Divyajeevan
 

Rajendra & Rupal Desai

On 19th October 2006 I received this E-mail.

“This is just to let you know that Rupal and I are taking off for Brazil, Argentina and Antarctica tomorrow morning. We will be in Brazil for some seven weeks, starting with Manaus in the midst of Amazon Forest. We will be going down Amazon for around five days and then we will be travelling along the northern and eastern coast visiting colonial towns finally reaching the famous Iguazu Falls before crossing over in to Argentina. We will be in Buenos Aires for a few days before heading south to Tierra Del Fuego. From there we will be taking off on our dream trip to Antarctica, something that we have been waiting for five years.”

Rupal & Raju

Who are these persons? And how do they find this place in their feature of “Divya Jeevan?”

Rajendra and Rupal are a very unique couple who have dedicated their lives to the service of humanity and yet lead a life full of thrills and adventure, travelling, whenever circumstances permit, to remote corners of the world. The purpose of writing about them is to make our readers aware that it is possible to devote one’s life to service of mankind and yet enjoy the life to the fullest.

Rajendra Desai comes from a family where Gandhian principles and values are a way of life. Both his father Shri Ajitbhai and mother Smt. Menaben were freedom fighters who had undergone imprisonment during our freedom struggle. Late Dr. Usha Mehta, the renown Gandhian and freedom fighter was a cousin of Rajendra. Simple living and high thinking came naturally to him.

Rupal comes from a different background. Her father Shri Nanchandbhai Mehta was educated abroad and was an executive in a large corporation. It is a wonder how these two persons from such different backgrounds got married and have been working so wonderfully as a team in most difficult circumstances and in remote areas of our country for such a length of time.

Rajendra is a Civil Engineer from I.I.T. and has done his Master’s in Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA. Rupal is an Architect from Sir J.J. School of Architecture, Bombay, and has done her Master’s from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, USA.

Rajendra and Rupal got married in 1972. Rajendra had a passion for adventure and was a keen mountaineer. His hobbies were hiking, trekking, climbing (including rock climbing), skiing and all types of outdoor adventure sports. He also had a burning desire to devote his life and energy to working for the poor people of our country. Rupal became his active partner and committed herself wholeheartedly to both the passions of Rajendra. Early in their married life they took a concrete decision not to have any children and add to the population burden of this world. “If ever we feel the need, we will adopt children” was their statement. This would give them more freedom to work for the cause of poor people.

Both of them worked in the USA from 1972 to 1984, gaining valuable experience in building mud-houses using appropriate building technologies, and using cost efficient building technologies. They also utilized this time travelling extensively in different parts of the world. This included a 6-month extensive tour of South America from Amazon in Brazil in north to the southern tip of South America. They did this with only back packs and on a shoe string budget. They also visited India periodically to undertake long treks in the Himalaya and also take part in mountaineering expeditions.

In 1984, they felt that the time had come to return to India and commit their lives to the service of humanity. They finally packed up their bags and moved from a beautiful house in Los Angeles, to a stable like apartment in Wardha to embark upon their mission of serving the poor. Till 1987 they were engaged in field research on appropriate building technologies, and transfer of these technologies to grassroots, use of cost efficient building technologies for institutional buildings and designing of a building technician’s course, communication materials for publication of various technologies etc. In simple words, they were engaged in teaching the poor, how to build affordable houses themselves with the locally available materials, without depending on steel and cement and also on contractors from towns and cities; houses which were cheep and yet strong.

In 1987 from Wardha they moved to South Gujarat to do tribal housing projects, giving support for a 4,000 tribal homes project involving adobe (sun dried mud blocks) construction system, training tribal masons, etc.

They were also in development and execution of a “hands-on” training programme for students of architecture and building technology, NGO personnel and rural artisans in the rural areas of Gujarat State.

In midst of the hectic work, they managed to take a vacation, and they travelled from December 1990 to March 1991, in North West Africa, crossing Sahara Desert from south to north.

