FB - the new world

We - the Gen Y - were already so engrossed in extracting the information from the world of WWW, and they gave us social media. They started of with orkut, then the facebook and twitter. It has so changed the basic definitions of the real world. This is no exaggeration of my feelings but the experiences happening to me around.

Friends -
The term has been totally redefined by Facebook. It took me quite some time to befriend a stranger. We would meet by chance/choice for 3-4 times and then if we go along, we just thought that yes, there is a possibility of friendship between us. Today, once we meet, and the next day you find a 'Friend Request' on your facebook account. And out of courtesy, you have to accept the request, or the person might feel offended. And then, the person is able to view everything from you relations to mood swings, groups you are involved in and the games you play. Even my real friends do not know me to this extent! - well only till they were not my friend on FB. (Well, I just noticed that FB.com redirects to facebook.com)

Name -
Before FB phenomena, to change your name, you needed to declare it on paper and still you would be called by the same old irritating and annoying name for years to come. Thanks to FB, its not that hard now. In fact, the FB names become the real names of the unreal profiles of the real/unreal people. I have a friend from the 9-11 batch of my MBA college and we still call her 'Dearest Malini' (name changed, or else she will kill me!). Actually we first became FB friends and then a bit of real friends. And after we became real firnds, we still call her with her FB name. One of my FB friends, who happens to be my relative the real world is a self proclaimed 'cooldude'. The name stands like 'cool Manish Makhija' (Name changed again) on his proud FB page. One of my friend didn't like his name. Accidentally, we were real friends before becoming FB friends. I got a request from him for being FB friend. I really didn't recognize him! After a few days he called me up to ask why didn't I accept his friend request on FB. I said, I never received any! Then it was revealed that he has registered on FB with the 'new' name which he got during his job at a call centre! Total 180 degree shift from the core south Indian name to cool americanized name! and well, we've started calling him by his american name. - This phenomena happens naturally. The interaction of FB is many times more than real world interaction.

Assignments -
Well, this is the most interesting one that I've recently come across. e have a wonderful course on 'Process Optimization using Six Sigma' conducted by an equally wonderful facilitator - our Director, Dr. Raman. He gave us a a case study to solve as a class assignment and declared that if the solution matches to the actual solution, 10% extra marks would be given. The case was about identifying the non-value adding(NVA) activities of a process and converting it into value adding activity as far as possible. Our group was able to crack the key NVA. But that out of the box solution and 10% additional marks were yet to be achieved. All of us in the group are trying to find that solution and there it strikes - the video I watched on FB. It was a Tesco's video about the problem faced by them in South Korea. We discussed and applied the solution to the case. To our surprise 3 out of 8 groups had applied a similar solution. Eventually, we got the additional marks too. But the point here is - We solved a case / assignment with the help of FB! And scored 10 % higher marks by that! This is a shift- shift in the way education is going to be transformed using technology.

Imagine - professors conducting class quizzes via twitter and integrating the twitter inputs to the college application of online examination. The notes being circulated through facebook notes! Class videos being shared student feedback being taken though FB questions. There can be a lot more addition to this list if we start those threads of imagination ! I just have a word to say about it - WOW!

I don't know if this all 'FB Phenomena' is happening for good or bad, but the fact is It is happening! But the out outcomes are amazingly and tremendously amazing! - Well, enough jumbling up of words. I need to share this on FB too.

Till then, Njoy!
-SD

The Last post on internship

90 Days

A total of 90 days spent in Grampari. Still remember the day when I started from my college to come to Panchgani. A backpack, a jacket and the bullet - these were my companions. I never knew that these 100 kms would change my perspective towards life. A lot of thoughts in my mind, a lot of questions in my heart and a lot of excitement in my soul, with all of them, I reached there. My projects were a slight different from normal. It was an experiment for me. No one in my college had done such an internship. But I wanted to do it and there I was.

The three months went like flash of light - yes, now I feel so. lot of lessons learnt, lot of friends made and lot of food eaten! A truly amazing experience it was.

