Like Rivers to the Ocean

- Saritha Rao Rayachoti

It is late afternoon in the temple town of Melkote in Mandya District, Karnataka. The street leading to the Kalyani, the temple tank, is bustling with a herd of goats, children returning home from school, even a bike that emits a loud horn as it passes the home of the Koulagis: Surendra Koulagi, his late wife Girija, their son, Santosh, daughter-in-law Geetha, and grandchildren, Sumanas, Supraj and Suhasini.

For over 56 years, three generations of the Koulagi family and their friends have risen to meet need-based challenges in society through the Janapada Seva Trust, a voluntary organisation that has propagated the Gandhian values of self-sufficiency, sustainability and sarvodaya (‘upliftment for all’) with little dependence on the government.

The most intriguing aspect of my visit is the discovery that each generation of this family has paved its own path through the social challenges that define its times and, in the process, discovered Mahatma Gandhi and his ideals.

Surendra Koulagi, 82, impeccably dressed in khadi, has just returned home from a visit to Mysuru, which is 50 km away, but wears his age lightly. Sitting in the jaguli or veranda, the octogenarian speaks of other journeys. “After my matriculation in the 1950s, I went to Bombay in search of a job. I worked for an advocate, typing up his cases. There, I met Dinshah K Mehta, a naturopath and close associate of Gandhiji. Many freedom fighters of that time used to visit the Nature Cure Clinic for rest or treatment and, there, I came in contact with Jayaprakash Narayan.”

This was a momentous meeting that would change the course of not only Surendra Koulagi’s life, but those from disadvantaged backgrounds whom he has rehabilitated, as well as two generations of his own family, chief among them his son Santosh and grandson Sumanas.