SHARADA NAYAK
In 1979 I got a grant to take seven people to India to gather materials to create an Indian village in the old log cabin Williams Building on the Warren Wilson campus. In the summer of 1979 we toured India for six weeks which was both a cultural tour for our group, none of whom besides me had been to India before, and a materials collection tour. So we went to Delhi and Varanasi and Agra for a cultural tour and to Ahmedabad to collect materials. In Ahmedabad we were guided by the National Institute of Design whose head was Ashoke Chatterjee, who was a couple of years ahead of me at Woodstock School in the Himalayas. We constructed an Indian village house with beautiful old carved dowry chest and a cradle, we made an imitation well from which children could draw water and carry it on their heads in large brass pots, we had enough boys and girl’s clothing to dress up a seventh grade classroom, another Woodstock graduate, Terri Skilman, at Warren Wilson gave a sitar concert, we had a 16 screen slide show (on projectors going on and off, before the days of digital photographs) for a 15 minute slide show, with the students help we rolled out chapatties and made an Indian meal, we wrote the name of every child in Hindi. Every day a 7th grade social studies classroom was school bussed in and spent four hours with us getting the feel of India.
The Indian tour and collection of materials was organized by Sharada Nayak, who headed the Educational Resources Center, whose function was to help Americans teach about India. She provided us with a marvelous tour and helped us choose materials. The funding came from American surplus wheat that was bought by the USA Department of Agriculture to prop up the price of wheat for wheat farmers and stored in caves. The wheat was of no use to the United States but India had not yet embarked on the green revolution which would later give India surpluses of wheat for export. India badly needed more wheat to feed its people. So India bought the wheat at low cost (and paid for shipping on American ships). India paid for the wheat and shipping with rupees, which were only of value in India. So to use some of the rupees in India, the American PL 480 program gave grants to Americans to study or do tours in India. And it was these rupees which our grant let us spend to create an Indian village and it was Sharada Nayak who helped us to wisely spend the money.
On Thursday in Delhi we arranged to meet Sharada Nayak. She is now retired and 88, I am 85, neither of us have the physical energy we had 40 years ago. But Sharada is still as lively and funny and full of pep as she was 40 years ago. We had a meal together at the Big Chill Cafe in the Khan Market near to the home where she has lived for 50 years and is about to leave to live with her sister next to her son in Bangalore.
After eating she took us back to her almost empty apartment which the last time I saw it had been filled with photographs and Indian treasures found on her many trips around India. Five months before a kitchen fire had swept through her building, had blown through the causeway connecting her apartment to the main building and had destroyed the apartments on either side or her. She ran through the flames and escaped and so did her apartment and all of her marvelous things, many of which she has now given away in preparation for leaving for Bangalore.
It was wonderful to see her again and to hear the story of her growing up in Delhi and Ceylon and then spending two years at Briarclift in the United States and her years of introducing Americans to India over the years. Anyone wanting to connect with Sharada can write her at Nayak1000@gmail.com.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 