The census of Bhalot began during the winter with me trodding through the village making a map and jotting down who lived in each house on the map. From the beginning I intended to do a wider census to find out exactly how many people live in the village and get a more accurate figure for caste breakdown and male to female ratio. My plan is to be back in England for the autumn so time is short and the heat has been overwhelming (for me) so I have gone for the team work alternative to me going door to door (which is awkward for a number of reasons). I have hired a team of 6 young men from the village. One is a Pushto speaker so he does the questionning in Pathan households. Two of them like to work together so they count as one interviewer and will concentrate on 2 nearby dhoks (hamlets). Another is handling the Mian households for now but hopefully will have time to get to others soon. There is a non Malik Gujar (a Grooma Gujar) who is covering the area called 'Rarian'. Finally the youngest member of the team (14) is Kashmiri and he will be primarily interviewing his own family members. I am helped enormously in organising the team by a supervisor, a young Malik, who has shown consistent curiosity about my research from day one.
The questionnaire is not static. Certain questions are on all versions of the questionnaire
and others have been added (some dropped). I have written a guide for the interviewers
as well.