Ashish In India

Monday, December 31, 2007

Reflection on writing (and my serious disinclinationi towards it)

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

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

We're not in Kansas anymore

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

Thursday, November 15, 2007

A look back at the last 15 months

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/