Anyway, coming to the last part of internship. we held a workshop and did the reporting work. I have written about workshop on Grampari's site - http://grampari.wordpress.com/2011/07/16/grampari-computer-workshop/ Do read it.

The report was, as always, a big head ache. Documentation is something I never liked. But thats the only thing people look at. So there I started it all. I thought it would be tough for me to write something of this volume. But once I started it, it all went smoothly. Let me know if you want to read the report. I would be glad to share it.

There ends my internship posts and the 90 days of pure fun.

Thanks for reading. Keep on reading :)

SD

Day 77, 78, 79

4th, 5th, 6th July, 2011

The atmosphere here is wonderful. The days here are bright and sunny and the place looks like heaven.The chirping of birds whistling of cuckoos make the mornings marvelous. Gentle whispers of winds and tapping leaves on the trees, the croaking frogs and old classics on the radio of my roomie makes the nights beautiful. Yes, this is Panchgani - an experience in itself.

This week I conducted one more Focused Group Discussion with the girls of Godavali Village near panchgani. The village is on the foothills of Panchgani and it seemed a prosperous one. But talking to people revealed that even they have water problems in summers. The problem of garbage scattered all over was also apparent. But the FGD went good. Thanks to Pallavi for handling the translation part and the small talk. I had really nice time with the ladies there. I have found that girls are smarter than boys in the villages. Their potential is being suppressed and eventually lost under the societal pressure. Something must be done to utilize the women power optimally. This can change the villages 180 degree. Go through the following video to know the girl effect.

-SD

Day 74, 75, 76

1st, 2nd and 3rd July, 2011

It was a weekend on the verge. A lot of reading and interviews went on in the last week. I wanted to take sort of break. What can be better than being at panchgani for a break! Well, I went into relaxing mode for some time. But then realized the list of things to be done before the end of internship.

These days Rajmohan Gandhi, Grand son of MK Gandhi, is here. It is just a different feeling being with a person so near to the father of nation. He himself is an author, a professor and a philosopher. But as with every celebrities' son or daughter, he too was with this tag of Gandhi. I always knew him with reference to Mahatma. But in last few days, I got a chance to know him beyond being Gandhi. Had wonderful conversations with him and his wife Usha Aunty. Feel blessed to be here and to know all these wonderful people.

-SD

Day 71,72,73

28th, 29th and 30th June, 2011.

I just don't believe this. It has been more than 70 days I have been in MRA. One of its kind experience, I must say. But that reminds me of the end of internship, college and Pune. Back to Pune after 3 months would be a great fun. The changed hostels, new rooms, Gym getting closer, the new semester, new teachers and professors and of course the new crowd. On one had is this set of 'new' things and on the other hand is the set of 'MRA' things, rather Grampari things. But I recently heard this quote from the Red Indians - Past is like Ash, Future is like wood, but the present is the flame. We need to be brighter each moment to be more useful to the society and ourselves ultimately. So coming back to present, yes, I have still got quite a few days to complete quite a few things.

The last week I was busy with the BPO Story. It was really wonderful to talk to a couple of CxOs running some rural BPOs. I talked to the member of management team of Desi Crew - Mr. Ashwanth. He helped a lot with the various questions I had about the working of the BPOs. I also interviewed Mr Prashath, CTO of Sai Sewa Business Solutions Ltd. Let me give you a gist of the talks and a bit research that I did.

I was surprised to know that the total demand of business processing is estimated to be 1 trillion by one of Mckensy reports with a growth of 30% annually. If rural villages become a part of this growth story, it would be a great transformation for the villages. Talking about the rural BPOs, there are three major challenges faced. They are HR related, infrastructure related and business related.

The HR can be subdivided into acquiring and training. HR is a vital part of such services as they are a direct point of contact for the customers. They are the face to the customers in most of the cases unless it is a low skilled job. Both the companies mentioned that for acquiring the HR, they have stringent processes. Once they are acquired, they go through a rigorous training program. But both these sub processes are a big challenge for rural BPOs. The training starts from what to wear and reaches to SEO! But as Mr Prashanth said, the warm up period for rural graduates is quite long. But that may be due to lack educational infrastructure.

