Day 11

29th April, 2011

Yesterday Shashikant cleaned the lab room. So the day almost went in setting up the computers and their network. But could not test it due to power cut. Could not even finalize the stabilizer thing. But the experience was really great of setting up the lab. arranging the tables, connecting the cords , assembling the PCs, all felt like I was doing it for my own office. Never had such an experience.

The evenings recently have been busy with the paddle tennis sessions. Would upload the pics soon.

Shared my life story with rest of the people in the story sharing session. Felt good. :)

-SD

Day 10

28th April, 2011

The day was about Stabilizers - Voltage Stabilizers.

We have a lab of 5 computers. We at grampari are starting up with some computer related courses for rural kids. But the lab was not in a good condition. The flooring was really dusty. So we planned to clean it up. So we shifted the computers back to a hall and asked Sashikanth to clean the room. We have also asked the sewing class students to prepare cloth covers for the computers.

There are large voltage fluctuations in the connection we have at grampari. We called the maharashtra board for checking and clearing it out. They have given an estimate quite larger than Grampari can afford at the moment. So we decided to go for Voltage stabilizers. I learnt through some calculations that we needed 2 KVA stabilizer for 5 computers. Now there are 2 type of stabilizers. Relay based and servo motor based. The research is still on. Would be finalizing them by tomorrow.

Later in the night we had a story telling session cum ice cream party at Jayashree Aunty's place. Along with the ice cream, their stories too were amazing. Thanks for that :)

-SD

Day 9

27th April, 2011

Miracle happened today! I woke up at 6 and went for a jog! People who know me, would definitely term it as a miracle. At 7, I went for quiet time session - Something compulsory for all AP residents and which I had been avoiding for days. In this session you sort of keep quiet for some 30 odd mins and then share what ever thoughts you had during that

quiet time. It seems to help you out for the rest of the day and give directions on how to go ahead. Then we(grampari team) went to Panchputhavadi.

It is a village near Abhepuri in Satara district. We went there to discuss the plan for constructing some water shedding techniques and some water conserving tanks. Jared and Jayashree Aunty discussed on the things to be completed and decided on the time lines. I was really surprised to see that from the 20 men in the meeting, there were just 2 of them with black hair! Rest all were with grey hair. Thats roughly 10 %. Taking that as a sample, we find that there are very less young people from th

e working age in that village. I talked to a couple of people there about there family. His whole family was in Mumbai. It was only his mother and him living there in the village. He too came only because the mill he worked for was shut down. His son works in Mumbai in a shop as a sales man. I also met another person - Mr Ashok. He too worked in a mill in Navsari, Gujarat. It was shut down and hence he came back to village and started farming. Thanks to the Mill owners for shutting them down, we got some farmers back working on the land. But now seems a bigger problem. Monsoons are irregular here. Soil fertility is decreasing gradually. And young

generation of farmers is totally missing from the villages. God forbid, but what if the situation worsens! If soil fertility falls further and no farmers to work - how would we get our food! May be I should buy a farm as soon as I start earning.

While returning, we went to a temple in dhomya village and had our lunch on the bank of river Krishna.

Villages are deprived of their basic needs. How come we expect them to get modernized!

Day 5, 6, 7,8

23, 24, 25, 26 April 2011

After such a wonderful week, I planned to take a long weekend :). But then on Saturday I had a meeting with Sidharth and rest of the team regarding APConnect.in . A wonderful concept for connecting Asia plateau and its people around the world. And on Sunday morning Sid and Rhea were taking a session on the 'Circle of Concern(CoC) and Circle of influence(CoI)'. Circle of concern consists of the point for which we are concerned about but cannot do anything about it. Circle of Influence consists of the points where we are concerned about and we can also do something about it. CoI is a subset of CoC. We should focus our energy on CoI. It would automatically help in expanding the CoI.

After the session, I started for Pune. A wonderful ride on my bullet. The picture above.

After completing my work, I came back on today morning. Today was quiet light day. Discussed things with Grampari team about various aspects. And then a wonderful tennis game, followed with multi faith prayer and a dinner of bhel puri, pani puri, aloo tikki and sheera.

A lot of work to be done in very less time. Tomorrow going to a village with grampari team. Lets see how it goes.

-SD

Day 4

22nd April, 2011

Now this is what I call a day! well, I am still struggling to get up early. But I have reached a decent 7 AM time. Plan to get up at 5 30. well, this is the time people normally get up here. :-O.

Morning was in the grampari, looking at various things around and understanding how they work. In the noon, I went in a session on Integrity and Leadership. It was Conducted by Sidharth and Rhea. A wonderful session which threw light on 'What is Integrity' and how do we maintain it. Integrity is Wholesomeness or completeness of a person, system of an organization, for that matter any entity. A small flaw in the system or component breaks the completeness of the whole system and reduces its productivity. For a person, integrity means the completeness of his words.