Then came the devastating Latur earthquake in September 1993 which took 9,000 human lives and destroyed over 30,000 houses in Marathwada region. This took them to Latur where they worked from 1993 to 1997. They worked on an awareness and confidence building campaign for the quake affected communities in the aftermath of the quake. They conducted their campaign through.

1. Development of house designs for demonstration models and rehabilitation programme,
    

2. Technology transfer through informal education, building artisan capacity building, school children intervention,
    

3. Development of communication tools including posters, brochures, booklets, manuals, video films, street plays, and audio cassette,
    

4. Development of appropriate earthquake resistant construction technology based on the local materials,
    

5. Repair and seismic retrofitting of the existing houses.

In 1998, they were again on an adventurous trip, this time to Panama and other Central American countries.

From October 1999 to December 1999 and April to June 2000 they have done an awareness campaign in 125 villages in four hill districts of Garhwal (UP) for long-term earthquake safety through repair and seismic retrofitting of the existing houses, hands-on training in repair and retrofitting of masons and carpenters in 10 quake affected villages.

They worked in Bhavnagar (Gujarat) on panic control exercises through the information dissemination via TV, print media, and public meetings and also on demonstration and training of local city masons and petty contractors in repair and seismic retrofitting of an urban house.

Their “earthquake work expertise” took them wherever the earthquakes occurred. They worked on rapid assessment of earthquake damage in Jabalpur City and surrounding areas in July 1997. In March 1999 their services were called for in Chamoli earthquake.

Then came the massive earthquake in 2001, which shook the State of Gujarat. Here, the vast experience gained by Rajendra and Rupal was put to use. They gave a massive contribution in rebuilding the confidence of the people and reconstructing and retrofitting and repairing the earthquake damaged structures. Amongst other things their work involved the following:

1. Repair and retrofitting of 10 schools and reconstruction of 16 schools – technical assistance to Bhansali Trust in execution for Prime Minister National Relief Fund, Kutchh, Gujarat, April 2003 to 2005.
    

2. “Capacity Building for Long-term Preparedness”, Gujarat State Disaster Management Agency, Gujarat State, November 2001 to June 2003..
    

3. Conducting a large programme aimed at building capacity to withstand disasters of 484 earthquake affected villages in 15 blocks of 5 districts in the State of Gujarat. Involved awareness building and training of local 6,000 masons and 1200 engineers in disaster resistant construction, seismic retrofitting and roof rainwater harvesting system through their actual demonstration in each village.
    

4. Giving technical assistance to Bhansali Trust in reconstruction of 4 villages in Kutchh, April 2001 to December 2003 in design of houses and planning of four villages in Kutchh followed by the execution. Task – reconstruction of approximately 1,600 houses, and infrastructure facilities including roads, schools, panchayat building, aanganwadis, drainage, etc.

Recently they were called upon to work in Kashmir after the earthquake, and they actually spent more than 3 months in the border regions of Kashmir. Here, they worked in areas close to POK border and quite dangerous places. They even interacted with people who were earlier themselves terrorists. The work done by them for Kashmir is as under:

1. Technology development for earthquake resistant vernacular construction and capacity building of local communities in reconstruction, seismic restoration and retrofitting in Kashmir for Aga Khan Development Network, April to June 2006.
    

2. Seismic retrofitting of Government sub-district hospital at Kupwada in Kashmir for Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council, Government of India, April to July 2006.
    

3. Vulnerability reduction of a 16,000 sq. ft. two storey brick masonry building of a functioning hospital having major outpatient activities and two operation theatres.

They have been rendering the services through their organization “National Centre for Peoples’ Action in Disaster Preparedness”. Generally people earn for themselves and give after they have fulfilled their needs and wants. Not so with Rajendra and Rupal. The entire earnings from their efforts go for the charitable work. They survive on their past earnings and savings.

They have received awards for Disaster Mitigation Work for A.S. Arya University of Roorkee and also Hari Om Ashram HUDCO Award for dissemination of earthquake resistant housing technology in Latur and have several publications and video films on these subjects to their credit.