PRAYOG PARIWAR - Demystification of Science

I was very restless, feeling hurt that as I was neither a grape gardener nor a double graduate in Horticultural Science, I was prevented to have the open meeting with them. I had at one time pined for having a group 'Shastra Siddha Sadhanalay' when I was young. Later I had open external self study courses 'Swashray' with individual commitment with the students who joined me. Then after my Kirloskar Suppliment I had thought of having unregistered free activity 'Swashray Vikas Mandal', an activity promising development within the neighborhood resources, This activity gave me two new ideas: 1. Venture and 2. With the People.

I was then intently in a mood to visualize some new idea again. And as a flash, the concept of 'Prayog Pariwar' dawned on me. It also amalgamated it it, all my previous ideas too.

This new concept immediately made me invincible. Now it was not snobbery to make claims in various areas of knowledge without having proper degree in those areas. I would simply say our experiments are giving these results. You can test them, improve them, reject them only on experimental grounds and we are prepared for such sharings. I still vividly remember, it was the day when my third son was born, my wife had gone to rural hospital and I was with my two elder sons at home. As usual, I was under the grape vine musing. The word 'Prayog Pariwar' crystallized like a flash in my mind. I wrote to my mother that day. Today, I have a third son but one new Idea has taken birth today and I feel this child 'Prayog Pariwar' would make its name with its growth in the coming time. The term 'Prayog Pariwar' has thus made the entire domain of best of post graduate and research level science free for all to cherish and use on one's own.

Soon the results I had got on my two vines, in the backyard got well tested and established in the farmyards of our 'Peer Venture Cells'. Their achievements in getting calculated assured record yields, attracted nearby small farmers, on their own, to come and interact with them. They too later became involved and took to grape plantation on acre to acre basis. At first the banks were not ready to give credit up to 500 Rupees per acre of plantation, but the eye opening success of assured crop, made them come on their own to extend credit up to Fifty Thousand Rupees per acre on long-term basis. A new type of fraternity between these farmers and experts from the universities developed and at present the grape growers in Maharashtra have established first order link with the experts in grapes from most of the universities all over the world. The experts are invited in the seminar and their problems in the field are discussed with them to experiment and to find answers fitting to the conditions in their farms.

I cannot resist highlighting, how the word 'Pariwar' is the real spirit of these ventures. A prominent national level political leader and member of the parliament, late Mr. N. G. Gore from Maharashtra, saw me when he came for some function in our Rural Institute. He sat with me for three hours and took some grape cuttings from me to join 'Peer Venture Grape Cells' that we had begun to call as 'Peer Venture Grape Nets' as these cells had begun to network among each other in a non-institution free Pariwar method. Mr. Gore had no space near his house, he had a pit made of bricks on the tiles in front side of his house. The grape vines grew well in this pit and reached the height of the terrace in the third story. He used to have regular recording and interactions with me by post card communication. He got more that 200 bunches in the second year of the plantation. When our first Tasgaon Peer Group had a car, as the first opening of the car, we had an all India tour, to visit various Agricultural Universities. On our way we were at his bungalow in Delhi where he was a M. P. He was proud to show some grape vines growing there on the cement floor in the backyard in brick pits. A retired deputy collector had also become a Pariwar part who used to document every news on grapes and pass his views on these. He used to take one ton of assured grape from the vine reaching the terrace gallery of his bungalow. He also used his scientific insight in grapes to his kitchen garden coconut trees and used to have 200 hundred fruits minimum from each of these trees.