The second part is the infrastructure. It is not necessary to have 24x7 connectivity for low level jobs. But 24x7 electricity is definitely required. Moreover, when we talk about business to the clients, they expect us to be complete. We can not argue that just because we are a rural BPO, we cannot deliver as we did not have electricity!

The third aspect is the business. The initial push can be obtained from the networks, but sustainability is the key word. And the client would only come back if timeliness and quality work is delivered. Again we cannot say them - please understand, we are a rural BPO so can deliver only 80% quality!

The interviews also talked about various aspects like affect of BPO Job on coventional jobs. We got a few cases where 1 person is milkman in the morning and agent in the evening! That's interesting now! But the community has been affected a lot - positively. The Sai Sewa has the women to men ration of 6:4. The kids earn more than their parents. They have a white collar job. The economic condition has improved a lot. Moreover the conventional BPO malpractices like graveyard shifts have been avoided.

Thus overall if we see, the BPO would be a good option. But to make it run smoothly, the BPOs should make business sense! Only then they can think of the foreseen transformation.

More Later
SD

Day 67, 68, 69, 70

24,25,26,27 June, 2011

These few days had been great. I had been working on quite a few things. It includes GP website, Rural BPO story and Abhepuri website. We visited Abhepuri on 23rd. We had made the teams. Ashok and the team were quite enthusiastic about the website. But the excitement seems to be dampened as soon as we left the place. I had been following this up with them since last three days but got little response from the team. But thats how work happens here. We need to do a lot of follow up to make things work. The good news is that 2 of them had almost finished their work. Probably would be visiting abhepuri again for the website and one more FGD.

Moreover, I mailed a lot of people from the rural BPO sector. I got a few responses too. I interviewed Mr Ashwanth of DesiCrew management team. He was a wonderful person to talk with. I got a lot of insights from the interview. More interviews inline. Mr Prashant from Sai Seva Solutions is to be interviewed tomorrow.

In these days in addition to the above, I got opportunity to interact with RD Mathur. He is amazing person to talk with. He has an anecdote for every question. That hows how adventurous and amazing life he had. He is almost 85. Till date, he hadnt had a proper salary in his bank account. He started building the MRA centre in 1963 with 1800 Rs in the account. Still, he had never slept empty stomach. He had been guests of the prime ministers and kings of various countries. JRD tata offered him to live in Taj for 6 months with every thing free. On the other hand he has also lived in a shattered roof leaking homes. We talked at length about topics ranging from Anna Hazare to youth of India. I find myself really lucky to be here and meet such dignified personalities. He is and had been instrumental in many changes that have happened in India and abroad. Be it the formation of Meghalaya of independence of Morroco. A fact is that Morroco's flag was brought to MRA centre before hoisting it in that country as they believed that MRA played a big role in getting the independence.

Anyways, the days are getting busier and busier with the end of internship coming closer and closer. and a lot of work to be done yet.

More later.

SD

Day 63, 64,65,66

20, 21, 22, 23 June. 2011

I prepared a schedule. Its like less than a month remaining for the completion of my internship. I now realize how much more do I need to do. The first thing I wanted to do was to get villagers opinion on computers. Based on their opinions, I would do my final recommendations. I started of with preparing for a FGD in Abhepuri. I planned a visit to Abhepuri with two purposes. One was to build a website for them and the other to conduct the Focused Group discussions. Well, the website is just a headfake. The real purpose is to get into the community and know them better. Well, this is the crux of any rural program. You need to know the need of the community. Its not like one size fits all. Every village is different. It is said that in India, the dialect changes every 100 KMS. Well, I have a corollary to it. The village needs and wants change every 100 KMS. Abhepuri is 25 KMS from Panchgani and 37 KMS from Mahabaleshwar. Its been raining cats and dogs in here and Abhepuri is all dry with a few drizzles. And hence due to such biasing of nature, the needs are different. Anyway, coming back to what I had been doing - preparing for FGD. So I prepared for FGD and then yesterday I went to Abhepuri to conduct it.

We reached in the morning. Ashok Mandhre was waiting for us. We first started off with the website. I had a team of 6 young people who were interested in making the website. We started discussing what should be there in the website and how should we approach them. It was finalized that the team would be divided in 3 sub teams. Each team would be responsible for collecting some information on a few of the predecided topics. Then, I started with the FGD. It was a sort of not-so-good FGD. I probably made a lot of mistakes and I probably expected more from the people. But some of the key learning that came from the FGD :

• No introduction about the moderator. This filters out the information.
• Need to do an ice breaker activity which would socialize the participators and make them comfortable.
• Speak less, probe less. Let them speak the most.
• Search for the tapering voices. Encourage them to make their points.
• Don’t make concluding statements. This would give a biased response.
• Make short questions. Once they provide answers in yes or no, then probe to ask the reason. This would make it comfortable in answering.

I am still analysing the responses. Would talk about it soon. I plan to conduct more such FGDs to understand the people better and probably giving them a better solution.

More Later.
SD

Day 62

19th June, Sunday

This was a perfect sunday. woke up late, went to Lucky Bakery in the town for breakfast with Nikhil. Came back and had a game of paddle tennis. Went back to Market with other interns, met a few peoplw from panchgani, had lunch at the centre, went to Dhom Dam with the interns, had wonderful swim there. And then dinner! Wow! A perfect Sunday.

When I went to market with other interns and Suresh Mathew, I met Bonty - A young lady from Panchgani, but basically Gujarati. She is Suresh's friend. She was a ticking bomb. She teaches english to foreign students in panchgani. She says that she has seen panchgani moving from a green hill station to a noisy town. She has a lot of anger in her for this. I think she should use this anger to do something productive instead of cursing. Anyway, her choice, but glad to know that such people are still there in Panchgani who have the fire to save the town.

More later,
SD

Day 60, 61

17^th, 18^th June

Life was bit settled these 2 days. I started to learn piano here. We have a grand piano in the IofC auditorium. Eun Young – a Korean friend is helping out. The atmosphere was also more or less good except a few happy drizzles. And yes, the power cuts. Due to the heavy rain fall yesterday, some electricity tower has fallen and so we are without electricity for a couple of days. This has actually turned out to be a good time to experience the nature and observing our dependencies on the man made power. The day went quite nice with the entire busy schedule – the conference, the paddle tennis match and all. After dinner, it was a total black out here. No computer, no internet, for that matter no light! Our neighbor gave us a candle and a match box. I lit the candle, put it in the candle stand and kept it in front of the mirror to make the room brighter. Nikhil (my roommate) has a radio. He turned on the radio and we listened to the music playing on it. Then we decided to take a walk to enjoy the moon lit sky. It was totally dark but the moon had enough light to show us the way. We went on the way towards Grampari and then diverted towards the table top. This is the first time in my life that I am seeing fireflies. And today I saw them all in their harmony. It seemed like a series of decorative LEDs had been put on the trees. All the LEDs came to life in a moment and the next moment they went off! And it would be one tree at a time. The trees went on and off in a rhythmic pattern. The light effects were supported by the sound effects of the frogs and the insects. I don’t think I would have ever got a chance to be in such an atmosphere if it was not my internship!

