What we understand by listening to the term ‘RURAL’…..what comes to your mind first…for me the picture is, a woman carrying a pot of water from the nearby community well and walking beside a bushy way hovering over a variety of thoughts like what she will feed her kids today with, what if her husband comes back empty handed, what if the money lender arrives now etc. etc.. This I have seen, and I have heard these women pondering over their worries when they go near the village well and share the grief among themselves. I have often noticed these families fighting hard to take their sick kids to hospital, finding difficult to buy a Horlicks for their emasculate child, consoling their kids saying that their father will pay the school fee tomorrow. These are the people who live some 7km away from my home. They live in the plantation region. My place is Adoor, Kerala where the cultivation is rubber, coconut, betel leaves, arecanut and plantain. And in our region it is mostly rubber plantations. These people thrive by doing rubber tapping and other plantation works. Some months of the year they have no work and rainy seasons are nightmares for them. They get bitten by snakes, unknown and furious insects and come to our homes with their swollen faces and arms seeking money to go for medical treatment. When I hear rural these are the thoughts that arise in my mind. Their life and stories are such that sometimes it stirs our conscience that people live in such destitution.