If one wants to maintain the integrity of one's word, then one must keep their word. Once a commitment is done, then it should be obeyed. If one is not able to keep his or her word, the integrity is damaged. Then one needs to honor one's word. Honoring means cleaning the mess that has been created by not keeping the word. This would restore the integrity back - probably higher. This rule follows in the word you give to yourself too.

The next session was by Mr Dilip Kulkarni. It was on 'Environmental crisis and our responsibility'. We have 2 kind of environments today. One is Natural environment and the other is Man-made environment. Depletion of the natural env by the man-made env started in 1965 with the invention of steam engine. Before that man definitely used the resources, but in a limited manner. After 1965, man had been consuming the natural resources at a very rapid rate.World today measures the growth in terms of GDP. Growth in GDP shows progress of the country. Every one is in the race of attaining higher production. If we plot a graph, it would always be pointing upwards. Which is totally opposite to Nature. Nature is cyclic. Everything happens in a cycle. This is one of the very fundamental difference between the natural environment and the manmade environment. He then explained some more differences too.

• Nature has a policy of 'give and take' All the living organisms take a few things and give a few things out. Like trees take Carbon dioxide and give away oxygen while mammals give away carbon dioxide and take oxygen. Thus things remain in a balance. While the man-made environment has a policy of 'only take'. We just take everything that the nature has. Dont give anything back which is useful. Everything that we give back is harmful to nature. eg. plastic that we throw. Trees that we cut and a lot more.
• Nature believes in Equal status for all the species. distributes the resources equally among all. While Humans consider themselves as the king of the earth. They believe in homo centrism - They are the center of the earth. Everything happens for and due to them.
• Nature is full of diversity. Diversity can be compared to the bottom of the pyramid on which natural environment sustains. It has a lot of species and various organisms. The consumption patterns of theses organisms make the nature balance itself. On the other hand, humans believe in monocity. We have been responsible killing a lot of species. As a matter of fact, we had 30000 species of paddy in India. Today there are less than 300 remaining. Rest have died.
• Nature has a wonderful property of limiting itself. More important than the phenomena of growth is the phenomena of limiting the growth. The trees grow. But then after a certain height attained, it stops itself. Human body grows. But after an age, the cells know to stop growing. I dont know who instructs them. And those cells which believe in uncontrolled growth are termed as cancerous cells. They are considered harmful cells. Humans believe in unlimited growth. We keep on consuming things and making more and more powerful machines - consuming a lot of energy. It has to stop somewhere.

Our environment is facing some hard problems these days. Some very prominent problems and the basic prolems are listed below.

1. Depletion of resources
2. Pollution
3. Loss of biodiversity

Linear growth that we believe in, is really not possible at all. Even economics believes in the law of marginal utility. Similar is the case with our environment. It has a limit. It has to be cyclic. And if we disturb the cycle, then nature would definitely take some hard steps. The fundamental policy in the definition of growth is wrong. GDP being a measure of growth is totally wrong. For example take a road accident. When a road accident happens, a lot of income is generated in the economy. The doctors, the hospitals would get revenue. the pharmacists would make money for medicines that are consumed. The mechanic would gete to earn for car repairs. The sparepart manufacturers would earn. Thus creating more wealth in the economy. But then is it good to have more accidents?

Here are some solutions that can be thought of for solving these problems.

1. Change in the development policy. As discussed, we need to change the measures of growth.
2. Change in the lifestyle. This is something we can do at an individual level.

Follow 4 Rs:

• Refuse - refuse the things that you do not want. Concentrate on your needs than your wants. Consume less.
• Reduce - If you can not refuse it, reduce the consumption.
• Reuse - Reuse the things that are reusable. use them till their lifetime. Every resource is important.
• Recycle - though recycle is not completely environmental friendly, but still it is helpful. Recycle the waste created.

The above Rs would help in reducing the ecological foot print and thus help us in conserving the environment.

-SD

Day 3

21st April, 2011

I met 2 more wonderful people today. Well, I was already acquainted with them yesterday, but I really MET them today. I am talking about Mr Saikat Nag and Mr Dange. These are the people who run the Grampari at the ground level. Grampari has various livelihood programs like sewing, knitting, english speaking and computers. They Mr Nag and Mr Dange handle it mostly. I discussed with Mr Nag about my internship and what I plan to do. He is an MBA and a professor of marketing. Mr Dange is a Master of Social Welfare and is serving at grampari since 1 year.

Mr Nag, being a professor himself, helped me out in understanding my work here and how should I proceed for it. How should I define my generic objectives and the specific objectives. He also helped me in understanding the scope of my work. I would share it soon.

I also met some kids coming from various villages to learn computers. And let me tell you, 3 of them - Shweta from 8th std, Ritesh from 2nd and Pryadna from 4th - they all spoke real good english! I was astonished, surprised yet happy to learn that.

