Ashish In India

Amitabh Bacchan Now Blogs in Hindi (or rather: अमिताभ बच्चन अब हिन्दी में ब्लौग करते हैं)

2008-11-10T22:57:00.002+05:30

Cross-posted from my current blog: http://ashishinbschool.blogspot.com

While I haven't figured out a 'solution' (or perhaps even a clear problem definition), I am still quite passionate about the promotion of Hindi language usage on the web, and in computers in general. I have seen first-hand the transformation of my students in Bagar when they start using a Hindi-language interface versus an English one.

Looking back: the key difference is in the confidence to explore. I have never really been formally 'taught' Windows: my guess is by now many people who use Windows on a daily basis haven't been either. Simply the amount of time you spend on it making mistakes and then learning from them probably determines how good you get at it (of course, formal training will help you get there much faster). So the basic scenario that changes is that when an error message pops up in English, the students look for the teacher to 'tell them' what to do. In Hindi, they are much much more likely to start clicking around and learning themselves from a cause-and-effect method.

I believe that access to technology is NOT the chief impediment in the uptake of computer/cyberspace by hindi-language users in rural India. The issues is compelling applications and content. So far the only things that have worked are a) Bollywood b) Bollywood and c) Matrimonials (but even THAT is usually in English).

So, Amitabh Bacchan's announcement that he is going to blog in Hindi (बिग बी ने हिन्दी में लिखा अपना ब्लौग) is somewhat exciting. It is more of what works, but the mass media appeal of Amitabh Bacchan can't be denied. We had a Diwali party a week ago at our house, and we were showing some Bollywood videos on the projector. I remember all the Indians getting excited when Big-B came on the screen during 'Kajre Re'. And I remember my American friend's comment, "He's...got funny hair", in response to his Mehendi-dyed hair. It really his appeal and legacy that draws the crowd (and not his current performances), and through a Hindi-language channel, that could be a potential draw.

Actually, having JUST read his blog, i don't think (or rather hope) that there's going to be much traffic to a site full of photos of the view from his hotel room (I sure hope the Oberoi Udayvilas is paying him for this)

Anyways, will keep posting stuff as and when it creeps up. अल्विदा।

P.S. Here's the direct link to Big-B's blog: http://bigb.bigadda.com/

Thoughts while travelling

2008-10-27T10:38:00.001+05:30

Cross-posted from my blog on ashishinbschool

I write this on my laptop sitting here at Union Station, Chicago, on my way to Ann Arbor from my hometown of Bloomington, IL. I had a long layover, so I decided to stop by the food court. I get stopped by this (presumably) homeless lady, and she asks me for money for food. Mom had packed some stuff for me, so I said, here’s some food you can have. Turns out she doesn’t have any teeth, and would settle for a coke.

Now this is not an uncommon situation in India, and usually I tend to just ignore it and move on. I think the Indicorps training kicked in at this point. I bought two cokes, and sat down with her. The conversation was, well, VERY interesting. She really had a lot to say. I think the lady was suffering from some dementia too, and I just didn’t what to say about most things (How do you react to a lady wearing foil under her hat so that the ‘people who can change shapes’ don’t read her thoughts?) I just listened to her politely, and when I finished my drink, I wished her good luck with her crocheting (the needlework stuff) and walked away.

Something about this experience shook me. In some sense, my experience in India was a lot about in-your-face reality. I could have chosen to like it or hate it, but as a ‘social worker’, I could not have ignored it. In America (or actually just as easily in India), you can choose to block it out, ignore it, act like it’s not there. It reminds me of a line from the movie Crash, which talked about how we’re so separated from each other within all this glass and steel. Student life has really been like a bubble. Ann Arbor has a lot of issues to work with: but it’s so much more comfortable in your room.

It’s been a whole week since I promised to write, and I clearly haven’t even written an iota. I can’t complain though: I’ve had an ultimately relaxing (read: lazy) break. Some TV, answer a few e-mails, run some errands. Nothing to really push the limits anyhow.

And that in itself summarizes nicely my modus operandi for the last three months. Do a little work (enough to get by), watch TV (I call it catching up on lost time), answer a few e-mails, talk a lot every now and then. If the US army helps you be all that you can be, I’m definitely operating at no more than 30% of what I can be. This is not the Ashish of the last two years. I owe it to myself (and so many more), to be much more than that. B-School can’t just be another two years to get a degree – there is much more I can do in this world.

In the spirit of true self-reflection, I have to talk about what I’m going to do about it. B-school does provide rigorous academics, and it does nourish my intellectual curiosity (to what extent is purely my choice). But that still doesn’t take much time, and I still operate in a very me-centric world. My biggest decision of the day really is to figure out what I’m going to have for dinner. I think I’m walk upto the Chinmayanand Mission in Ann Arbor, where Shardaji is the Acharya, and start giving time there. I was really impressed by her BalVihar and her philosophy on working with kids and helping them connect to their Indian/Hindu roots. I think it’ll be really good for the soul to work with kids again: remind me that most of the joys of life are really really simple.

Plus, I think for overall health I am going to start running again – but to a particular goal. I am going to run a marathon next summer (let’s call it May 2009). I think the running is also going to provide me much needed daily discipline.

It all sounds very nice: on the eve of this next quarter to begin, here’s my plan to engage my body, mind and soul. Stay tuned for weekly progress.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Now In B-School

2008-09-01T11:51:00.003+05:30

As I start a new chapter in my life, I've also switched over to a new blog. You can now track me at http://ashishinbschool.blogspot.com. It took me a long time to come up with the name ;-)

First post: As Easy As Apple Pie

Now publishing from Flock

2008-08-18T12:27:00.001+05:30

Finally got my own laptop. It's not the tablet that I've been looking at for a while, but Dad had one that I could use. $900 that could be better spent on so much more, especially with the much increased price of food items in America over the last two years. The cool thing about getting my own laptop is now I can finally play around with the things I've wanted to for a while. Like the flock browser, which I'm using to blog from right now!

As I move on to the next chapter of my life, I'm also considering moving on from this blog. One that reflects the thoughts and action of the coming two years as an MBA student.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Organic Farm in Gujarat

2008-08-11T21:07:00.001+05:30

Pics from our trip to the organic farm near Ahmedabad. We went there at the end of July as part of our closing workshop at Indicorps. The lady who runs this place - Purvi - has a pretty inspirational story herself.

Time to say goodbye

2008-08-07T01:41:00.001+05:30

To India, to a changed Ashish, to Bagar, to GDL, to friends, family,
colleagues, community

i leave with a promise to come back, and that i'll do things that
justify the faith you have put in me, and what you have helped me
learn about myself

adieu

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

For exciting opportunities to really make a change at the grassroots
level, join GDL (www.gdl.org.in). Current posts are:
(1) GDL Director
(2) Program Manager - Entrepreneurship Development
(3) Program Manager - Community Leadership

Has anybody used this to learn English?

2008-07-02T00:43:00.001+05:30

http://www.lingq.com/

Is it worth delving into? What exactly IS the linguist method? How much is this feature TRULY worth paying for?

mjunctionedge plans to release regional language content

2008-07-02T00:37:00.001+05:30

Close on the heels of the announcement of mjunction in Hindi, mjunctionedge, the content & conference division of mjunction is going to offer regional language content (including Hindi). Read the article on Business Standard here.

"We have about 1100 subscribers right now for the English version. With our regional language foray, we expect to reach 5,000 subscriptions by the end of this year. Our consumers are mainly corporates and traders," Oberoi added.

Two reasons why that's interesting - it proves that there is a HUGE market for regional language content. And it AGAIN proves that you have to have a very good reason for people to come to your site. In this case (and the same for any technology project), the laser focus and a value-add application is what makes it successful. It's the same for the farmers who use e-Choupal to a) find prices for their goods and b)transact with ITC to sell their stuff. Or for the fishermen of Tamil Nadu who use it to check the weather forecast and determine the likely place for a good catch & if/when it's safe to be out there.

Again, it proves the old adage that I have learned over and over again as a technologist in the real world: A computer is simply a calculator. If you have nothing to add up, you don't need it :-)

Learn a new language

2008-06-28T22:23:00.001+05:30

www.livemocha.com

It's an interesting concept - free lessons, but you have to 'earn' points - by logging in frequently, and referring people. What intrigues me is the social networking part - find other people who are learning the same language, and use them as language partners.

I'll see if we can try it here with the students to encourage them to learn English. For sure a lot of to-be volunteers will use it for Hindi. A really good friend of mine is using it to learn Russian. I might use it learn Spanish (again).

But do share your observations/lessons with us, to see if it is worth trying out on a big scale.

Of Homecoming

2008-06-27T14:22:00.001+05:30

This article features a good friend of mine, Shubham Rai. We grew up together as kids in a little housing society in suburban Mumbai :-)

http://boloji.com/analysis2/0347.htm

While the writing may be a little 'buoyant' (just like the article's view on the Indian Economy), the central theme of the confidence of Indian youth is SO true. I remember when Shubham told me the first time about starting this company called rentimental. No joke, I think it was 3 or 4 years ago. I remember being really really intrigued by the sheer positivity and confidence - he was the face of the new emerging economy. In many sense that conversation was a turning point for me: I clearly remember thinking, man, this is another India. My parents would NEVER have thought about quitting their jobs to 'try out' anything.

After making that plunge into coming to rural India, that assessment hasn't changed. India, and Indians, are still quite buoyant about the future. In any case, it is refreshing to see Indians move beyond their fatalism and take destiny in their own hands.

One chapter closed

2008-06-26T23:22:00.002+05:30

Maybe it was all the talk about everything being under my control, but it just felt like the right time.

I just shut down my Xanga account.

Why not leave it there you say? You hadn't blogged there in years, you say?

It was a different chapter of my life. I needed a different outlet. A group of people to "share" my inner feelings with. To vent. That's how I dealt.

Now I have some momentum to my life - propelled by my own will. And there is somewhat of an urgency to get there (because everything takes so much longer than you think it will). Now I make faster (better?) decisions. Its just time to close that chapter. And move on ahead. No baggage. No looking back into the mirror and trying to recognize myself in a person, God, almost 8 years my younger.

Cheers to Change!

Of Mental Toughness

2008-06-26T22:56:00.002+05:30

One of the things I have realized (not understood, realized) is that there is nothing that I cannot do. There is nothing that you cannot do either. All that stops us is simply HOW badly we want it.

One of my all-time favourite movies is The Thomas Crowne Affair (the one made in the 90s with Pierce Brosnan, not the original one with the Rat Pack). There is a great line from it: "Anything's obtainable". I thought it was cool how Pierce Brosnan was saying it at that time. Now it's simply a fact of life.

This realization isn't quite as liberating as it might seem to be. For someone who's not a natural optimist, it's hard - it now means that everything I do in life, is a choice. It means the words I say, the people I associate with, the jokes I crack, the doodles I doodle, the noodles I eat, when I wake up, when I sleep, what I choose to do, which MBA college I go to, which MBA college I get rejected from - EVERYTHING is by my choice. Because everything, suddenly, is under my control.

You know what the irony behind this is? I found that anybody is capable of doing anything because of my life and work in India. It's funny because India is BY FAR the country which believes (relies?) most on destiny. I totally agree with Arun Sarin, ex-CEO of Vodafone, on his comment that one of the Indian values is a "heavy dose of fatalism".

Here's the thing about knowing that everything in life is a choice. It means that 1) You need to be VERY VERY clear on what you want out of life and 2) You gots to be strong. Not physically tough. But mentally very strong. And there is probably nobody more inspiring in that regards than Tiger Woods. I think about this article about him almost every day. Here's an excerpt:

During the broadcast of Monday's playoff round, Nike ran an ad that had Earl Woods's voice running over images of his son: "I'd say, 'Tiger, I promise you that you'll never meet another person as mentally tough as you in your entire life.' And he hasn't. And he never will."
You can like this model or not. Either way, the legend grows.

The Frozen Gaze by David Brooks, NY Times, June 17, 2008

Does this mean that only the mentally strong i.e. those who are willing to give what it takes to achieve what they want are the only ones destined to be happy in this world? Or, in the words of Sheryl Crow (I know), is happiness "wanting what you got"? Do you have to have and KNOW your ultimate goal in life? Or will destiny take you where you are supposed to go?

I don't know. Which means I'm rooting for destiny.

MJunction - now in Hindi language

2008-06-26T16:55:00.002+05:30

Yet another Hindi language site goes up.

http://mjunction.in/hindi/

And this one is exciting: it claims to be India's biggest e-commerce site. According to this article, mjunction was launched in Hindi with a view to lure small and medium scale entrepreneurs, and offer them insight in Hindi.

I need to find a way to keep abreast of more of these developments, other than just chancing upon what the ad bar on top of Gmail provides. Come to think of it, it's the only ad space that I regularly seem to find value in and click on.

शब्दनिधी (Shabdnidhi)

2008-06-26T11:48:00.004+05:30

I was recently introduced to Shabdnidhi (http://myjavaserver.com/~hindi/shabdnidhi.jsp), a new English to Hindi Online Dictionary that I was very impressed . What's especially powerful about Shabdnidhi is that it provides contextual examples on how that word is used. And, the results are not (yet?) overcrowded like www.shabdkosh.com. Having said that though, I must give MANY kudos to shabdkosh for really pushing the Hindi Dictionary effort online. It has been an invaluable resource to me and all the GDL team here in Bagar for the last two years.

I sent an email to Debashish (one of the guys working on Shabdnidhi) with a few questions on how Shabdnidhi is different, and what, in his opinion, should people use. Debashish had a very candid and straightforward reply. Basically, he recommends using both Shabdnidhi and Shabdkosh.

My recommendation? Use Shabdnidhi if you're a general user. Use Shabdkosh if you can't find the meaning. Use Google Translator for what it's really most powerful: Translating entire web pages to get the gist of it. It's a game changing equation in some sense - it allows the Hindi user to at least get SOME meaning out of English language sites. However, like most online automated translators, it's nowhere close to a natural language translation. Ahhh, memories Babelfish and freetranslation from my Spanish class days.

Source For Change on Economic Times!

2008-06-24T11:02:00.000+05:30

Source For Change, an all-women rural BPO based right here in Bagar, Rajasthan and incubated at the GDL, is now in the papers! Check it out:

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=RVRNLzIwMDgvMDYvMjQjQXIwMTIwMA==&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

Be sure to also check out their brand new website: www.sourceforchange.in

- Ashish

--
For exciting opportunities to really make a change at the grassroots level, join GDL (www.gdl.org.in). Current posts are:
(1) GDL Director
(2) Program Manager - Entrepreneurship Development
(3) Program Manager - Community Leadership

Of Showmanship, and Hope

2008-06-18T03:58:00.002+05:30

First of all - let me make the usual "it's been a long time since I last blogged" apology. It HAS been a while. Believe you me though, it certainly hasn't been dull.

But, in accordance with my belief (now principle?) that everything I have achieved in the last two years (and perhaps most of my life) has been a crime of passion, let me talk about tonight, and let's chew over the abundant food for thought that it has provided.

So we went to see a shrine today. I was told it was a big मेला (fair), and there would be a lot of भीड़ (crowd). It is held only at certain times of the year, so it had to be today. Well, it was enough to convince 18 of us to go there. Now, first we were shown hospitality. Then the usual rounds and special places in the shrine. All very cool and ethnic. And then a long long wait for the special आरती (aarti - worship/ceremony) to be held by the head priest. After a long wait that tested everybody's patience, we finally got to the happenings.

And that's when I believe it pushed many of us out of our comfort zones. There were terminally ill patients being questioned and promised to be healed by the भभूत or the प्रसाद that the Maharaj (priest) gave to the ailing. Followed by the spirits of the possessed women 'dancing'.

Now, I'll leave the interpretation and opinion aside. Maybe it was the late night and thus nothing fazed me. Maybe it didn't faze me because I've developed a very thick skin over the last two years. But, upon retrospect, I came out with two things from there:

1. That shrine offered hope - to the terminally ill, who have gone to all major and minor doctors, is it so bad to come to a place that offers you the hope and promise of a cure by the power of God? Is it bad to share your suffering with other sufferers? Is it bad that you become the focal point of all the people there (at least 1500-2000 today)? Is it bad that suddenly for 5 minutes 2000 men and women suddenly care about your suffering, and WANT to believe that the suffering will end with a cure?

In the business of social change, I know that Hope with a capital H is perhaps paramount to long-term sustainability, both of the social servant and the community member. And Hope with a capital H is what this place offered, without any monetary price in return.

2. The maharaj is a master salesman, who knew that he had the Upper Hand in this game of tradng Hope. From creating the completely confident aura of a definitive cure, to making a religious experience for new comers, to asking those who don't benefit to never come back again, to the sheer showmanship in front of the crowd. It made me WANT to believe. I saw a man convince people that what he was saying is what was ailing them, I saw a man convince people that their pain/problem is where he tells them it pains. In that crowd of people, there was no question at all how the whole place was working: the man was a true leader. Not a manager, but a true leader, whose own followeers reinforced his personal brand.

So with these dreams of Hope, and Sales, I bid you a long overdue शुभरात्रि (good night)

- Ashish

It's Official

2008-05-16T20:11:00.001+05:30

No, not in the same way as my friend Kali's "It's Official", but still good.

I'm just glad that the package arrived. Date of the letter - 15 March.
Date the package was sent 16 April (second try - got returned on the
first try). Date it arrived here: 15 May.

IPL

2008-05-13T12:01:00.000+05:30

Pics First, Post Later

20080511-IPL_Jaipur

Off the beaten path...

2008-05-11T00:38:00.005+05:30

...I'm Not.

I finally succumb to the great Indian (with a capital I) entertainment extravaganza called the IPL. For the as yet uninitiated, and there shouldn't be many, since even the NY Times is carrying the news on the IPL these days: IPL stands for the Indian Premier League - a cricket league where the franchises, with fantastic names like the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Bangalore Royal Challengers, battle it out in the Twenty20 overs version of the cricket. Best part - it's like the English Premier league: there's sick amounts of money (SICK - and the salary cap is coming OFF next year), there's international stars (as usual, the Aussies rock), and an international TV following. Unlike the EPL, there's cheerleaders (which, btw, are probably what people come to watch the matches), every match is studded by Bollywood stars (who are bigger than the sport at these games), and the skill level isn't all that high. Well, that's for snobs (like me?) who think that this "version" of the game highly dilutes the skill quotient. It does. There are none of the orthodox drives, the patience, the timing of the ball etc etc. It is बिंदास गल्ली किरकेट (bindass galli cricket ~ No worries alley cricket).

Which is probably why it touches the heartstrings of so many Indians. Finally, you get to see people being paid your entire life-earnings in 3 hours for doing EXACTLY what you do for free in your own alley. There is no skill involved, बस धन धनाधन देते जाओ (just keep whacking at the ball basically). And you have to admit - it IS entertaining. It's just like baseball (for those uninitiated to cricket itself "gasp, horror"): nobody comes to watch the pitchers pitch well, non? People come for the batting, the runs.

And runs are in ample supply at these games. There's just something exciting about this bite-size version of the game that you'd wanna just eat it up. This recent tendency of gobbling up bite-size anything is probably the reason behind my recently expanding waistline (if you haven't noticed from all the pics yet).

So yah - I go tomorrow with 4 others at GDL to watch this match. A respite from a busy week at GDL (is there any other? Well, this one didn't START busy at least). Between the Rajasthan Royals (go team Rajasthan) and the Delhi Daredevils. In celebration of Radhika's b'day (but, alas, she'll be at home preparing for her GMATs, along with our brand new English trainer and his wife).

And as I sit there in mighty expensive seats (I pay more for that 3 hours of entertainment than my Teaching Assistant gets in half a month), undoubtedly a part of my guilt-ridden mind (uff, how do I get rid of this negativity) will be thinking about the precise subject of this post: how off the beaten track is this?

And does it matter? I mean, isn't intentionally doing something different just an ego boost that says - I'm not like the others, I'm special, Better?!? Or as every smart businessman will tell you, it's the only way to sustain a business - what's your differentiator? Couldn't I be spending this time finding a way to make सांगरी का अचार (sangri pickle - sangri being a famous Rajasthani vegetable that grows on the khejdi tree), as I had planned. Where I'd get this stuff, find some women to make it, market it, and give 'em the money? Or maybe actually paying a visit to Swami uncle to see how he's doing after his fever? Or going to the wake of my Teaching Assistant's grandfather?

No, those are not questions of the beaten track. Those are not even just questions of a busy schedule and/or prioritizing (remind me to write long about that one day). These are simply questions of a guilty and confused mind whose integrity is being called into question. And that question of integrity, of what I believe I am, what I say I am, and how I act, is because of the central theme of my entire life: shifting identities.

I came, I saw, I became Indian. But with two months before I go back to the US, I will now leave, I will now see and re-see, and I do not know what I will become.

I guess you could say I'm just On The Cusp ;-). Welcome to the blogging world my friend.

Good night.

New StatCounter already throws up insights: there might be future for Hindi language content on the web after all

2008-05-09T13:06:00.005+05:30

This new StatCounter I added two days ago (right at the bottom of this page), is already throwing up some surprises. Also this blog is still largely surfed by a handful of friends and acquaintances, StatCounter has a cool feature where you can see HOW people are getting to your site. Now, this is nothing really NEW per say, it's been around since the earliest days of web analytics. BUT, it's cool that it's moved from enterprise traffic tracking to free for ye ol' garden variety personal bloggers (like yours truly).

Why is this cool? Because it delivers insight on readership, and content that matters to them. The picture below shows my current a-ha moment:

Yup - There are people searching for share bazar information in Hindi, and stumbling onto my webpage. Which means, there might just be a market for Hindi language stuff, we just have to provide it (Granted, this is based on ONE hit on ONE blog, but, the foolhardy have to hope). In fact, Rachit and I were semi-actively/passively working on a project to identify the best hindi-language content on the net catering to a rural clientele. The objective of the study was to 1) Find this content so we can deliver it through a one-stop-shop-portal and 2) identify where the gaps lie and find ways to convince content providers to deliver their content in Hindi. The example I site: How cool would it be if howstuffworks.com was in Hindi? Mind-blowing. Imagine cheezenkaisekaamkartihain.com. Even better, if ICANN ever gets international domain names going, चीज़ेंकैसेकामकरतीहैं.भारत.

That thing could single-handedly propel the next generation of scientists, adventurers, wanders, Intel Science Competition winners, all from rural India. Now that's a global flattener that even FlatWorlder Thomas L. Friedman could be proud of (incidentally, I just started reading that book).

GDL is now hiring!

2008-05-08T10:52:00.001+05:30

Interested in finding innovative solutions to India’s development challenges?

Based in Bagar, Rajasthan, the Grassroots Development Laboratory (GDL), is designed to challenge the most talented people from around the world in solving some of India’s pressing problems. The Piramal Foundation recruits dedicated persons and intends to engage a local team in various development experiments in the areas of livelihoods, health services delivery, education, and technology utilization.

The following exciting opportunities are now available at GDL:
1. GDL Managing Director
2. GDL Community Leadership Manager
3. GDL Entrepreneurship Manager

Pictures from Bauji's Visit

2008-05-02T00:48:00.000+05:30

My grandparents came to visit today. It was especially cool because my नानाजी (Nanaji - mom's father) had come all the way from Bombay. He came along with my grandparents and aunt who are in Delhi. Although it was a short visit, and we didn't have much conversation, it felt good that he had finally visited, and could visualize some of the things when I speak to him. It's also nice to share your life with your family I suppose.

And the memories, of course, are priceless.

20080501-BaujiVisitToBagar2

This is going to ruin any hope you had of work

2008-05-01T22:36:00.000+05:30

If you have somewhat nostalgic memories of this game...

http://www.tripletsandus.com/80s/80s_games/duckhunt.htm

Plus, updated the blog a little bit, with the Google Ads link on the side (changed colors), and added real links to the top (instead of the generic 'Another Link')

Someone's reading out there

2008-04-29T18:15:00.001+05:30

Thanks for the encouragement! I think it might be the same Vivek who
posted on my blog. Thanks!

http://vivekspace.com/2008/04/01/democratizing-healthcare-and-development-in-india/

Sankrant in the Gaanv (गांव में संक्रांत)

2008-04-27T22:05:00.000+05:30

Long overdue pictures. As you all know, Sankrant comes on Jan 14 every year (actually, this year it somehow fell on Jan 15). Naman and I went to my गांव (gaanv = native village = birthplace of my father/forefathers), and Naman's fancy digital SLR camera helped take some GREAT photos

Enjoy!

Sankrant Pictures

Celebrating the advent of the summer with a new skin

2008-04-27T15:31:00.001+05:30

Hope this works. I thought the onset of summer here made it time for a new skin. Misery loves company, so y'all be sure to visit me in a month or two (it's not so bad right now - only gets upto 40/41C).

- Ashish

A Hindi site for drivers

2008-04-27T06:57:00.001+05:30

I know the subject is very misleading.

It's not a site for the मुश्टन्डा (?), truck-hauling kind. Though I wish there was - imagine an India where these truck drivers could pitstop and find the nearest kiosk and check-in with their logistical company, provide an update to the customer and/or destination, and send a quick email to their loved ones. Plus, access entertainment to refresh themselves after the long hard bone-jarring not-for-the-faint-hearted drive on Indian roads (as Bryan would say, "India - Balls Out")

It's something altogether practical. It's a website for finding drivers for computer equipment. In Hindi. Given that the tech world remains strictly a domain for the English-speaking elite of India (and believe me, once you step out of Bombay, you realize it's an elite), this is a great start. I personally have problems with my current Teaching Assistant and other instructors I've had in learning how to maintain computers simply because of the communication barrier. What people would pay for hardware and software maintenance guides in Hindi. The market is actually close to phenomenal.

Without further ado: here's the site

www.nodevice.com

Let me know what you think.

_______________________________________________

On an unrelated note, this incident reminded me of the origin of Bryan's quote about how India is balls out. When he came to visit me in Bagar in Oct 2007, we actually decided to go to Zayka (a restaurant in Jhunjhunu) to celebrate something or the other. Jhunjhunu is 15 km away, and there's usually buses every 10 minutes throughout the day. Somehow, we managed to pick the quietest hour of the day (around 8:15p), and no bus came till 9pm. Getting antsy (and promising myself I'd have me some delicious naan that night), I flagged the next vehicle, which happened to be a tractor laden with bricks. Well, the guy said yes, and 7 of us hopped on top of a tractor and took a good rickety hour to get to Jhunjhunu. It was a full moon's night (and the brightest moon of the YEAR on top of that), and there was the cool night wind of the fall - it was a surreal and unforgettable experience.

Bryan, however, was sitting right at the back of the tractor (where things shake more). He wasn't quite amused. In his own words, "I'd rather jump off a plane without a parachute then do that again".

In Preeti's words, "Bryan shat a brick"

To Jhunjhunu on a Full Moon's Night

Of Running, And Life

2008-04-03T22:23:00.001+05:30

http://niara.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/big-things-start-small/#

To anyone who has run, these learnings are SO well put. The memories of the marathon that this brought back sent a chill down my spine.

Thanks to Rachit for sending this.

- Ashish

Fwd: Good work!

2008-04-01T13:34:00.001+05:30

What keeps us going.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Vivek Kumar
Date: Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 10:33 AM
Subject: Good work!
To: ashishgupta7@gmail.com

Hi Ashish,

I am an Indian diplomat (Indian Foreign Service), currently posted in
Vladivostok, Russia.

Jhunjhunu is my hometown, and I have quite a few relatives in the
district. Recently, I spoke to one of them (my Mamaji - Rajkumar
Bhamboo, a govt. teacher) who lives in Bagar and he spoke very highly
about the work and you and your colleagues are doing.

Just wanted to let you know that your work is being appreciated by
people even when your back is turned :)

I am very impressed as well. Not sure if you would still be in Bagar
when I visit next time (end of 2008 or so), but it would be great to
meet you then, if possible.

Best regards.. and best wishes,

Vivek Kumar

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

2008-03-22T18:30:00.000+05:30

होली है! (It's Holi!)

To show you why Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, is by far my favorite. This time wasn't even as good as last time, but the memories captured by this camera will bring joy for years to come.

Direct link to the whole album:

HoliInBagar

LinkedIn public profile

2008-03-21T22:30:00.001+05:30

I didn't know I could do this, but here it is:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ashishguptaindia

Enjoy!

Busy with Eye Camp...But Humour has its place

2008-03-07T22:59:00.001+05:30

I had to write this down for posterity, more than anything else.

So, as part of the eye camp we're conducting in Bagar, we had a doctor come teach school teachers how to test small kids (primary school level) for eyesight problems. The kids who have problems will come to camp, get professionally tested and then get free eyeglases.

All the schools came back with 10 or 20, max 25 cases. One school comes back with 45. This, is obviously strange.

So Kim, the health intern who's leading this eye camp, goes back to test them yesterday. It turns out, that the teacher got students who had glasses to take off their glasses and then tested their vision.

Kim tried to point out the obvious problem. The teacher said, "oh yes, you know, you're right. Those kids with glasses are probably already aware of this stuff".

______________________________

बगड़ मे 11 साल बाद पहली बार पीरामल ई-स्वास्थ्य और पीरामल फाउंडेशन ला रहा है निःशुल्क नेत्र चिकित्सा शिविर एवं निःशुल्क मोतियाबिन्द का औपरेशन - इस रविवार 9 मार्च 2008 को। रजिस्ट्रेशन प्रातः 8 बजे से 12 बजे तक।

तत् पश्चात नेत्र जांच और रात में मोतियाबिन्द का औपरेशन किया जाएगा।

Sometimes its the smallest things...

2008-02-26T22:28:00.001+05:30

That make you happy.

For example, while trying to clean out my room a few days ago (probably because I couldn't find something), I ran across two old DVDs that I'd burnt before leaving Atlanta - with all my music on them. Well, the English music DVD had never worked(I guess it got scratched or something), so I was never able to get any music offa it. But now, today, I still wasn'ta ble to get all of it, but so much of the older stuff DID come back.

In other news, I spoke with my mom and dad and my sister over skype on Sunday, and it was great. Just having video is such an amazing value proposition.

All I can think of now is: man, I could make a cybercafe work in this town!

- Ashish

Reflection on writing (and my serious disinclinationi towards it)

2007-12-31T01:45:00.000+05:30

I just couldn't get myself to use the 'hate' word - I'm on a whole Be
Positive rant these days.

I have realized that to become a better writer, you just need to write.
I realize this as I sit down to write my essays, and freak out because
a) I haven't left myself any time and b) I don't like writing. I
actually started working on my essays a while back, but never
prioritized it because I simply just didn't like writing.

Man, if only I just wrote for the love of writing. Blogs must definitely
be given credit for unleashing that creative writing within all of us.
Even if it's not creative (case in point - this hashjob of a blog), at
least it's better than culling your writing abilities.

After all I did to escape writing - taking AP english to skip out of
college English, choosing a science major so I would never have to write
a paper, and now it still comes back to bite me in the ass.

One thing about MBA apps I'll tell ya - it makes other grad school
applications sound like a joke. Lot smaller, lot easier, lot less
involved, and much much much easier on the pocket. I can apply to 5
regular gradute programs for the price of one MBA program usually. And
I'd still have better chances of getting in.

In fact, that's one of the dilemmas that I've been facing in the last
week. As I procrastinate, I have been looking for more and more
justifications for a) Not applying and thus b) Not getting into any
decent colleges. One of my recommenders makes a very cogent argument: "I
don't understand why you don't stay in India, where the market is
booming NOW, and won't last forever. You want to go back to the US for
two years, and come back when the market's cooled down and nobody's
hiring anymore. It doesn't make any sense". It echoes a nagging voice
I've had in my head this whole time - if my vision is to start a social
business in India, why am I then going to the US to learn how to become
a good corporate General Manager? Shouldn't I just learn by actually
starting a business?

(On a sidenote, it's actually kind of funny that the person recommending
colleges why an MBA program at their school is right for me is trying to
convince me why an MBA doesn't even make sense).

In any case, I think this blog has served this purpose of getting the
writing juices flowing, so I bid you adieu.

- Ashish

We're not in Kansas anymore

2007-12-18T10:53:00.001+05:30

Here's a blog by an Indicorps fellow, Ishtar Lakhani (Aug 07-08) , that really inspired me, and I thought I'd share with you. The last line really reminds me of so many people (including me) , who've always had the potential, but never did test their own limits.

Yay for inspiration.

We’re not in Kansas anymore!

Ishtar Lakhani
Indicorps Fellow (Aug 07-08)

Ok, so I’ve never been to Kansas nor do I have any desire to go there, in fact, I’m in Ahmedabad India for the next nine months. So what is the point of referencing an old American classic like ‘The Wizard of Oz’ you may ask. Patience and I’ll get to the point.

