New sociology of Science and Education

To take best of latest science to the average common man, my concept ' venture' of 'peer venture cells' as well as 'gypsy venture cells' and their network were by then well tested and very clear to me. My first interactions and later close involvement with the first "peer venture gape cell" at Tasgaon had happened at a very ripe stage. They too accepted me as first among equals and as friend, philosopher and guide. However my knowledge in grapes at that time was very limited compared to vast sea of scientific tested data on grapes then available. But I had the new vision of demystification of science before I met this new Tasgaon Peer group. It was due to my early interactions with few peer groups in 'Swashray Vikas Mandal'. But with this Tasgaon peer cell, I got the chance to explore this process of demystification of science with the masses in full depth and breadth & that too in the most complex horticultural crop - grapes. Luckily in grapes as we have seen, I had some of my own ventures studied and tested.

The Tasgaon group tried to search for original study books on grapes and learnt that only then, the Davis University of Agriculture in California had brought forth of a 700 pages volume on grapes under the title 'General Viticulture'. This book was not available in India. But the group pursued and succeeded to get two copies of this book. They kept one copy with me and the other with them. Only one or two among them had knowledge of English of lower high school certificate examination.

But in spite of language difficulty the whole group would meet together every evening, open the book and recognize some words and terms often used in grape cultivation (As buds, canes, pruning etc). They also learnt to read graphs and tables with the titles of these. They would intently observe sketches and pictures of different parts of vine (buds, canes, leaves, roots) and compare them to their own garden vines. They got well aquainted with the pictures of layout of the garden and the tools used in the garden operations. This way they made girdling scissors by guiding one ironsmith to do it. I used to visit them very rarely because of transport inconveniences, but when I would be there, I would stay for full 5 to 6 days studying, discussing, arguing on their work and problems in the fields or on some topics in the book. I very rarely had free time to rest for more than 2 hrs a day in this long stay. At other times, the correspondence by post was the only contact link. Later for the benefit of all grape growers they requested me to translate the big volume on Viticulture in Marathi and the 'Maharashtra Draksha Bagayatdar Sangh' made the book available to grape growers on no profit no loss basis.