In the evening I attended some sessions on leadership. It was a part of corporate leadership program going on here. I met a lot of people from Kirloskar and Siemens group. They shared their stories in the informal meetings. It was really nice to hear them.

-SD

Day 2

20th April, 2011

There was a workshop in grampari for farmers in and around panchghani. The work shop was on Zero Budget Natural farming. The workshop was taken by Mr Subhas Palekar. He is a farmer by profession and is involved in spreading awareness of Natural farming and disadvantages of chemical and organic farming. The subject covered was very new for me. I do not know a word in farming. But I could easily understand the economics behind the agriculture that was going. He is a believer of Gandhian philosophy and says that Green Revolution is a pseudo revolution. Instead, it is a tool for exploiting the rural economy. He also explained how the MNCs are trying to destroy the rural economy through selling the concept of chemical farming. Chemical farming is a very dangerous technique. He said that it is also partly responsible for the increase in the number of AIDS cases and Cancers patients. The chemicals used in it are responsible for decreasing the immunity. There are also some carcinogens present in the chemical fertilizers. I never knew that there is a train called 'Cancer Train' running between Bhatinda and Bikaner.

Then Mr Palekar moved to Natural farming. Natural farming is the technique in which the help of nature is taken in growing the crops. How does the jungle grow! does the tree in the jungle need any artificial fertilizers of waters to grow? no! It grows on its own. Taking this thought further, he explained how natural waste can be turned into good fertilizers and can be utillized to the best. Zero-Budget says that the farmer should grow everything ranging from seed to the crop. In this way, he would not have to borrow for buying the seeds and the fertilizers and would save a lot of money. Further explanation can be found here on his website.

During the workshop, I interacted with a lot of farmers, had lunch with them and talked about their villages and their life. I was surprised to see many farmers speaking in fluent english! There was a farmer Mr Ashok Vandre from Abhepuri village of Satara district. He explained me how he and his 2 brothers are handling the farms in the village and their business in Mumbai. He also asked me to visit his village and see how they are developing it and wanted me to report it on a website for them. In the next week I am planning to visit Abhepuri.

All in all, a wonderful day again and a lot of learning about agriculture economy!

- SD

Day 1

I thought of keeping a track of the days spent here. So that it helps me out in the final version of my report. And in addition to that, it would help me in examining and understanding the time spent here. Though it is the 4th day, here it starts with the first day. Best of luck Saurabh :)

Day 1:

After a wonderful journey on my bullet, enjoying the meadows n the mountains, I reached yesterday on 18th around 6 pm to Panchghani. I got my room and got to know my room partner - Tamim - from Kabul. The next day, I met a lot of people. I met Dr Jayashree Rao who would be my mentor during this program. I met Mr Shah, who is professionally an architect and provides his services to MRA voluntarily. I also met Mr Jared and Mrs Sowmya.

I was introduced to what Grampari did by Jared. The morning was spent in that. Then I was introduced to some of the other interns here. I spent the evening with them having ice-cream in Panchghani. For dinner, Jared invited me to accompany him to a social visit to a village called Ambeghar. We had Mr and Mrs Poonawala from Pune and Samual from Canada accompanying us. The Road to ambeghar was amazing. I had wonderful time chatting with Jared, Sam and Poonawalas. Jared and Sam knew a lot of things about India. Now see the irony- I was sitting with 2 foreigners - one canadian and other american - who knew more than me about my country!

We were visiting Mr Prahlad Yadav, a farmer and a friend of Jared. I was amazed to hear Mr Yadav conversing in English with us. We received a warm welcome from Mr Yadav's family. It was a typical maharashtrian village and a typical village home surrounded with his farms. I learnt a few things about farming and water conservation. Jared is working in this areas since last 15 years and is a graduate of geology. Quality of the soil can be observed through the patterns of it. Soil with larger lumps has more microorganisms and hence is more fruitful. I also learnt a way to increase the underground water level (sand filling method). Then we had a wonderful dinner and returned.

What a day! a lot of new people and a lot of new experiences.

- SD

Grampari

We have a summer internship program in the course. I chose of not opting the normal corporate internship and came to grampari. It is in Panchghani. Grampari is an NGO working for development of rural population. This is my third day in here and I must say it is a wonderful place to be. I have always lived in a city and rarely got a chance to live in a village. And this is that long awaited chance.

The mornings are very similar to what we read in the stories during GOD (Good Old Days). The music of birds and the subtle sun rays waking you up for the wonderful day ahead. The nights are dark and quiet with only the stars twinkling in the sky and moon showering its milky rays on the earth. The sound of silence and the music of wind trying to sing a lullaby for you - that is how it seems. The sleep too is a satisfying one here. No honking of vehicles, no buzzing of machines and no noise of the electric machines. And hence it feels so fresh in the morning as if I slept for 20 hours.

I am really looking forward to a lot of things here. Hope it goes good.

Thanks,

SD