Day 59

16^th June

The atmosphere here is awesome and strange. The mornings would be sunny and bright. The noon it would be darker than dusk and it would start raining any time. The wind is confused which direction it has to go and keeps fighting with the trees as if trees are not allowing them to blow. Rain in bright sun is a normal scene here. Today was such day. It was bright in the morning. Grampari team was moving to Pune for a couple of days. I was kind of incharge for the place. All of a sudden a lot of black, dark and heavy clouds covered the sky. It didn’t follow the normal procedure of starting with a drizzle and moving towards heavier side. It jus t started! It was raining cats and dogs, sorry horses and tigers(This was the best analogy I could find in the larger size). I had to reach Grampari by 2 PM as a part of daily routine. I reached and opened the doors of the lab and what I saw was a keyboard and a mouse totally wet because of a whole in the roof of the lab. Ya – in the roof! I had to start rescue operation at warfront as the rains were getting heavier by the minute. I first of all disconnected the electric connections, took the drenched keyboard and mouse and wiped them with cloth. Then I tried finding the plastic covers of the monitors. I covered all the monitors, removed all the key boards, mice and other peripherals and packed them in a cupboard and moved all the CPU cabinets under the table. I ran to the Grampari workshop to see if any large plastic sheet is available. I ran up to the centre as I would not find any plastic sheets. I reported the condition to the admin dept and asked them for some large plastic sheet and if they could help with repairing the roof. They said they would get a large sheet in some time. I went back to Grampari and just as I reached there, opened the door and closed my umbrella, the rains stopped abruptly and sun came out laughing at me. I lost – that’s what the sun wanted to say in that laughter. It is strange – the atmosphere of Panchgani. The changes are more often than my mood swings!

Day 57 58

14 and 15th June

Grampari has a program called Livelihoods. Sewing, knitting, self help womens groups, solar lantern making, mobile repairing and computer classes are part of it. Recently some one from Grampari had to leave the organization and Dange - the person who mostly handles the livelihoods had to go to his home. So I got the responsibility of handling the campus for a few days.

The campus is amazing! MRA centre is like the grown fatherly figure standing tall at the foot hills of table land who has seen the ups and downs of life and who knows the world. Grampari is the kid growing in the lap of nature, not worrying about what is happening with the world, struggling with its own small problems, laughing and crying with mother nature. The weather makes the campus nearer to the nature.

The Campus holds the livelihood programs and the workshops conducted by Grampari. the first day was really challenging as I had 5 bunches of leys with me and did not know which key is for what lock! Moreover, I first time sat with the computer classes students in their class. the class had been running since 15 days. But I was surprised to know that they are not even aware of the parts of computer. The lab was not in a good shape. The wires wondering on the floor as if they were on a picnic at this place! the anti-viruses were removed from all the PCs. The server firewall was turned off and the support person replied that I don't need to look into that(a nice way of saying - mind your own business. Probably he didnt know that that exactly was my business :P ). All things combined with inability to complete the planned tasks for the day - Thats how the two days went. I have asked Tamim and Sefat to help me with putting things into order.

But I learnt one thing - Learning by doing is the best way of learning.

Day 55-56

12th, 13th June

'Discussions are exchange of knowledge and arguments are exchange of ignorance'. This is one statement which is some one said in the quite sessions that happened recently. There are some people who would not at all understand your point of view. This statement seems very true when we talk about them. Anyway, coming back to the point which I have not yet started. Focused Group discussions - a technique used to get opinions and conduct survey. My project here would I think require FGDs to take place. This is because I do not have resources to conduct big surveys and the secondary data available is not enough. So I am planning to start with FGDs with various communities. Moreover Ineed to start talking to people who have already implemented the rural Kiosks. More Later.