Being a volunteer working at the Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram I’ve built up a fairly substantial repertoire of answers to the barrage of questions I get asked daily. Generally questions like, “did Gandhi actually live here?”, “when did he live here?” “why did he live here?”… “where are the toilets?” However, recently I was posed with a question that stopped me in my intellectual tracks, a question that I had no rehearsed answer to, nor had I ever given it any real thought. Up till now that is. And that seemingly simple question was “where did Gandhi get his courage from?”

This is a man who not only stood up for an entire nation against a colossal empire but chose to challenge and often defy his family, his friends and his entire socio-political context (which I personally feel takes more guts than the former). Was he just naturally blessed with an innate sense of what is right and wrong and the bravery to stand up for his beliefs? Or was it a characteristic that he cultivated over a life time? My money is on the latter. Early on in life Gandhi admitted his almost crippling fear of public speaking, yet he went on to become one of the greatest orators in recorded history. He once said, “The history of great deeds is the history of men who had the courage to stand alone against the world”.

Don’t get me wrong one does not have to overthrow an entire oppressive regime to prove ones courage. India is a country where poverty is rife and employment is scarce (that is, if you have unfortunate fate of many Indians born at the bottom of the socio-economic rung). This would be enough to dishearten even the strongest of characters. However, how is it that thousands of people wake up every day and choose to endure back-breaking labour in fairly exploitative conditions in order to earn an honest wage to take care of their loved ones rather than submit to what seems like their dismal fate?

In the astute words of the Cowardly Lion (hence, ‘The Wizard of Oz’): “Courage! What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? …Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the “ape” in apricot? What have they got that I ain’t got?” If all it took was an amble down a yellow brick road to hustle someone in to giving you a heart, the world would be very different place.

It is my belief that courage comes from a belief that some things are more important than fear. This can range from the liberation of an entire nation to the desire to provide for ones family. Either way, it is an individual making a conscious decision to counteract the fear which they feel and redirect it into action. You are not necessarily born with courage but what you are born with is potential, and it is what you choose to do with that potential that really matters.

“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.” ~ Gandhi

A look back at the last 15 months

2007-11-15T01:14:00.001+05:30

Here's an article I just wrote for the Maheshwari Mahasabha of North America (i।e. a Rajasthani organization in the US). Thought it might give a recap of what I've been upto, and some of my thoughts and umm, "feelings".

____________________________________________________________________________________

Namaskar from Rajasthan!

As some of you may know, I’ve been in Rajasthan for the past 15 months, as part of a two-year service fellowship with Indicorps. As the website aptly states: Indicorps provides structured opportunities for committed youth to participate in India's development. Towards this goal, Indicorps strives to provide transformational service experiences that encourage people of Indian origin to engage fully in the process of change, explore their capacity to affect change, strengthen their leadership potential, and take active steps to contribute to the world around them.

To date there have been more than 100 Indicorps fellows from across the globe, who have come for one-year stints in rural and urban locations to work on projects that range from designing a sanitation van and outreach program to finding ways to address healthcare in rural India.

During my fellowship year I have been working towards starting the Grassroots Development Laboratory (GDL). GDL, a collaboration between Indicorps and the Piramal Foundation, is based in the town of Bagar in the Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan. Our mandate here is to find replicable local solutions to India’s most pressing development challenges. This mandate is relates to the name of the project: Grassroots implies that we work on issues from the bottom-up – with community participation. Development implies that we don’t believe in charity; we are only working towards permanent and sustainable change. Laboratory implies we have an environment here that promotes experimenting with innovative solutions that address local problems, but that can have relevance beyond the boundaries of our town.

In the first year that we were here, we experimented with small interventions in four broad areas: health, education, livelihood and technology utilization. Under the technology sector, I set up a computer lab and started a practical-learning focused class for high school students, with an aim to spur more excitement and knowledge about the practical application of computers. While the class was successful in many ways, it was difficult to quantify that success, especially if measuring progress towards a ‘development goal’. One intangible yet extremely crucial aspect that we did achieve was in building trust with the community – building trust required us to prove ourselves over time, and that is one thing at which we have been quite successful.

Realizing that I wanted to work towards a concrete development problem, I decided to address the prevalent issue of unemployment and underemployment through an industry-relevant vocational computer training program. After contacting employers and recruiters, I was surprised to find that the majority of entry-level computer based job opportunities were for data-entry operators, your garden-variety Word, Excel, Internet folks. There are training centers for these at every nukkad (corner) in every town, so why were recruiters having difficulty finding people? Turns out a lot of job applicants come armed with certificates from training centers, but with very little practical proficiency on a computer.

This is a situation common across many fields here. India has a vast amount of raw material, but very little finished product: a billion people, and yet a talent shortage. I had finally found my purpose: I was going to find a way for the newly educated rural youth to stake their claim in the burgeoning job opportunities in the urban centers of India.

I have now started these classes, and currently have two batches of students of roughly ten students each, ranging from 17 year olds, just out of high school to 38 year olds realizing they need to be computer literate for any job. In the remaining nine months, there are still quite a few things left to do. I have to create a curriculum in Hindi that is easily replicable, I have to find and prepare a teacher to train the students after I’m gone. In general, the majority of our activities at GDL are now employment focused e.g. a Rural BPO operated by women, retail and hospitality training classes and spoken English classes. All of us are currently involved in setting up a formal vocational training institute that will continue on beyond us.

The most rewarding part of all of this for me has been coming together with six incredibly dedicated people to give birth to an organization, infusing it with our values and nurturing it so that it may continue our work long after we are gone.

One of the things that everybody asks me is why I came here. There were many reasons: while I really liked my job (and my job liked me), I guess in some sense I was looking for something with a higher purpose beyond making livelihood for myself. There was also a longing to go back and figure out my identity as an Indian. A lot of it was due to recent immersion in all things Indian: my involvement with MMNA/RAYS, working in the IT field (which has a lot of Indians), my family’s heavy involvement in the Hindu/Indian community in their town, and a general belief while growing up in always giving back.

Taking the plunge to come here was the easy part: the question I find myself asking is what keeps me here after all these months? I have been working here for no money for the past 15 months, way outside of my comfort zone, but somewhere down the line I realize that when I talk about what I do, I am actually passionate about it – my voice rises, my hands are animated, and I can talk forever about it, because there is a higher calling to my ‘job’. I like the fact that I am here working with some dedicated young people who are actually doing something about what they believe in. I also now realize that I’m here because I want to be proud of who I am, of being Indian. I want to be able to one day point to a better India and proudly proclaim that I played a direct part in it.

Or perhaps, since being in India, I have realized that I will always have to do ‘maatha pacchi’ in life; I might as well do it for something that I care about.

For those of you who have always wanted to return to India, to experience it and define it on your own terms, for those of you who have always had strong beliefs and ideas on how to develop the country, I whole-heartedly recommend coming to India, through Indicorps or the many other avenues now available. Many have asked me if I would have been better off making more money and sending it back instead. I now know the answer is a definite no. India does not need your money, India needs you. It needs people with the ideas, the passion and dedication to apply themselves towards producing results and making a concrete change.

The question then simply is, what are you willing to do for change?

Ashish Gupta
http://www.gdl.org.in/

Finding qualifed people can be hard

2007-10-10T21:53:00.000+05:30

But at least you don’t have to wait till the interview for the surprises। The resume itself helps sort them out. Here’s an example:

I love the different sized bullets, the registered trademark, the etc DOT COMMA. But yes, the Laguage Know is by far the king.

Testing posting a picture

2007-10-04T21:24:00.000+05:30

Small one at first – big ones later

My baby niece Avantika. Born ONE day after 7/7/7.

Bagar - Yahoo! India Maps

2007-09-26T00:35:00.000+05:30

Best one I’ve seen yet

http://in.maps.yahoo.com/?lat=28.191560&lon=75.498900&z=6&addr=baggar%2C%20jhunjhunu%2C%20rajasthan

Also - Did you know my article got published?

2007-09-25T00:52:00.001+05:30

The strangest things happen man. I just did it to satisfy a documentation requirement.

http://www.news.indicorps.org/magazine/content/view/47/32/

I should do a better job with these huh – who knew those crazy guys would publish it?

Also - Did you know my article got published?

2007-09-25T00:52:00.000+05:30

The strangest things happen man. I just did it to satisfy a documentation requirement.

http://www.news.indicorps.org/magazine/content/view/47/32/

I should do a better job with these huh – who knew those crazy guys would publish it?

Watch a video!

2007-09-25T00:47:00.000+05:30

It’s an Indicorps video, yah. But think – I wouldn’t be going through this trouble on rural India quality Internet if it didn’t mean anything to me. Sending e-mail here is true love J

http://news.indicorps.org/magazine/

What are you willing to do for CHANGE?

APPLY NOW to the Indicorps Fellowship at http://apply.indicorps.org. Applications are now available for fellowship classes starting January and August 2008. Prospective fellows must be of Indian origin with a college degree or five years equivalent work experience. Visit www.indicorps.org to learn more about Indicorps, the Indicorps Fellowship program, or other grassroots service opportunities.

What are you willing to do for change?

2007-09-04T01:42:00.000+05:30

Hi all. I know this one year has been a phenomenally transformational year in my life. I would want to share this with other individuals who would want to challenge themselves with the same experience, while truly taking part in India's development.

Applications for the Indicorps fellowship are now up. Please do pass this on to any of your friends/colleagues who you think might be interested. I can be reached anytime via e-mail, or on my mobile here: +91 9828 73 6464

- Ashish
http://ashishinindia.blogspot.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What are you willing to do for CHANGE?

Indicorps encourages aspiring leaders to engage in intense grassroots development opportunities that explore the promise of leadership and challenge individuals to leverage their skills and talents to address India's pressing needs. The Indicorps Fellowship program is designed to provide one-of-a-kind transformational experiences, emphasizing both public service and personal growth. Indicorps participants choose their projects and are placed with thoroughly evaluated community-based organizations for one or two years. All fellows will participate in a four-week orientation program, strengthen their understanding of leadership/change through regular workshops, and are actively supported by Indicorps and partner organizations.

Blogger is now in Hindi (ब्लॉगर अब हिंदी में है)

2007-08-22T16:11:00.000+05:30

अच्छा, यह अपने आप ही हिंदी में ट्रांस्लितेराते करता रहता है। और सारा स्क्रीन हिंदी में ही है.

Link: http://www.blogger.com/hindi

Anyone hear of Ingenient Technologies?

2007-08-16T14:37:00.001+05:30

Hi All,

A friend of mine doing her Masters in the US recently got a job offer from Ingenient Technologies (www.ingenient.com) as a DSP engineer. Anyone heard anything of the company - good, bad, ugly?

Thanks.

- Ashish

A year since I left America

2007-08-04T01:16:00.001+05:30

I left Atlanta on July 31st, 2006. And left the US on Aug 8th, 2006. So it's been a year, almost to the date.

In short, a lot has happened this year in terms of personal development. Learning humility. The inner joy in seva (service/volunteerism). Ability to push myself beyond supposed limits (perceived limits of being too cool, too mature, too heavy). Learning that I'm a born follower, not a leader. Then learning that I actually know what prevents me from being a leader, and that the journey to become a leader, a changemaker, is indeed a long one. I guess the most important milestone in this path of personal development was realizing that all the answers to all the problems in the world lie squarely within myself. I just have to probe. And ask. And ask. And ask.

