In October 2024, as a part of my Fellowship, I was tasked with conducting a primary research study to understand the causes and effects of low birth weight outcomes in the Kolhan region of Jharkhand. Since I was only here for 9 months, it was logistically challenging to conduct a causal analysis because data collection across intervention and non- intervention regions was complex and arduous. As a result, an inferential analysis was to be conducted to examine the “Determinants and Cost of Low Birth Weight Outcomes in the Kolhan Region of Jharkhand.”
Initially, the block coordinators were assigned the entire data collection, however to ensure credibility, I was entrusted with 20 percent of it. Consequently, for the next six weeks, as the Jharkhand heat left me enervated, I labored for 10 hours collecting data from mothers tucked away in the deafening silence of the forests, guarding Kolhan. This meant I hiked up hills, made my way through forests, and travelled to remote corners to collect data.
I embarked on this journey with the intention to just collect data but I came back with a feeling, a feeling of wanting to go back to the community, a feeling of gratitude, a feeling of being loved.
This piece is about what goes on in fieldwork – the uncertainty – the planning – and the emotions.
Learning to Let Go of the Plan
Before heading to the field, I had a list — names of mothers I intended to interview, carefully prepared in advance. Every evening, I would send this list to our field workers so they could check the next day’s availability. The Sahiyas — community health workers from the same village — would then reach out to the mothers and inform them about the interviews.
Despite these precautions, the first few days in the field quickly taught me that planning could only get me so far. Even after confirming availability, I would often reach a household only to find it empty. Many mothers had already left for the forest to gather firewood or graze cattle. In these villages, daily survival doesn’t follow a schedule — certainly not one set by a researcher.
By the third day, we adjusted. A backup list of potential respondents was created for every visit, and I started requesting the Sahiyas to accompany me when they could. This wasn’t just logistical; it changed everything.
The Power of Being Let In
When the Sahiyas came with me, the conversations shifted. They helped me translate not just the words, but the meaning behind them. They placed the questions into the mothers’ world — what they knew, what they’d lived.
Most of the mothers I spoke to were younger than 21. The questions I had to ask were personal — about menstruation, nutrition, domestic arrangements, income, and cultural taboos. I was a stranger asking intimate things. Their guardedness was natural.
But when the Sahiyas sat beside me, something opened up. The mothers trusted them, and by extension, they began to trust me. They knew the Sahiya would never bring someone into their home who might compromise their privacy or safety. It wasn’t just language that was being bridged — it was social distance.
Sonamoni: A Smile That Stays With Me
One of the interactions I remember most vividly was with a 26-year-old mother — let’s call her Sonamoni, a common name in the region. Her house was far from the main road. We parked the scooty at the edge of the trail and walked. As we neared a house under construction, the field worker called out. Within seconds, a woman came running out, smiling brightly, skipping a little as she approached. Something about her energy felt radiant. I was immediately drawn in.
During our interview, she often mentioned that she hadn’t eaten properly during her pregnancy. It wasn’t from a lack of knowledge — she knew she needed nourishment — but she hadn’t been allowed to eat well. She mentioned it with a sense of quiet shame. I didn’t push. Something told me this silence needed space.
Later, she opened up . During her pregnancy, Sonamoni faced many challenges at home. She struggled with limited access to food and care. She had hoped that things would improve with the arrival of the baby, but after the birth of a daughter, the situation grew even more challenging.
And yet, Sonamoni smiled. Not just smiled — beamed. Her face, her voice, her presence had a brightness that I still carry with me. It’s her smile that returns to me in moments when I feel overwhelmed, as a reminder of strength that refuses to bend.
Where Grief Sat Gently
On another day in Dhalbhumgarh, I was interviewing mothers with infants between four and six months old. One mother stood out — she seemed to know the answers to every question, sometimes prompting them before I could finish. I learned she had recently returned from the fields.
Later, the field worker told me this mother had lost her newborn three months earlier. She was seven months pregnant when the pain began — sharp contractions in her abdomen. She didn’t know that births could happen in the seventh month. She assumed she still had time. So instead of going to a hospital, she visited the nearest RMP — a rural medical practitioner. Without examining her, he gave her an injection to stop the pain.
On her way home, she collapsed. The baby’s head hit the ground.
The field worker insisted that her story be heard — that this grief not be left unspoken. So I sat with her. I asked the questions. She answered every one of them with grace, her composure unwavering. Only her eyes betrayed the loss. They welled up now and then, but she never broke down. There was strength in her restraint — a kind of dignity I still struggle to describe.
Being Invited In
These interviews made me realise I wasn’t just collecting data. I was being invited into lives — into kitchens, into silences, into loss, into memory. Each conversation was a doorway. Some opened easily. Some creaked. Some held stories so heavy they changed the room.
I arrived with a survey form. I left with something harder to name — a sense of having been trusted, however briefly, with truths that didn’t owe me anything.
Hospitality and Humanity
While some households invited me to their homes and entrusted me with stories that they usually keep folded in silence, all homes embraced me with warmth and love. Every household I walked into had a woman standing at the doorstep with the brightest smile — a smile that doesn’t just welcome you but accepts you as well.
One day prior to Maghi Purnima (serves as a time for the Adivasi community to honor their ancestors and express gratitude to nature ), I was scheduled to interview mothers in Chaibasa – Achu to be precise. I was interviewing a mother who wasn’t able to understand the questions quite well. Her family rushed to her rescue. Three to four members of her family came together to help her answer the questions. She eventually got the hang of it. It turned out to be a long interview , what was supposed to be a twenty minute interview turned into two hours. But in those two hours, that family embraced me as one of them. While I was leaving, they insisted that I must come back the next day to eat mutton – to me, what they offered wasn’t just mutton, it was trust, and a place at their table.
I couldn’t go the next day but every time I cook mutton since then, I can’t help but feel the same warmth and love embracing me all over again. It turns out that smile, that warmth, that embrace — it stays with you, a whiff of feeling that returns when you least expect it.
The Emotional Labor of Research
After six long weeks of travelling across Kolhan, I rested my head on a Thursday night, knowing the next morning would be my last day of data collection. But that night felt different. Unlike the last thirty nights, I didn’t fall asleep the moment my head hit the pillow. I tossed and turned for an hour, and then, quietly, tears began to slip down my face.
There was no image, no story, no face — just tears. And then, slowly, the faces returned. Sonamoni. The mother who lost her baby in the seventh month. The woman who lost her husband during her pregnancy. The old man who was caring for his daughter-in-law because there was no one else. The field workers. All of them, all at once. It suddenly hit me — tomorrow would be the last time I would see them. The last time I would return to that world. A world that, somehow, had almost become mine.
All the stories I hadn’t had time to process — they came flooding back. They played on a loop. I didn’t know what to do with the feeling. I still don’t. But that night, I lay beside it, quietly, as it settled into my chest. And maybe that’s what research leaves you with — not just data or insight, but a gentle ache. A small, lasting presence. A world you carry home, long after you’ve left it behind.
