3. Illuminating Lives

Lim Matte, is a little boy living in a small tribal village in Nagaland. Being a mountainous terrain, it gets dark soon. There was no electricity or any development facilities available in that village. He was fond of education. He loved going to school, the only school in the adjacent village, for which he had to walk a lot to reach it which was 20 kilometers away. But he used many shortcuts to reach the school as he walked into the dense forest.

Reading / learning was a pleasure to him. He was delighted as he could understand the meaning of each and every activity which happens in and around him. Be it movement of Sun, appearance of moon in different shapes, different types of trees, plants, fern and cute creatures – tiny to big animals, various colors of flowers and fruits.

People in the tribal village live according to the sun. They begin and close their day with the sun. When Lim woke up early, he had to wait for the sun to start his daily activities. All the activities in the village close by evening. No outdoor activities at night except for festivals or functions. Lim wanted to study at the night, as it was calm without any disturbances. But the family had only one small light which his mother uses to do all the household chores and blows off at night to save the little kerosene available for future. Most of the time, he gazes the sky watching the star studded sky. He was longing to have light at night hours for studying and doing his homework given by the teachers, which he have to finish super fast before the sun goes down.

Jacques, an environmentalist, from the Netherlands came to Nagaland and reached this village to explore the biodiversity prevailing in that village. As the man-made development s had not entered the tribal village, nature had its upper hand. Flora and fauna was so diverse. Jacques was excited to collect many species of both plants and insects, of which some were new to him and to the entire world. Lim was his local helper, who escorted to show different places. He often took him to places through less tread ways.

After a hectic day Jacques and Lim decided to halt. Soon Jacques built a tent with the help of Lim, using the canvas, ropes and nails and camping gears which he carried. Lim was seeing the Tent for the first time. He thought it is a foldable hut with a magic in it. He could see something which he could not believe – Light without Fire. For Lim, Sun, moon and fire are the only means of light. Yes, Jacques had set up a solar light to illuminate the tent. Jacques could do many works like making notes of the day’s work, typing something using his laptop, preserving the samples collected and much more before he went to sleep.

Jacques woke up only after the sun rays extended its warmth on him. He got up from his bed and was surprised to see Lim, at the corner of the tent, sleeping along the solar light with few books and notebooks around him and the fingers still holding the pen. He understood that Lim had completed all his homework overnight and started sleeping only in the early morning. Jacques stayed for a week and felt his mission accomplished. He had thought it would take a month or two. His collection became voluminous to carry home, as he had to walk a lot to reach to board into a bus or any means of transport. On his final day in the village, Jacques gifted Lim the solar light and taught how to recharge it during sunny hours and used it in the night.

With this solar light, Lim started studying had and excelled in education. He topped the school and got scholarships to complete higher education. Now, Lim Matte is a District Administration Officer. His first official assignment was to provide solar electrification to each household of his district. Over years he had seen how electricity department had dug many parts of his tribal area and damaged the biodiversity of his homeland. With the availability of solar light in each household, almost all children excelled in education, skills, and areas of interest. The standard of living of the tribal district greatly improved because of education.

P. S. : Photos courtesy Internet