Photo updates

Note - I wrote this on Sep 22.
Note - internet's quite slow. the picture's will come when the come.
Note - just spent a long time REALLY late in the night uploading these pics here. More later.

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So I guess it's time for a little pictorial update. It's been almost a week since I got to my project site in Bagar, Rajasthan. And it's been a series of ups and downs. Dealing with the heat, but liking the good. Connecting with the rest of the team members, and discovering with the indifference and cynicism of some (many?) of the locals here. Discovering some very peaceful temples, and contending with the completely whacked sleep cycle (maybe it's the heat, I don't know).

Now, this week has been all about going out into Bagar and getting a taste for it. More importantly, there hasn't been any picture taking. So, this pictoral update is largely going to be taking you through orientation.



Saw this pic on the amazing race. It reads, "Technology Japani, Dil Hindustani" i.e. Japanese Technology, Indian Heart


Map that Indicorps put together outlining all the projects Indicorps has done so far. We are the big round circle of red dots in the Northwest (state of Rajasthan).


A close up, detailing all the projects for 2006-2007


So, one of the NGOs that Indicorps is closely aligned to is one called 'Manav Sadhna' that works quite closely with the Gandhian philosphy. The founder, Jayesh Bhai, also happens to be the son of Ishwar Kaka, who is the director of the Environmental Santitation Insitute (where our orientation was taking place). Anyways - Jayesh Bhai had come to give a discourse on a service-related topic. Before starting, one of the Manav Sadhna volunteers had made this 'rangoli' - a traditional Indian thing where you make designs/patterns using colours - with the Manav Sadhna motto - Love All, Serve All. As you can probably tell, they serve all faiths.


Jayesh Bhai and I. This was while he was giving us a tour of HridayKunj - Gandhiji's house at Gandhi Ashram. Most famous as the place where the Salt March started.


Gandhiji's office, with all the original furniture. I remember the place having quite a feel of reverence to it. Maybe it was in my head - still a powerful place to be in.


So, Ishwar Kaka is part of the Ahmedabad Laughing Club - a group of guys who exercise and believe in the power of laugh. A lot of their laughing exercises are really goofy - so if you're not laughing with them, you're definitely laughing at them. Can't question the efficacy of that approach though. Good times, good times


Last couple of days of orientation - a list of all the information sessions we had


This is me with the campus manager of the place - Jaidev Bhai. He can be a pretty goofy character, and him and I really got along. This is us goofing around on the morning of when I left for Jaipur/Bagar.


This is actually in Bagar. I have titled this one "Feast". Sheel, if you're reading this, I'm sure that like me, you couldn't help but think that 'Vando Nathi' has a pretty good life to look forward to.


Sunrise in Bagar the next morning taken from the place we're staying in. I did some sharpening or whatever to the image - the colours are all untouched.


Pigeons flocking at sunrise on top of the water tank.

Heading out for Bagar today

Yay for finally starting the project. It's been an absolutely inspirational month during Indicorps orientation. I was thinking about this yesterday during one of the lessons learned sessions from the staff/founders. If I was running this thing - then my job was almost done yesterday. I would have managed to find and bring some quite inspirational people that just want to serve their country. And I've prepared and provoked and inspired them in the last month. Now it's really upto them.

Anyhoo - that still doesn't take away from the excitement of finally beginning this journey. Although I must admit, right now I do have butterflies in my stomach. Then again, it might be the general Indian stomach syndrome (maybe I could come up with a catchy name for it - like General Abdominal Syndrome (GAS)).

I'm out for now. Will leave you with a few thoughts/quotes:

1.

"Kuch to karo yaar"

Loose translation "Dude, do something at least". Saw this on the t-shirt of some volunteer at Manav Sadhna (an NGO that is close to Indicorps). This has pretty much been my motto in the last week or two. It reverberates with me so powerfully, becuase maybe it encapsulates in 4 words why I came here, and what it is that I want to do.

2.

"Philosophers have interpreted the world n many different ways. The point, however, is to change it."

A 2-yr fellow/staff during orientation mentioned this as his motto. Pretty powerful quote in my mind.

3.

"Fear is not a good enough reason for you not to do something"

One of the staff members, who heard it from Mark and John of friendshipwithoutborders.org. Check out the video if you haven't.

btw

So a little background on what these photos mean (I was runing quite late last time):

This is a photo of a vendor selling cricket bats on the streets of Ahmedabad (near the Bhadra Kali fort area if you're familiar). The photograph to me is like your typical touristy one, and I took it completely by accident during the Amazing Race we did (see blog below). But to me it signifies the pace of life, the diversity/stratification of India. It's awesome yaar ;-)



This was my random act of kindness - one of the tasks during the amazing race. I helped a banana vendor push his cart for a bit. There were two carts, and one of the other guy on my team took the other one. His vendor seemed to be a little agitated about him doing it, mine was a little cooler about it. I kinda don't like it because the sentiment is such a shallow one - it's almost like a photo opp. Definitely going to remind myself not to take pictures just to make me feel better about myself. There's gotta be a stronger connection/emotion/reason behind it.