I am not happy with what I've achieved project wise - I know I am capable of achieving a lot more.

At this juncture of time:
- In the past week, I had completely lost faith in myself. And regained it again - from a group of idealistic people together known as Indicorps who believe that they can affect change.
- I have realized that I want to be rich. Not because I want to spend on nice things. Because I want financial freedom. To be able to do exactly what I want to do in life without the motive (or the pressure) being monetary. Because doing exactly what we want makes us free. And doing a job just so that you might enjoy the 4 hours before you go to bed makes you waste 1/3rd of your life.
- I've realized that I often used to complain about a 'lack of motivation'. But motivation is not a tangible thing. It actually doesn't exist. Motivation is simply a byproduct of success. If you're successful in the things you set out to do, you'll become motivated. Very simple.
- Considering applying to an MBA program, but have to first figure out why and where. Riding a bit of a high because I did quite well on the GMAT.

I have also realized I need to get back to running. Because I enjoyed it. And because been letting myself go for a while. As one colleague stated so innocently on the train ride back "Ashish, your belly's doing strange things".

Next up this year:
- Getting employment for kids in this town by training them in practical, basic computer skills (more on www.piramal.org.in/gdl/category/technology )
- Find something to do that keeps me personally excited. Wirelessly beaming broadband into Bagar would be the first step.
- Have a great time when my friend Bryan comes to visit for three weeks in late October

Basically, this year has made me believe in capitalism even more. And so, I consider this last year as learning about myself, about my community, about my project. This coming year is going to be about Return on Investment (ROI) - delivering value based on this investment. Ultimately, that's the point of doing business, or anything in life.

Also, this point also marks a sad goodbye to all the Indicorps fellows from the class of 2006. Two other colleagues remain with me at GDL, but we're looking forward to forging new relationships and memories with the new incoming class.

In Bombay

2007-07-17T13:34:00.001+05:30

I am currently in Bombay. Last week, my grandfather here (who lives by himself), took quite sick. turns out he had contracted malaria, and at his age (80), i guess its worrisome. He has recovered from malaria, but the ordeal has left him quite weak (turns out his haemoglobin levels also dropped).

Anyways, my uncle and aunt here have been taking care of him for a week, but now its time we head back headed back. He needs at least another two weeks of someone making sure he's eating properly and taking his meds. right now i'm considering staying here for that period. kinda ambivalent about it - but it makes sense. the other options aren't necessarily any better (my mother having to come to India, or having my grandfather stay somewhere else - which he won't agree to anyways).

Bagar is now on Wikipedia (अब बगड़ विकिपीडिया पर है)

2007-07-13T21:22:00.001+05:30

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagar%2C_India
Bagar is now on Wikipedia. As it becomes a growing standard of finding information the Internet, this seems as good place to publish information about Bagar. Please feel free to add information as you see fit

http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/बगड़
बगड़ अब विकिपी़डिया पर है । क्योंकि विकिपी़डिया इन्टरनेट पर जानकारी ढूंढने का एक स्टैन्डर्ड बना जा रहा है, यह बगड़ के बारे में जानकारी प्रकाशित करने का एक अच्छा स्थान है। कृपया इस वेबसाइट पर और उचित जानकारी जोड़ें।

Share Market news in Hindi

2007-07-06T16:15:00.001+05:30

One thing I'm going to strive to do on this blog is promote Hindi language websites. One that I saw today while searching for top entry-level jobs was about Share Market news in Hindi, potentially catering to a brand new population of investors. What was noteworthy was that there were 4 entries for today, and 3 from yesterday i.e. this content's fresh! Here's the URL

http://smcindiaonline.com/hindinews/

An excerpt:

Friday, July 6, 2007

बिहार तुबेस - पसिंदिद अधार पर वारंट्स की बटाई

बिहार त्युबेस लिमिटेड ने सूचित किया है की महत्वपूर्ण प्रावधान के अनुसार कंपनी के सदस्यों के द्वारा कंपनी के बोर्ड ऑफ़ दिरेक्टेर्स ने 31,75000 वारंट्स पसिंदिद अधार पर एन्तितिएस जो प्रोमोटर ग्रुप को दर्शाती है और दूसरी नियमित निवेशक वारंट धारक के अधिकार के लीये पुरी पेड अप पूंजी एकुइटी श्येर किसी भी समय इशू कि तीथी से 18 महीने के दौरान कर सकती है।

Chanakya's Policy & A Blue Moon

2007-07-02T00:34:00.001+05:30

More from Ojha Ji, the school principal, who I guess has started to taken even more of a liking to me (or has openly started to express it at least). He mentioned something that Chanakya said about dealing with the enemy (the great policy-maker, the chief advisor and man-behind-the-scenes in the making of Emperor Ashoka).

To deal with the enemy, first you neglect him. If that doesn't work, then you criticize him. If that doesn't work, then you try and murder him. And if somehow your murder attempt fails, then you honour and praise him. Because that plants the seed of pride (अहंकार-ahankaar).

And pride will destroy your enemy from within.

That Chanakya was a wily fox. The question that begs to be asked, however, is why the heck does Ojha Ji then praise me so? I mean, as far as I know, he hasn't even tried to kill me yet :-)

__________________________

New Intern started today - Anjuli, an undergrad from Harvard. She'll be helping me prepare curriculum for my industry-based computer training course. Her father came to drop her off today. While we were outside, we both started commenting about the full moon today (which signifies the start of the Hindu month of आषाढ- aashaadh). He mentioned that it was a blue moon yesterday.

Apparently, a blue moon is a full moon the day before the full moon. So today is poornima, the actual full moon. But yesterday the moon was full and yellow and everything, which means yesterday was a blue moon .

Somehow, I just feel cheated for not having known yesterday. Its like sitting next to a celebrity on a plane, and not even knowing that they were famous.
__________________________

Dushyant, my cousin from Bombay, came on the 27th, and left yesterday. While I didn't get much time to do much with the poor guy, I did take the time out to talk with him at nights. And it was full-time masti. Its great to see the kid having grown up, being so smart, still shareef, and with still that hidden passion for life.
__________________________

MBA ahoy. Right now, trying my best to carve out time to prepare for the GMAT. AND also figure out why I want to do an MBA, an is it really worth the time and cost? Wish me luck, this is going to require some serious discipline for the next few months.
__________________________

This blog is going to move slowly into these rants about my personal insights and experiences. Project-related blogs will be posted every week (by law) on the Piramal Foundation site: http://www.piramal.org.in/gdl/category/technology

New Weekly Updates

2007-06-17T05:45:00.001+05:30

Now on the Piramal Foundation Site.

Specific to my workstream: http://www.piramal.org.in/gdl/category/technology/

CFP: Anthology on Second Generation South Asian North Americans

2007-05-23T09:01:00.001+05:30

Thanks to Surya Kalra, Indicorps fellow '06-'07
     CALLING ALL "SECOND GENERATION SOUTH ASIAN NORTH AMERICANS"
     (WOMEN, MEN, and ANY OTHER FORMS OF IDENTIFICATIONS)
     TO SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCES ABOUT BEING SOUTH ASIANS IN NORTH AMERICA

     ***North America is made up of the United States, Canada, Mexico,
     Central America, the Caribbean Islands, and Greenland. ***

    If you trace any part of your heritage to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,
Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, India, and Pakistan, and you were born in
North America (as defined above) or arrived here by age 14 (includes
multiple migration sites), and, you are interested in sharing your
stories, then, we want to hear from you!

     *****

     ANTHOLOGY DESCRIPTION & SUBMISSION DETAILS

     Working Title:
     Brown Souls: Voices of South Asian (North) Americans

     Written and Edited by:
     Roksana Badruddoja, Ph.D & Shikha Malaviya

     Focus of Anthology:
     The anthology will feature us, second generation South Asian North
     Americans (women, men, and other forms of identifications) from across
     the nation about the ways in which we develop our identities. In this
     anthology, "second generation South Asian North American" refers to
     those who were either born in North America or arrived to the U.S. by
     the age of four, raised primarily in North America, and have at least
     one parent who was born and raised (until at least the age of 18) in
    the Subcontinent (Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Myanmar,
    and India). We welcome submissions from people of South Asian heritage
     whose family emigrated to Africa, the United Kingdom, or elsewhere
     before immigrating to North America (we consider North America to be
     made up of the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, the
     Caribbean Islands, and Greenland).

     We are also considering submissions from those who fall under
     "1.5-generation" or people who arrived to North America after age 4 but
     before age 14, including multiple immigration sites.

     All submissions should speak to our identities as "second generation
     South Asian (North) American" and how we create, maintain, and
     re-create
     our identities. Submissions should speak to multiple identities as
     South
     Asians, as Americans, as Canadians, as Muslims, as queers, as
     parents...and the list goes on and on.

     The project is inspired by Dr. Badruddoja's dissertation, entitled "The
     ABCD Conundrum: What Does it Mean to be a South Asian American Woman?."
     The manuscript is designed to give voice to those silenced and
     marginalized. In this light, all work submitted will be given full
     consideration. You are the author; you tell the story that you want to
     tell about yourself and we want to hear about it!

     Submission Guidelines:
     1) There are no specific requirements in regards to genres and
     tones. We
     encourage and welcome all forms of written structures from
     bio-narratives to short fiction to poetry, including academic and
     non-academic pieces. Meaning, any and all forms of written formats and
     voices are encouraged.

     2) The manuscript follows in the tradition of the late Gloria
    Evangelina Anzaldúa (1942-2004). Please make some time to explore
her work before
    submitting your own (/Borderlands - La Frontera: The New Mestiza/,
    1987; /Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical
    Perspectives by Feminists of Color/, 1989; also see
     http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit02/authors-1.html
    ). Here, we  welcome the exploration of triumph, celebration,
transformation,
    re-invention, struggle, reconciliation, retreat, and loss in the realm
     of on-going identity performances.

     3) You may submit up to three pieces, excluding poetry, on MS Word with
     a page limit of 15 pages a piece at 10 point font size in Times New
    Roman. Authors may also submit up to five pieces of poetry (excluding
     the three piece limit) with no restrictions on word limit, meter, and
     other formatting (font requirements apply). This means that in total,
     you may make up to 8 submissions (5 pieces of poetry and 3 additional
     submissions in other genres).

     4) Citation style includes /Chicago Manual of Style/ (15th ed.) (see
    "Citations and References" at http://www.nwsaj.engl.iastate.edu/ )

     5) Please provide a cover page for each submission, which lists your:

     - Name; Age; and Region(s) of South Asia with which you identify and/or
     other core identity markers
     - Title; A short description about how the piece came about (your
     inspiration)
     - Contact Information: E-mail address; Mailing address; and Phone
     numbers

     6) Submissions may be made electronically to Roksana Badruddoja
     ( rokbad@gmail.com ) along with two hardcopies
     of each individual submission to:

     Dr. Roksana Badruddoja
     Assistant Professor
     Women's Studies Program
     McKee Fisk Building, 217
     2225 East San Ramon M/S MF19
     Fresno, California 93740-8029

     7) The deadline for submissions is November 31, 2007.

