On 5th July 2025, a team of eight from Behala Sujan Social Welfare Society, as part of their outreach program went to Samsernagar, which is a village under the Hingalganj sub-division of West Bengal. This outreach program was undertaken as an add-on to the ongoing medical dispensary that the organisation has already started conducting there, under which medicines are supplied as well as regular medical check-ups of the locals are also conducted. 

This program, named ‘Rural Development Programme on Self Employment: Goatery and Poultry Farming’, is aimed towards making the women of the village self-dependent, to prove an additional source of income for them. However, not everyone was deemed eligible to be a beneficiary of this project; only after a careful and thorough process the beneficiaries of this project were selected. Under this project, six women were given 12 nos goats, while two were given 100 nos. chicks; these animals and birds have been entrusted to their care while they grow up. While the goats and the chicks were both supposed to arrive on the same day, due to inclement weather conditions, the birds were unable to arrive on the 5th. Hence, 4 members of the group had to stay behind because the distribution of the birds to their allotted beneficiaries was delayed by one day. On the next day, that is 6th July 2025, after the birds were distributed for poultry farming, the team went to the homes of the respective beneficiaries to inspect the conditions in which these birds and animals would be kept in and taken care of; they left only after the places met with their satisfaction. The locals were the most cordial and ensured that the team was well taken care of. While there, the team was housed at the ‘Swamiji and Netaji Seva Sangha Ashram’, the distribution program itself having been conducted on its grounds. With whatever meagre means that the locals had at hand, they had ensured that the place was properly cleaned and the food was healthy yet delicious. 

The entire experience was a humbling one, since one could see the obstacles that the people residing there have to battle as part of their daily existence. Several sections of the village have been fenced so as to ward off tigers from entering. Moreover, Samsernagar being a border-adjacent village, they suffer from network and electricity problems regularly. However, in spite of all these adversities, the locals still laugh and talk, the children going to school daily and playing in the mud that the heavy showers cause-in short, life still goes on, and there is happiness. Every place has a rhythm of its own, and the rhythm of Samsernagar creates a music of the earth; a tune which is both upbeat and infused with sadness at the same time, with strong notes of defiance and an indomitable desire to carve out an existence, hard won though it may be.