-SD

Day 54

11th June, 2011

A saturday, but a boring one. Still the infection in my throat is not clear - Antibiotics are taking their own time. This reminds me of a conversation with Mr RD Mathur in MRA. He is associated with MRA since it was born in India. We were discussing about the current affairs and related topics. He was sharing his experience of his recent dinner with Chinese ambassador in Delhi. He said a sentence which banged in my head. The infection spreads rapidly in a wound. Today India is being attacked from various fronts in one or the other form by one or the other known or unknown agency to dampen one or the other factor or parameter of prosperity in India. This is not possible unless one or the other internal organ of the body called 'India' is wounded. The wounds which I am referring here are not the external ones, but the internal ones which are extremely hard to heal, though not impossible. The stories I hear here at MRA are the proof of the fact that healing IS possible. Switching to my throat, the bacterial infection in there is result of a wound - not to be sentimental, it was an external wound due to a lot of shouting and lot of cold water and ice creams. And it is still not clear even after a full course of antibiotics! An infected throat, the rains, the wet atmosphere and the hell lot of work load - a perfect combination for a boring day. But then the interns came up with a plan of watching movie. Movie called My Name is Khan. I had watched it 2 times already and I was not at all in a mood to watch SRK pretending to be an abnormal human with asphurgur's syndrome and wieredly telling people around that his name is Khan and he is not a terrorist and yes - Kkkhan from the epiglottis! But then I didnt have any option as a lot of them wanted to watch it and I had to give up! The movie started after dinner. Well, I must admit that it was different this time.

It was different. The audience was different. The atmosphere was different. The reactions were different and the observation was different. I was sitting with the interns. 2 of them muslims from Afghanistan, 1 from Uganda and 1 from Korea. Last time when I watched the movie, I had people around me with similar line of thoughts. But this time, the minds were from various parts thinking in way different manner than what we do. After the movie, we went to my room and had a healthy discussion about the present situation of moslims and the Hindu muslim relations in India.

I was glad to know that the 2 Afghanis knew Islam way better than the self proclaimed leaders of Islam all over the world. The word Jehad is a highly misunderstood word. It is said in quran somewhere that Jehad is to be done against the unjust. Which is very similar to what Krishna said in Geeta to Arjun - Fight for the justice. People have started generalizing Islam with terrorism and thanks to the media for helping that happen. They always say that Most of the terrorists that are caught follow Islam. Hence lets declare Islam as a cruel and violent religion. If we look at the numbers then people killed by Hitler and Mussolini during their reigns is far more than total of all the terrorist attacks in the world. And they were christians. Then why not declare christianity to be a violent religion! It is clearly mentioned in Quran that killing of an innocent is killing of humanity. The point that I want to make is that its not the religion that is bad, its the people. One more fact that I would mention here is that most of the muslim terrorists that are caught are Pakistanis. Make your own judgement now. Moreover as RD Mathur rightly said - Infection spreads more rapidly in the wounds. We need to see the wounds and try to cure them up. Only then this infection (read terrorism) can be stopped.

Thanks Tamim Alam for this wonderful eye opening discussion.

-SD

Day 53

Recently, there had been some 15 people roaming around the campus of MRA with some heavy electronic equipments on their back. Looked like some cameras and lights and things like that. That was a film production crew. Yes there was some shooting going on here.It was for a documentary being made on MRA-IofC. The guys kept interviewing a hell lot of people around. Some footage was taken for me too. But what made me happy was this person called Nikhil. He is my room mate and is doing his interns here at MRA. He is a mass communication student from symbiosis and the happiest person in that crew. He said that people in his college would die to get a chance to work in a film production crew. I understand how it feels when you get a chance to work on something you really look forward to. He is an amazing person, at least the coolest among the people here. We go along good together. Coming back to the film being produced here, the documentary is meant to cover various aspects of MRA - the history, the present and the future. They are also making a documentary on Grampari. I was interviewed in that regard. It was a nice experience. Almost 10 people are standing behind the camera and you are asked to talk, not to those folks, but to the camera! that s a tough job - atleast for person like me who is more of a social animal! How can u talk to a non living thing. But on the other hand, its that non living thing that gives life to many living things. I heard someone saying this at MRA - The world looks more beautiful through the camera! Anyways, More to come later.

-SD

Day 40 - 52

May 28 to 9th June

This is a long period. I mean 12 days! Well, for me though, it went as if 12 hours. It was hectic... quite hectic. There was a series of events that transpired through these days. A presentation, preparation for the Grampari kids’ camp, the kids’ camp, a post event meeting, me getting sick, a youth camp at MRA and me recovering from the sickness. Let me review them all one by one.