This is a picture of all of us on the first day. There's 21 fellows, and other staff members. There are some kids from a high school in the back. Our activity was to take 3-7 kids each on our very first day and take them to Gandhinagar Gardens and just hang out. Made some really strong connections, and had some jhakaas fun (jhakaas being a very Bombay term - I'm not exactly sure what it even means). Anyhoo - it rained, but it was just a great way to get of our shell and pretension - at least for me.


anybody know how to upload images to blogger?

alive and kicking

So as an update – I'm alive, I'm well, I'm thriving. I haven't had access to the Internet since Aug 14, so I apologize to all those who have been trying to get in touch with me (and to all those that I promised to keep in touch with).

I'm here at Environmental Santitation Insititute in the village of Sughad, 20 mins from the Ahmedabad, the commercial capital of the state of Gujarat in India. It's a pretty neat place, the accommodation is pretty nice. The entire insititute is built around the principles of sanitation (of course), water conservation, conserving energy and planting trees. I think the most remarkable fact is that no water comes from the outside at all – they recycle and harvest all the water they need.

Anyways, it's been 20 or so days into the Indicorps orientation, and it certainly has had quite a bit of effect on me. One of the main changes is that how little I actually need, versus how much I want. Only way to learn the simple life is to experience it. And there is no substitute for the humility thereof. Waking up every morning before 6, meditation or yoga for half an hour, followed by rotating cleaning duties (cleaning the main campus areas, cleaning your dorm, helping out in the kitchen or going for a silent morning walk). It teaches you pride in your work, it teaches you the value of keeping clean and not trashing things around. It also teaches you that little water and/or limited means are absolutely no bar to perfect sanitation. Cleaning your own dishes with minimal water after every meal teaches you that. Washing your own clothes by hand every 4 ^th day teaches you that. It also taught me that I can live on 4 pairs of clothes – yup, that's all I got, 4 pairs of kurta pyjamas (Indian-styled shirt and pants). I bought another kurta (shirt) here, because if you skip a laundry day, it puts you into a jam. But that's it. That's the clothes I exercise in. sleep in. work in. clean in. and you manage. True – I don't smell the best by the end of the day, but it's doable. And that's what's important. On an equally important note, having almost all-white clothes is a bad bad bad idea in India, where it's dusty, you sit/work/exercise on the ground, and more importantly, wash your clothes by hand.

Some of the most memorable things we've done – the day activity where all of us spent time working with people of the lower economic status in an urban setting. I spent 5 hours working with a 10 yr old boot-polisher, who basically walked around looking for business. There were people who went rag-picking in garbage piles, people who worked with seamstresses, people who worked with street vegetable vendors, people who worked with 'chaiwallas' – the tea stalls so common place all over India. It was just so eye-opening to experience firsthand the way these people live. And I think what opened us up and made us comfortable with this might have been the 2/3 days where we worked inside Ahmedabad's largest slum providing flood relief. People went in to play with the kids, bathe them, go house to house and administer first aid (or simply cut their nails – as I did). But more than anything, talk and interact with these people, to really get a sense of what things are like. I've lived in India before, and I was absolutely surprised how little I knew, and how many assumptions I went in with (and were broken). Not everybody's dirty. Not everyone's unhappy. Not everyone's unscrupulous. The kids just want to laugh, the parents just want to get back into their homes and back to their lives, despite whatever floods might have happened. Yes, sanitation is not perfect, and there is a long way to go with that, but then again, there is also quite a cohesive sense of community.

On Monday we came back from a 3 day village stay in the Saurashtra region in Western Gujarat. All of us had a fantastically different experience. Mine was great – my host family was relatively quite well off at the village. It was also near the end of the monsoon season, so the fields were all full and green. My guy (Narayanbhai Ramjibhai – in Gujarat they seem to say their name and their father's name – bhai means brother) was growing a bunch of things – almost everything – predominantly cotton and peanuts, but also toor daal (yellow Indian lentil), turai, doodi, karela, bhindi (okra) – all Indian vegetables, sugarcane, chauli (black eyed peas), gwar, everything. And yes, they obviously had cows and buffalos for the milk, which they also used to make their own butter and ghee and sell it (btw – homemade butter's pretty darn good). I got there late on Saturday night, where we had rotla (thick, very thick gujarati rotis made of bajra) and karele ki sabji (bitter gourd). We then went to the bachat mandal (savings group) meeting. While the meeting was going on, one of the guys there also took me to the local grocery store to chit-chat with some of the locals gathered there. It was also cool to see a big old barrel of petrol with a hand pump being used. Anyhoo – the next morning was when the work really started. After a breakfast of gehoon ki rotli (wheat roti, not as thick) and milk (served with every meal, done really well here by adding sugar and elaichi). anyways, overall, kickass experience. more on that later.

another awesome thing was this 'amazing race' in teams around the town of ahmedabad. really got a feel for how to move around a city in India, negotiate with people, deal with people etc. don't know if this will work - but i'l trying to put a picture of me doing a random act of kindness, one of the requirements of our race. cool shtuff overall.

This is me with the random act of kindness - helping push the cart for a banana vendor:

rest later. been replying to emails solid for the last hour and a half. sorry if i wasn't able to get to someone (although i'm pretty sure i did).

- ashish