a gem as the name says (panna which means emerald). The people here are full of utmost gratitude and greatness towards life and people. Each person has his or her own story to tell and each better than the previous.
Kitaab
The title given to this picture does enough justice as a book can be a collection of a lot of stories and here in the picture above there are 4 members of a big happy family who each have a different story to tell.
For example, Gajraj Yadav(right) the male head of the family after his father, age 37 works in the diamond mines in the town of Panna and after being dispersed from the job he comes back to his village and works as a farmer on his own land along with his wife or any other family member for that matter. Another example could be Sia devi Yadav(extreme left) who herself is 67+ of age and has a daughter in law and a grand daughter in law. She got married at a very young age and since then has been taking care of the family. There other stories too for the people who stay there but for that you need to visit the village and find out about the story of your liking. There are some very touching stories too like the one that is in the next picture you see below.
The Joy of Silence
The lady in the above picture happens to be one of Sia Devi Yadav's daughter in law but the point which makes her story different from others is that she is hearing and speech impaired. She got married around 15 years ago and has 2 daughters. She got married only on the grounds of being highly efficient in her household chores and also the family was getting a good amount of dowry which they called "SHAGUN".
There are more stories which might not be this emotional but are very inspiring.
Sheher ki Bitiya
This cute little girl in the picture had a very interesting kind of aura around her, during my entire 4-5hr stay in the village she was always around me asking me to either click her picture or ways in which she can speak english like us, and on being motivated to speak good english when I asked her why she wanted to learn english then she replied with a huge smile that whenever she tries speaking in english, everyone in the village say that one day she will grow up to become SHEHER KI BITIYA (city's daughter).
RANIPUR KI RANI YADAV
Out of all the stories given above this is the story that I thought was worth sharing as my main story. Rani Yadav, age 30 is a woman who did her education back in her village till 8th standard but then was forced to get married at the age of 15. Rani now has a daughter and two sons. Rani in her childhood was really fond of studying but could not due to family pressure and so knows the importance of education and wants her children to study hard and settle in the cities. Rani Yadav works as a food and catering manager and serves food to the children and staff in her village school. She believes in the fact that proper education needs proper nutrition, and to fulfil that she works as a food manager there.
Rani Yadav was one of the sweetest and most cheerful person I met in the village of Ranipur who happens to still have held to her child like innocence and whose laugh can make anyone's day kick start. She had dreamy eyes which told a lot about her personality and a very welcoming attitude towards the people even if she did not know them, especially for people like us who even belong from an entirely alien culture she was readily welcoming and gave us her best.
On being asked about clicking her pictures as well as her house she replied with a very polite "yes" and also out of curiosity asked if that visit to a village like that was new to us and if we were going to make a film on her and her house.
To meet more people like Rani Yadav you need to visit Ranipur!
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