Day 15: Kalukhedi, Akolia, Khategaon – A Wait That Didn’t Disappoint

It is never ideal when things run a bit delayed and someone has to wait for you. It is just a bonus that even after the wait, we were able to make the people present happy. Welcome to Day 4 of the Madhya Pradesh leg of the Drone Yatra. It is officially 15 days that we have been on the road doing demonstrations starting from Maharashtra and now in Madhya Pradesh. Today’s visits are Kalukhedi, Akolia, Khategaon.

We have noticed in our journey’s till date, the morning session is always the calmest, since everyone has had the time to setup and rest, prepared to take the day head on. It is always the second or the third session which is challenging at times for myriad reasons. Which means, the first visit to Kalukhedi went by without a hitch. We reached the destination on time, the demonstration was conducted on time, and we then moved towards our next destination.

We reached our next destination Akolia, set up and conducted a successful demonstration. Everything went by perfectly, and then we began our farmer interaction which became so interesting, that we lot track of time a bit. When we finally realized that we were late, we hurriedly packed up and left for the third destination.

Generally, it is not an issue because everything is always planned with a buffer to adjust for unforeseen circumstances such as heavy rains, traffic, road closures and so on. But this time we were slated to travel over 150 kms to the last destination of the day and we were running out of time and had to hurry. We were racing against the clock here since there is a time limit to when we can fly the drone, i.e., in sunlight and before 6pm.

We were genuinely worried that if we became too late and the drone could not fly, then it would be gutting to disappoint so many farmers who were waiting for us, eagerly, to watch the drone fly. Lucky for us, traffic cooperated, and even with maintaining all traffic rules and speed limits, we reached our destination. Albeit late, we were still within time for the demonstration.

We first flew the drone while there was light and later we provided a briefing to the farmers. Many of them iterated that they were genuinely worried if we would even make it in time, but we did and they were all glad about it. Many of them had also got their children after school for them to watch the drone too. It was a scary experience at one point of time wondering if we might have our first upset, but luckily it all worked out at the end.

After this scare, we have decided to be a bit more cautious going forward. We now move to Baranga where something big is about to happen, stay tuned!