     8) Submissions must be unpublished unless previously published work
     does
     not include copyright infringement issues.

     9) Finally, and once again, submissions must speak to the development
     and maintenance of your identity as a "second generation South Asian
     (North) Americans." We believe such an identity space will allow you to
     consider gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, religion, culture,
     the colonial spirit, and a whole host of other identity markers you can
     think of, and how these areas work together to help define you as YOU.

     If you have any questions about your submissions(s) and/or regarding
    the anthology in general, please do not hesitate to e-mail Roksana
    (rokbad@gmail.com ) and/or Shikha ( shikha@malaviya.com ).

     Decision Notification:
     This project is a long term project and we expect a 2-3 year time frame
     to completion.

     This anthology is close to our hearts, and we are very excited about
    the project. We look forward to receiving your submissions!

     Peace,
     Roksana Badruddoja & Shikha Malaviya
    (rokbad@gmail.com & shikha@malaviya.com )

List of all Government Schemes

2007-05-07T21:24:00.001+05:30

They say the Indian government has a scheme for everything. Here's a website that has all of them in one place, for you to decide for youself.

www.karmayog.org/govtschemes/

Website link courtesy another Indicorps Fellow, Juie ('05-'07)

Sandstorm

2007-04-19T00:44:00.000+05:30

Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Bagar, Rajasthan

I have been wanting to blog a proper post a while. With pictures, dying to put up pictures.

Even typed up a quick list of possible blog topics a little while ago. No kidding, this is from a file on my computer called possible blog postings.txt:

I figured out the Hindu calendar
Radhikkkkka
Random other pics
Kuharwas visit

But instead, I'm simply going to write about today.

Today started different from any other day - I didn't actually wake up in my bed. I'd been invited to visit one of my students, Sushil Kumar, who’s really taken an interest in the class. He’s bought a computer, and is really raring to learn it. Just recently, we even hatched a business scheme. Looking to DO something with what he was (slowly) learning in my class, we somehow came upon the idea of him downloading and printing board exam results. These results are published on the net 3 to 4 days before they’re available in the schools. Anyways, he was going to sell it at Rs. 10 a pop, which is half the street price. I was going to charge him Rs. 5 (since my computer, my electricity, my internet, my printer), and the rest would be his. He did alright, for a 16 yr old – found 21 people to make money offa, in one night.

Anyways, the other day, his father had invited me to come over. It was Amaavasya, the new moon (no moon) day, which when apparently people in his profession (carpenters) take off. So I went after class (and a run in the hot winds). It was good talking to them, and having some great food. And having a good night’s sleep for a change (we slept outside, which makes an INCREDIBLE difference in temperature). Anyways, there’s a LOT more to cover, here’s me with Sushil and his family. Sushil’s the one in blue:

Got back, and then cleaned up, called Vijay (my staff support), for our weekly call, but I guess he was busy so it didn't happen. Then my regular English tuition kids didn’t come (their exam is this week, so I guess they’re just buckling down and studying). After lunch and everything, went to the Piramal school next door, which I’m working on computerizing.

The principal, Mr. Ojha, is all gung-ho about computerizing the administration. Even bought a nice new computer. Today was a downer in that aspect though. Out of the three guys, one of them plain flat out said, “I’m retired, I’m just doing this as a temp job to keep busy”, and “The other guy is retiring next year” and “you should do something for the future, not for us”. So that leaves me with one guy who knows something about computers, and I’m just not convinced he wants to do any more work than is absolutely minimally required for him to keep his job. Anyway, here’s Ojha Ji (with glasses), in a file photo with my dad (who came with my mom to visit in first week of December):

It was a big deal for my dad coz, by sheer and amazing coincidence, he went to this school himself, 33 years ago. Yah, that deserves a big blog post in itself.

After that, I headed out into the market to hit up the bank and the phone guy etc, because it had been windy all day, and not as hot (so, probably just around 100F/38C). Came back, and realized I had told my kids they could come to class an hour early (3:30 instead of 4:30), to practice typing, coz I didn’t have time for them otherwise. 8 out of the 9 kids who eventually showed up actually came an hour early. Issue was, some tractor had earlier knocked over an electric pole on the main highway, so we didn’t have electricity.

But they were there, and I wanted to use this time. In one of my lessons (actually, on Windows Security and why and how user accounts are created), I had incorporated taking a photo of themselves (to teach them how to use a digital camera, to use it as their User Account photo, and later for an ID card they’ll make). So, we all went to the tree in our garden, and I showed them how to use it, and divided them up into pairs and got them taking pictures of each other.

This picture is of Gaurav Tailor, a kid in 8th grade, who’s family our group is pretty close to. Notice me mulling over something in the background – probably what they hell to do next without electricity. Also notice the girls – its probably the first time in Bagar that girls are in a computer class. Turns out there’s a lot more of them interested – two of them came this evening begging to start right away. I told them I’m going to hold Bagar’s first all girls’ computer class in the summer, starting 16 May.

Class ended early (I still managed to keep them for two hours, even without electricity). Then the 3 girls and Gaurav hung around (I think I forced Gaurav into it) to do some ‘spoken English’ – one of the girls brought it up and was real interested in it. I think she has a lot of potential. Real smart girl (book smart at least), really sincere learner, and has somewhat decent English. This is a girl who, with some coaching, could do some major stuff in the future. Maybe she could be Bagar’s first female programmer :-) Ah yes, I dream, I dream. Anyways, while they were ‘describing the garden to me, in English’, I asked them to tell me how many types of flowers there were, and then they proceeded to show me that there were 7. The following photo is of one such wild flower (and was taken by accident, while I was demonstrating to them the close-up function on the camera). I particularly like this flower, but I particularly like this photo of the flower, on my khaadi bag, with the Indicorps logo in the back. I kept thinking of names and ideas and something poignant to address it by, coz it demands a name of substance. I welcome suggestions, but for now, I call this Indicorps in Bloom:

Anyways, spoken English ended with call for dinner (which was fantastic – कैरी की सब्जी – kairi ki sabji – dish made of green mango). It was a most welcome change from the usual, nutritious but repetitive fare. For the food. And also because that’s when the weather changed.

The clouds had snuck in during class, and now they were getting ominous, and rumbling. Coupla drops fell, but nothing came offa it. When I came back, we were sitting upstairs, and mulling what to do without electricity. And while sitting there in the beautiful breeze, that’s when the sandstorm started. At first its breezy, a little windy, and then out of nowhere, BAM, it pics up, and 10 seconds later, its sand EVERYWHERE. Visibility is down to like 30 feet (and you know it some for us because we’re on cemented/developed land). Then the lightning started coming, and then the rain. The pics of the initial few minutes are on Preeti’s camera, and I’ll try to post something on a later date. But these are the ones after the rain started coming, and Lisa came out, and Radhika came back. These pictures speak for themselves. I’ll keep the commentary to a minimum.

Sandstorm
We decided to move up to the terrace. It was night, no electricity, wind is howling, sand is everywhere, and now it starts to rain. Tree in the background, if you can make it out, gives you an idea of the storm:

Can’t help but be goofy when you’re in the rain. Here’s Preeti recommending a Marilyn-Monroe-skirt-blowing-pose, and me obliging:

Goofiness aside, it is just incredible being in the rain in India. As Lisa put it, “I don’t know why it is, but the rain in India is incredible”. She mentioned the big drops, but I know it’s a lot more. It’s the big drops, the warm rain, the cool wind, the sweet smell of the parched earth (in Hindi, the सौंधी खुशबू– saundhi khushboo). It’s like the earth wants everyone to know how sweet it is, the rain. This is me savouring a bit of that sweetness:

Side Note: If any of you want a sample of that smell, I think I might have figured out a way to send it all the way. Let me run some more conclusive tests on my theory first.

We finally came back down from the terrace (aka roof), because the girls didn’t want to get too wet, and it was getting damn cold. I guess I couldn’t stay out for too long:

The lightning during the storm was a spectacle. On a completely dark night (because of the power outage, and the day after new moon day), you could still see every 5 seconds. I just had to find a way to capture it. So I left my camera on a ledge, set to take a picture every 10 seconds, with no flash. The first pic didn’t show much. This one is after the first 10 seconds. You can barely make out the tree in the garden, the building to the right, and a bus passing by the school campus:

The next two shots didn’t yield much. But 30s after this previous pic, well, you can see for yourself:

Isn’t that incredible? This is the same as before, but 30s later, taken at 7:37 in the night to be exact! I guess this is what it would be like if God used the flash on his camera.

The aftermath of the storm, well, wasn’t all that much. Sand everywhere, in our hair, in our rooms, and stuff scattered about. Here’s the verandah upstairs:

Just another day in India? No, definitely not. Not every day is quite as special or as “exciting”. Some days are mundane, like any other day at any job anywhere in the world. Many days just go chasing down a to-do list that always manages to escape.

Days like today though, force us to open our eyes wide, and remind us to take notice of the incredible in every day.

blogging from my phone!

2007-04-10T23:13:00.001+05:30

continuing the love affair with technology, this blog entry is
straight from my phone! yup, i have an unlimited gprs connection,
which is what i use to connect my computer to the net with. hutch (the
mobile operator) finally sent the settings to my phone, so i can
browse the internet on my phone. well, most of it anyway, my phone
only supports wap enabled sites. it may not sound like a big deal in
th US, but it's a big thing in rural India for me. God bless the great
Indian telecom privitization!

Sometimes you have to love technology

2007-04-09T16:23:00.001+05:30

I got an SMS on my phone today from one of Divya's friends (another Indicorps fellow who'd been at Bagar for a little while). She had been using this number initially, and I guess the person didn't know that her number had changed yet.

Anyways, got me thinking that I have very seperate groups of friends, some of whom may not have been updated by my e-mail, or my blog etc. And only keep in touch with very few to none of them via phone. Then I got thinking, I have some of them on facebook, and I know facebook has a blog. So why don't I at least copy the entry there?

Well this is where I HEART technology comes in. Facebook has this neato feature where you can just import a blog. So I just give it the URL to this blog (http://ashishinindia.blogspot.com), and bam, facebook imports it the next time it scans this address. Ain't that cool?

Also, on another note, things are going well. I'm trying this thing where I'm splitting up my days into two. Go to bed around 1 or so at night, wake up at 6 inevitably when the guys from the cafeteria come to deliver the chai (which, btw, I don't drink). So instead of trying to fight it, I'm just going to get up and start the guy. And then try to take a nap in the afternoon. This works well with the impending summer, where because of 48°C (120°F) weather, and the hot winds, its impossible to leave the house between 10am and 5pm.

Also, Lakshmi, the GDL team lead, has granted us Sundays off. Which is kinda exciting news - now we get a day to take it easy, and catch up on all the things that I promise myself to do but never get around to (running, writing emails, updating blogs, socializing with people in the town and nearby areas etc). More importantly, I can now do all this without feeling guilty about not woking on the project stuff :-)

Anyways, class about to start in 5 minutes. Will start in full swing on Wednesday. So long for now.

