You know that both of us have been cherishing a dream of taking Deep roots in the culture of our people in the villages. In the past 20 years it took a lot of de-learning for us to sit at the feet of our people and learn lessons of life. The Booshakthi Kendra is now ready for occupation. Both of us are moving to the village to live there for the rest of our life. We have reached a stage in our involvement where our presence amidst our people is itself a program. We are physically moving to the village to live there from 11 October. Both of us have no idea of how the inauguration will be. Our leaders are meeting to plan that.

We must add a little about the Structure of Booshakthi Kendra. It has been constructed as the residence of the Booshakthi Peetadhyaksha and Peetadyakshini. (We do not know how to translate this into English).

It broadly means spiritual leaders. This is how the people have symbolized us to the Dalit community as well as to the rest of the society. There was no architect, no engineer and no contractor. The entire building was conceptualized and executed by us who are engineering illiterates. We have used stones taken from the fields. This is called black stones. Generally these stones are not used for constructions of houses. We dared to do that and now it has become a major attraction. One has to visit this place to believe what Dalit minds and hands can achieve. For all the work only Dalits were there.

The masons, the carpenters, the blacksmiths, the painters were all Dalits. There will be two community halls in the near future. We also plan to put up a gossip center and a residential school in the next couple of years. As you know both us have no retirement in life. We are starting all over again. The first decade of our involvement was through REDS. This period was an intensive period of creating awareness among our people. In the process we became aware of many things more than our people. They taught us precious lessons.

The second decade of our involvement was through DJS. This was a period of intensive struggles both nationally and internationally. We must acknowledge that while we proud to have achieved many things during this decade our life has also come under serious threat in the hands of enemies of our people. Of course such threats mean nothing when compared to the type of affection and love we have enjoyed in the Dalit villages.

The third decade of our involvement starts from Booshakthi Kendra. We do not know if we shall live to complete this decade. However, We are starting this new phase in our life with as much energy and enthusiasm as we did when we started REDS and later DJS. Each one has grown out of the previous one through an organic process. At the end there are not three things but only one continuous thing.

For us the Booshakthi Kendra is a quantum leap into the future whose uncertainties are as much challenging as they are exciting. However, we are jumping into this future with a history of a big cultural resurgence in this District. The present phase of our work holds out a lot of promise for our people. We do have a little anxiety about the future of our children as they move into this phase of uncertainty. However, we have a lot of hope that they will have the courage, strength and the needed support from you to face life.

The Booshakthi Kendra will also be the nerve center of the land struggle that we have already initiated. As you are aware land is one thing that the caste forces in India will not give in the hands of the Dalit people. If we have land our free labor will no more be available to them. We do not know where this struggle will take us. But we are for prepared every consequence of this crucial struggle.

We acknowledge with gratitude all the contributions that some of you have made. Recently Kavitha and Clay have sent $100. Susan has sent $550, which she collected for the education of the Dalit girl children. Aloy has sent Rs.3000. One Dalit IAS officer is doing some campaign for contributions to the Booshakthi Kendra. He has made a personal contribution of Rs.2000. Village people have started coming in big groups to place a stone in the Booshakthi hill, which is the symbol of our land struggle. We invite you to visit the Booshakthi Kendra and place a stone with your name on it. Make it a point to come with your family and friends. Just now we have two guest rooms in our residence. The Booshakthi Kendra should soon have an official guesthouse. There are many dreams. We are not asking you for anything to us. We are asking you to make the Booshakthi Kendra a true, meaningful and effective resource for our people. This can be achieved only with your support and solidarity. We do hope we shall have that abundantly from you.

We wish you all blessings of Booshakthi and of all our Ancestors.

Our emails will remain the same. REDS will be a contact point for some more time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: