Turuvekere had a population of 13,275. Males constitute 52% of the population and females 48%. Turuvekere has an average literacy rate of 73%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 78%, and female literacy is 69%. In Turuvekere, 11% of the population is under 6 years of age. Myself and 8 friends went there in the year 2003-2004. We landed there in August 2003 on motorcycles. Although I stayed with a relative of mine. We were able to change the mindset of people there. We introduced three households to Solar panels. Refitted 7 bullock carts with Truck tires. We also taught classes in basic geography and mathematics to village kids. We would lend a hand in farmer chores like drawing water from wells and running the tractor. We should them how laptops worked. Wifi connectivity has not yet arrived in the village yet unfortunately. We distributed 20 first aid kits and also gave lectures on snake-bite and prevention.
I feel each and every Indian should allocate one or two years of his busy and selfish life to one village chosen at random.
We are not done with that village yet and will keep visiting it.
We did find opposition and some village toughs tried to make things difficult for us. But we had gone there with our own rough necks armed with "baseball bats" to handle trouble makers.