Adieu.

A 6-monthly Update

2007-03-28T16:41:00.001+05:30

Hi Everyone,

It has been a very long time (for some of you, since last August), since you heard from me. I apologize for the long delay. As you all know, I am in India, working on a two-year service project in the town of Bagar in the western 'desert' state of Rajasthan. I am looking to see how computer technology can benefit the population of the rural town that I'm working in (and how I can play a part in that).

I tried to keep a blog to send in updates, but that hasn't worked out too well. Some highlights so far:

After struggling long and hard to figure out what I need to get working on to benefit this town, I realized that the people needed to understand the practical applications of the Internet in their daily lives. It took me till December to figure out what I wanted to do: Start a computer class for high-school students, that focused on the application of computers. My hypothesis was that if I taught the class in a project-based approach (rather than theoretical/rote learning), these kids would start thinking application themselves. Well, I finally got the class going on Feb 26th of this year, and got the computers about 3 weeks after that. Clearly, getting the funding approved and the computers took time. Also to promote the class in all the schools in the town (there's a few of them as kids come from neighbourhing villages and far away to study here). And finally it took time to interview and select the kids. To accelerate the learning process, I wanted to take students who already had some familiarity in front of a computer (knew how to move a mouse, type some characters, open programs, save files, basic formatting in Word etc). Well, I was looking for around 24 kids for my class, and I would be happy even if I got 20 candidates to apply. Things took a turn for the better - about 140 kids applied, and even at around 20 minutes a kid, it took some time to interview all of them.

All said and done though, the class finally started, the computers got here (all very slick btw - with LCD screens and what not), and now looking to see how I can get these kids excited about computers. Any ideas and suggestions to get kids in rural towns in India to really get excited and see the value of using computers in their daily lives is much appreciated.

Also started a campaign to clean up the trash situation in the town. Been on and off on it since September. On it right now, where we're looking to take one of the wards (neighbourhoods) of our town, and clean it up to make it a model ward. Doing some needs assessment right now, will be ramping up things on that soon. The particularly issue seems to be the gutters that get clogged up due to the trash, and the fact that due to limited resources, the cleaning of any ward only happens once every 15 days. Will keep everyone posted (I hope).

Finally, as part of a case study, I am looking to bring about efficiencies in administration in a school through computerization. Its a classic Systems Analyst/IT consultant gig in my mind - find out where the inefficencies lie (in this case, every single thing is done on paper), see where the value is, find the best solution, design it, implement it, train the folks and let 'em at it. Due to time constraints because of a report due to Indicorps (and also since this is now the third concurrent project), I'm going to try and wrap up before mid-May. It'll be small changes then - but the amount of time they can now save with just Excel is unbelievable. If you guys truly want to see how MS Office can change your life, come here. For example, there is something called a Bill of Salary that takes a person one full day to update every month - something that will take 45 minutes to create in Excel, and 15 minutes to update every month. No joke. And the formulas would be straight from 'Excel for Beginners'.

I could use help with figuring out a decent school administration software though, especially one that makes sense in the INdian contexts. Would have to include school records, transfer certificates, results sheets, report card etc to make real sense in my mind. And Hindi language is a MUST. Which reminds me - does anyone know if MS Access XP or later support Unicode data input (so that Hindi can be stored)?

There is obviously a lot more that happened in the last 3 months that I haven't captured here - for example, training for and successfully completing a half marathon, getting excited about Hindi language computing, the downs and ups, working on a virtual tour of the Gandhi Ashram, trips to other NGOs in India, future plans about beaming broadband from a town 15KM away into Bagar by setting up towers, and then wi-fing all of Bagar etc etc. One thing that I do have to capture is the fact that my phone got stolen, and I finally do have a replacement number:

Ashish New Mobile in India: +91 9828 73 6464

I'm 9.5hours ahead of East Coast, 10.5 hours ahead of Mid-West and 12.5 hours ahead of West Coast.

If you prefer writing by snail mail (and sending in all sorts of goodies, hehehe), here's the address:

Ashish Gupta

Guest House

Piramal Boys Sr. Sec School

Piramal Nagar

Bagar, District Jhunjhunu

Rajasthan - 333023

INDIA

Take care, and hope to hear from you soon.

- Ashish

Summer In India

2007-02-08T07:14:00.001+05:30

www.SummerInIndia.org

Applications are due on March 14!

Are you trying to figure out what to do with your summer? Are you trying to figure out what to do with your life?

Become InSPIRED.

It's about stepping out of your comfort zone… so you can discover the world, so you can discover yourself.

It's about connecting with India , with its culture, with its people.

It's about finding your passion, and the strength and courage to follow it.

It's about sharing genuine, real experiences with those of a similar mindset.

It's about figuring out your role in shaping this world.

It's about service. It's about adventure. It's about connecting. It's about education. It's about wisdom. It's about reality. It's about lighting the fire. It's about YOU.

InSPIRE
India Summer Program Inspiring Reflective Exploration

InSPIRE is a non-partisan, non-religious 5-week long immersion program that reconnects young Indians and South Asians from abroad to India. The program is open to anyone between the ages of 18 and 24 who is of South Asian decent.

InSPIRE is about exploring and experiencing India , to get a better understanding of ourselves, India , and our relationship with the world. The program will consist of exposures, interactions and sessions, readings, cultural immersion, service work, exploration of development, and adventure. All of these will be used as instigators for each participant to look within and grow as a human being.

For more information, go to www.SummerInIndia.org .
Check out the trailer --> click here
Check out the facebook group --> click here

INDICORPS - FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS DUE APRIL 1, 2007

2007-02-04T20:59:00.000+05:30

If you know of anyone who might be interested, please do pass it on.

A lot has happened/is happening. Will update everyone on this later.

- Ashish

INDICORPS - FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS DUE APRIL 1, 2007

Apply now to August 15 class of the Indicorps fellowship program at http://apply.indicorps.org

Indicorps seeks committed individuals with the experience, conviction and leadership potential to find constructive solutions to India's most pressing problems. As an Indicorps Fellow, you will join a community of individuals who constantly push their limits for both individual performance and collective impact. Although you may work in some of the most challenging circumstances, the
Indicorps fellowship is a rewarding and transformational personal journey. Visit the Indicorps website ( http://www.indicorps.org) for detailed information on the Indicorps vision, program, and application process.

Applicants must be of Indian origin (by the definition of the Government of India) and have, at minimum, a university degree or five years work experience. Individuals must make a minimum commitment of one (1) year and are required to apply specifically to projects of their interest. The application deadline is April 1, 2007.

A Happy New Year

2007-01-02T22:21:00.000+05:30

A Very Happy New Year to everyone. Its definitely happy for me - I'm starting with a very positive outlook on the year, knowing exactly what I'm going to do, and chockful of ideas every day to excite me. The going's good.

And on this new year's day, there was an impromptu visit to nearby village. One of the guys who works in the mess (aka cafeteria) had invited me over to his village (RamswarupJi), and we'd been making plans for over 2 months, but he'd never get off. And so this day, he's like, I'm going. I keep making plans, its been months, I'm going today, in an hour, will be back in 3/4 hours, come with me if you can.

So I did. Along with Pintu ji from the mess (in blue). Here's a picture of Ramswarup JI and I in his little backyard/sideyard/frontyard. They had a few veggies and flowers growing. That's mooli (radish) in my hand. Nothing like yanking a vegetable out of the ground and eating it right there.

So here's a happy new year from the three of us (From L to R: Pintu Ji, Ramswarup Ji and yours truly). I love the expressions that came out in this, especially the variety thereof. And the face that I took this picture with my left hand too.I like taking photos I've realized. Its my only creative outlet, and it keeps me quite happy.

So on that note, a toast to this very new year. May there be many more like the year past, and many more like the year that's to be.

Cheers.

A long awaited update

2006-12-27T17:37:00.000+05:30

Wednesday, Dec 27 2006 6:24am IST
Bagar, Rajasthan

Its 6:24 in the morning on a very very cold night (day?). And I find myself sitting in my bed, writing a journal entry after quite a wait.

The cold yes – its cold here! It used to go down to 6 degrees C (low 40s) at night – tonight its quite a bit lower. It rained yesterday during the day, which dropped the temperature. And this morning it is still raining. And the fog has come in quite thick.

This effectively puts a halt to my plans of getting out and finally running after over a week’s break. Well, I could tough it out - the bijli (electricity) will go out at 7, and not much happening this early in the day during the winter times (even the shops start opening at 8 in the market).

I digress – lets get back to the topic at hand – what HAVE I been upto in the last couple of months (I think it has been that long since my last update):

Ah yes, I believe my last late night excitable post was around completely switching my focus area here from computer utilization to solar power. There were quite a few reasons behind that – mainly that in the weeks preceding it, I’d been trying to assess the needs for computer utilization in the community. And maybe it was my lack of skill in doing a needs assessment or applying technology to rural India, but there weren’t too many areas that I was coming out with where technology could be applied to a certain audience to reap some great benefits. And from all my ‘research’ – i.e. looking at papers and cases studies – the greatest need that computers tended to address in a rural setting was that of connectivity. A VSAT link to the Internet can provide remote communities the kind of access to information that can make significant impact on their lives: the weather forecast for a fishing village, the mandi (market) price of agricultural produce for a farmer, ability to quickly and cheaply communicate with loved ones, suppliers, buyers, doctors, government officials, specialists in the bigger towns and the bustling cities.

And for a rural setting, Bagar is quite well connected. On the Jaipur-Pilani state highway, it is exactly halfway between two major town: 15kms east from Jhunjhunu, the district headquarters, and 15kms west from Chirawa. Pilani, another major town (famous for the Birla Institute of Technology and Science – BITS) is another 15km from Chirawa. Buses ply to these cities every 15 minutes or so, throughout the night, and also to Jaipur and Delhi every hour or so.

If road connectivity is decent, telecom connectivity is even better. There are 5 cellphone towers in this town of 15,000, as well as landline phone connectivity. Commercial internet is available at dialup (and a bit faster) speeds via the landline or the cellphone (we use the Reliance cellphone – twice the speed of dialup).

A decent percentage of the populace reads the newspapers quite regularly. It also helps having 3 newspaper agencies in town, as well as a library that stocks 11 dailies (including 3 in English).
Now the picture isn’t all that rosy either – there may be access to Internet, but almost no one uses it. And the nearness to the major towns keeps the local businesses from expanding (there is just better price, quality and choice to be found in the bigger towns).

And computer utilization itself? Surprisingly, there was some. There were 2 computer centres (1 a real permanent centres, another was a guy with two computers, now closed) providing basic computer education. Most of the schools also had computer labs (built when the Rajasthan government made computer education mandatory – and abandoned when it reversed that decision a couple of years later). The private schools do continue to teach computers though. The photo studios, printing and music guys all had computers for their own uses. And by most estimates, there were around 50 private computer owners in town.

What it all boiled down to, in my mind, was that I couldn’t find a burning ‘need’ for computer technology in this town. It just didn’t seem like a development priority – there just were bigger issues e.g. a consistent supply of power in the adjoining dhaanis (little villages).

