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Cargando... A mouthful of petals : Three years in an Indian village (edición 2020)por Wendy Scarfe (Autor), Allan Scarfe (Autor)
Información de la obraA mouthful of petals por Wendy Scarfe
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A Mouthful of Petals is a nonfiction account of three years working in an Indian village in the early 1960s. Previously published, it became a minor classic among good samaritans, particularly in Britain, and was reviewed by The Times, New Statesman and such like. At the invitation of India's venerated political leader and activist Jayaprakash Narayan, Wendy and Allan Scarfe, two dedicated but far from solemn young Australian teachers, travelled to the remote village of Sokhodeora in Bihar in 1960. They had been asked to take charge of the educational activities of his ashram, but over the three years they lived there, their activities extended far beyond that. This humane and important book recounts their efforts in helping local people counter the misery, poverty and ignorance that afflicted so much of the region. By the time they left, the Scarfes had succeeded in teaching both children and adults much that would help them to lead better and fuller lives. And they left behind, for the young at least, something to hope and work for. This new edition of A Mouthful Of Petals includes an account of Wendy Scarfe's return trip to Sokhodeora during a famine in the late 1960s, and how those who live in Bihar state fare in the early twenty-first century. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)361.95412Social sciences Social problems and services; associations Social problems and services Biography; History by Place Asia Indian SubcontinentClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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My image of Wendy is based on an elegant publicity portrait, so it's difficult for me to imagine her living in the squalor of an Indian village in the 1960s. But that's what she and her husband Allan did, for three years, and A Mouthful of Petals is the story of their sojourn.
So the book is not your usual travel book, but like the best of travel books it takes the reader into a different world. This is a world in marked contrast to the images we see of an increasingly prosperous India today: Britannica tells me that with its well-developed infrastructure and diversified industrial base, India has made astonishing progress since independence. It's now one of the wealthiest countries in the world by some reckonings; and it's home to three of the biggest and most cosmopolitan cities in the world, (Mumbai, Kolkata, and Delhi). From its massive population it draws on a huge pool of scientific and engineering personnel to be among the world's preeminent hi-tech centres of IT and software; and it's a world leader in cultural exports of music, literature, and cinema. But the country's population is still mostly rural, and India's rapid agricultural expansion still depends on a work force still living in poverty. Literacy is still a long way from being universal and there is a depressing gender disparity too.
A Mouthful of Petals takes us into that world of grinding poverty and ignorance. Allan and Wendy put their social justices principles into practice in the village of Sokhodeora in Bihar in 1960, travelling there to set up an experimental rural school, develop the curriculum, and organise the infrastructure. But they ended up doing much more than that: running night classes; offering family planning advice and resources; doing rescue feeding for starving children; adding shark-liver oil to the kindergarten daily milk supply to cure malnutrition sores; installing lavatories; dealing with exasperating caste issues; and in a village where even matches are a luxury, even setting up the village radio.
They adopt a little girl called Vidya and suffer guilt when she thrives amid other babies barely clinging to life. And they are not alone in feeling intense frustration when ignorance makes the situation even worse than it needs to be...
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2020/09/18/a-mouthful-of-petals-three-years-in-an-india... ( )