Here’s how that obviously changed. Our team lead/manager/staff person here was convinced that I had zero/zilch/0 motivation to continue with the computer technology area, and recommended I just focus on something of my liking (hence solar power). Two days later though, we had a visit from the founder/director of Indicorps – Anand. He made a couple of simple yet powerful observations (yet again highlighting the power of the outside perspective):

1. We had a lot more resources than we’d anticipated/assumed (it was way comfortable living compared to village life, we were well connected, we had the funds and influence to back us, the population had money to support some sort of commercial venture etc). However, instead of being more empowered because of the resources at hand, we’d managed to make ourselves feel less empowered because of this.
2. There are still tremendous opportunities to develop this town. He put it in a way that still rings with me: “Ask yourselves – would you live in this town? Then let’s work to make this a place that you’d want to live in”. Our task here then was not to take this town from 0-30, it was to take this from 50-100, a place that can compete with the best of India.

These two facts had quite an impact on my thinking about my project – I have the money, I had commercial Internet, I had a basic seed of a computer literate population – let me use it! And yah, there is so much more that I did with computers back in the US, there has to be tremendous potential here for the same. And so what if this maybe something that is not needed – its something that raises the bar. A few weeks later I would come up with an analogy: Just because there are a few students behind in a class, the teacher cannot ignore the ones who are ahead. We can’t wait to only focus on the kids that are behind and bring everybody upto a basic level. We have to continue to move the class ahead, and continue raise the standards for everybody.

My experiment here then was not that of need. It was of potential.

A few things came out of that visit – I decided to stick to computer tech utilization as my project. There was yet another cycle of project planning and proposal writing. As mandated, we travelled to seek answers and much-needed inspiration from other organizations in India doing similar work.

And I managed to make peace with what I’m doing here.

युं हीं (Just like that)

2006-11-04T18:14:00.000+05:30

हीरालालजी सैनी बन रहे थे सेठ

हीरालालजी सैनी का मोटा हो रहा था पेट

पेड़े खाए अनेक, जिन पर लग रहा था गुलाब

खाते ही गए भय्या, लग गया जोरों से जुलाब

फिर दूसरा दिन जब आया, तब दबा के खाए पकवान

पेट पकड़ कर बोल उठे, "हाए रे मेरे भगवान"

ये क्या किया तुमने, कैसा यह कमाल,

तेरे ही चाहने से तो हुआ है, मेरे पेट मे यह धमाल

"मूरख", क्रोध मे आए भगवन, यह तो तेरे लालच का है प्रमाण

अपने पेट की ही सीमा को भूल गया, बनने में तू धनवान

- आशीष

(Heeralalji is the guy who takes care of the guest house where we stay. He's actually really fit. I'm kind of teaching him how to type both in hindi and english, and I was showing him something. and then ended up making a sentence. and another that rhymed. and then typed this thing up in 20 mins.)

UPDATE - Nov 7

By popular demand, here's the transliteration of this poem. It's really a very simple foolish rhyme, but now you know for yourself:

Heeralaji Saini ban rahe the seth
Heeralalji Saini ka mota ho raha tha pet
Pede khaye anek, jin par lag raha tha gulab
Khate hi gaye bhaiyya, lag gaya zoron se julaab
Phir doosra din jab aaya, tab daba ke khaaye pakvaan
Paet pakad kar boil uthe, “Haaye re mere bhagwaan”
Ye kya kiya tumne, kaisa hai kamaal
Tere hi chaahne se to hua hai, mere paet mein yeh Dhamaal
“Moorakh”, krodh mein aaye bhagvan, yeh to tere laalach ka hai pramaan
Apne pet ki hi seema ko bhool gaya, banne mein tu dhanvaan

- Ashish

So much to write, so little time

2006-11-02T01:05:00.001+05:30

Alright - it's 12:58 in the night here (which is really really late for me). And I owe everybody a whopping humungous post (or many many many others), because so many things have happened in the last 6 weeks that I've been here in Bagar. And probably the biggest of all them happenings happened tonight - my project has been completely changed. From looking at computer technology utilization, I'm considering solar power. Again, many many reasons for it (project related and personal).

Anyways - I'm really excited about working on solar power. Really really.

BTW - today is Nov 2nd so, Happy Birthday Alvir!!!

(Alvir is also a fellow this year with Indicorps, probably doing great things in Jaisamand - district near Udaipur - south of Rajasthan, but more importantly, a great guy to meet in person).

Now back to typing up the rest of that documentation

Lots going on this week

2006-10-12T22:53:00.000+05:30

Sunday - have to finalize what I'm planning to do as my main project for the next two years (at least for the next six months). Likely that it's going to be around using computer technology for rural/semi-urban areas. Only thing that I'm convinced of so far is no matter what it is, an essential aspect of it is that the computing aspect of it must be in Hindi.

Which means I'm trying to learn Hindi typing. And I think I've pretty much got it down (speed requires a lot, but hey).

पर हम रविवार तक काफी व्यस्त रहेंगे, तो मुलाकात होती है उसके बाद।
(But I'm going to be busy till Sunday, so we'll meet after that!)

Yup - so other than that, two or three other pieces of documentation due on Sunday - promise to write up something after that.

P.S. I'll be in Bombay from the 18th to the 21st to meet my mom/grandfather. No cellphone service during that time (roaming doesn't really work with my cellphone plan). Call me on my Bombay home number in that time.

- आशीष

Photo updates

2006-09-28T13:50:00.000+05:30

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.

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

2006-09-15T11:22:00.000+05:30

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.

"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

2006-09-06T18:11:00.000+05:30

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

2006-09-06T18:00:00.001+05:30

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

Safely in India, and more

2006-08-11T16:14:00.000+05:30

Hi Everyone,

Greetings from not-so-sunny Mumbai! It's nice and around 80F (all day), and uncharacteristically for the monsoon season, it actually hasn't rained much in the last two days (touchwood). Not the case for the rest of the country, however. I awoke (on Thurs morning India time) to find that all trains to Ahmedabad (the city which I'm going to on Monday) had been cancelled. This was due to severe flooding in the industrial town of Surat, which is en route to Ahmedabad. Flood waters had been between 8-15 feet in the city in some cases. Surat is also en route to Delhi, which means the very important rail service from Mumbai to Delhi had also been suspended. That is very bad news for business, and in India, business is on everybody's mind these days.

The flight from Chicago to New Jersey was uneventful. Not so in New Jersey though. They boarded everybody on time, and then after boarding realized a radio needed to be fixed. After half an hour, they abandoned hopes of fixing it, and decided to move everybody to another aircraft. After another hour or so, we finally boarded. We then waited on the tarmac for an hour and half, due to, yup, catering delays. Then we couldn't back out of the gate coz somebody else was blocking it. Mind you, having not slept at all the night before, I was at best severely groggy during this whole wait, so I can't complain much. I do remember freaking out when I realized the flight left 3 hours late (guess how long my layover in Amsterdam was - yup, 3 hours ;-)) I guess we must have made some time on the way to Amsterdam, coz I had 50 minutes to board (or so I though - apparently it was only 40 because they'd pushed the flight up 10 mins). Anyway, after a sprint to the gate, they let me board. The agent checking my passport/ticket etc was like, take a deep breath, you made it.

At which point I asked him about if my bags would make it.

His story went like this "oh yah, it shoud. no problems. <looks at watch> oh yah, it should have. Well, it depends on how long Continental can get it to the KLM crew. When did you say your flight landed? Oh, about 10 mins ago. Well, yah, hmm, maybe it should make it. Well, why don't I say it won't make it and that way if it does it'll be a reversal of fortune for the better, yah? <insert hopeful smile here>. You know, gots to be careful about what we say these days."

The security guys had a blast figuring out what my no-battery manually charging flashlight was. Boarded a surprisingly empty flight about 15 minutes before it was scheduled to leave. Suprisingly, two other people boarded after me.

I guess that's all from the cybercafe in Mumbai for now - rest on the trip will come soon. Keep in touch.

P.S. Funny thing about the bags. Only one of them made it. Funnier still, Northwest knew that before I even landed. They came in the flight last night, and were delivered to my house (earlier than promised) today. The Northwest guys knew the status of the bag all along, and even delivered the bag all sealed in plastic etc. Nice job to make up for lost baggage.

btw

2006-08-08T15:15:00.000+05:30

the last post also marked the first successful test of the e-mail to blog facility of blogger.com.

Another note: Times displayed are now Indian Standard Time (GMT +5:30). So, with daylight savings on right now, 9 1/2 hours from US Eastern, 10 1/2 from US Central

I guess this is goodbye...

2006-08-08T15:11:00.000+05:30

It's 4:33 on Tuesday morning, and I guess it's about time to get ready and head out to Chicago O'Hare airport, early to account for the Chicago traffic. Once there, I'll be trying to make the last minute phone calls to family and friends. Can't wait to have my friend meet me at Newark airport though. I'm still a sucker for a free meal ;-)

So with a heavy heart (and after many many rounds of it in the past two weeks), this is goodbye.

(We'll be back shortly after a brief transcontinental break.)

In case you're wondering where I'll be for most of the next two years

2006-07-31T16:09:00.000+05:30

My program starts off on Aug 15 (yes, the Indian Independence Day) in Ahmedabad, the western state of Gujarat. After a month of orientation with all the other fellows there, I move onto my project site in Bagar, Rajasthan. It is close to the district headquarters (Jhunjhunu). The nearest famous city is Pilani, famous for the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS).

To get a better feel for where I'll be, check out the following map on MSN Encarta. Bagar is just north-east of Jhunjhunu (spelt Jhunjhunun in Encarta).

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/mapcenter/map.aspx?TextLatitude=39.45&TextLongitude=-98.907&TextAltitude=0&TextSelectedEntity=39070&SearchEnc=false&MapStyle=Comprehensive&MapSize=&MapStyleSelectedIndex=0&searchTextMap=jhunjhunun&MapStylesList=Comprehensive

About the Havelis in Bagar, Rajasthan

2006-07-10T18:58:00.000+05:30

One of the other people on my project in Rajasthan forwarded this article recently. Definitely worth a look.

http://www.hindu.com/mag/2005/04/03/stories/2005040300110100.htm

If the link is down, you can access the pdf from here: http://www.box.net/public/qmx124opfk

Anybody have any other articles to share. Kali, any first-hand experiences?

2006-07-06T18:32:00.000+05:30

Hi Everybody,

Welcome to my blog from India. As I am about to embark on my two years of community service in India, I hope to use this blog as a way to communicate and update all my friends, family and well-wishers on my experiences, my struggles and my successes.

You can track my progress in the coming months (and learn more about the organization) at the Indicorps website (www.indicorps.org). In case you're wondering what i'll be doing while I'm there, here's the project description (http://bigmuthuwarrior.googlepages.com/ashish%27sindicorpsproject)

Do stay tuned!

Update: Here's me posting a picture to my blog. Because apparently that's how you can upload a picture to your profile in blogger. So far it seems to be pretty HTML intensive - which I can definitely handle (and I like, coz it's you, tinkering with code). Wonder how the normal "junta" deals with it...