The Presentation.

This was a presentation about the rural resource centre and kiosks. I studied a lot of research papers on the rural kiosks. Some were on understanding the implementation part. Some were on the post implementation part. And some were on the social aspect of it. But a lot of reading happened. I came to know about lot of projects going on in this area like the akshaya project in Kerala, Gyandoot on MP, nlogue in the private sector and a few more. Most of them were on a larger scale like on a district level and state governments being involved in it and a lot of funding happening for them. What I wanted is the kiosk on a lower scale. Well that’s what Grampari is planning to work on. It is not a full-fledged organization of that scale yet where it can do projects of this big volume. So basically I am looking towards having one kiosk on a pilot basis and observe how it goes. I would be uploading a separate post on the topic soon.

Next was the Kids camp. This camp was of 3 days. We expected 50 kids of age 8 to 12. Jayashree aunty asked us, the interns to make a program which turns out not only enjoyable for them but also which can imbibe the core values of IofC in their hearts. We discussed for almost 2 days and came up with a program. The program had wonderful sessions of IofC, games, environment and movies. The kids were supposed to come at 10, start their registration and the program was supposed to start at 12. The day arrived. I reached Grampari at 9. I see 20 kids already there roaming in Grampari. The registration started. Some of us went in the hall to arrange audio and video. We come out after 30 mins and see 40 kids at the registration desk. I was like – They have become punctual! We started with some games and ice breakers to keep the rest of kids engaged while some were still registering. In a matter of 20 mins, the registration desk was over crowded. At 12 noon, we had 72 kids already in and still the 25 kids who confirmed their presence were yet to arrive. At 1 PM they arrived and we had around 90 kids in the campus, with the preparation of only 50! We all went crazy. And on top of it, it started raining on day 2 which did not stop till day 3. But then we managed it nicely! Even this deserves a separate post. J

Since the last day of the camp, my throat was all dead. It is seven days now and am still suffering from throat infection. The throat infection was the result of all the shouting in the camp plus three days being drenched in the rain + a lot of sweet dishes! Just yesterday I went to see the doc. He gave some meds and now it seems to be better, otherwise all night I keep on coughing, disturbing not only my sleep, but also that of my room mate’s.

Moreover, there was a youth camp going on in the MRA. There were some 150 young folks coming from all over the country. They had very strong discipline during the program. The program coordinator, Mr Viral Mujumdar, was very strict about it. Of course he has to be or else these young kids won’t listen him.

Last few days I am not doing much. More on rest. The whole night I would be coughing and the rest of the day, eating and sleeping. Its almost 4 days not doing much work. More over its raining cats and dogs these days in Panchgani. I am fed up of coughing.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and some sickness these days. Posting it was pending since quite long. I would write on the kids camp soon. Till then Ciao!

-SD

Sorry

Got a lot of stuff on my plate right now... Am sorry for not posting! I know very few people care about my posts :P but its a sorry for my commitment and my few readers :)

Day 39

27th May, 2011

The day started with a session from Suresh Khatri, an amazing session about how to use the quiet time and how to divide the time and make mind concentrate on some things that are useful. It was really a nice session. Next session was by Commercial tax commissioner of Karnataka. He talked about how to reduce corruption and how he has implemented projects in his departments to reduce corruption. The facility of e-sugam in Karnataka was started by him. He also shared some cases on which he is working presently. One of them being the tax evasion by the multiplexes. I was able to connect to the e-sugam part because I had worked on a similar project in TCS.

The solutions he came up with were quite amazing. It was a paradigm shift in doing things. Talking about the e-sugam project, normally at the checkposts, the documents would be brought by the truck drivers and they were entered manually in the computers. That took a lot of time and was vulnerable to errors. What he did was - Enter the documents before coming to the check post on the E-sugam site. Get a unique number and come to check post. The check post would just verify the number and let you go! Less efforts, more accuracy and less paper work.

Thats what I call think out of the box!

-SD

Day 36, 37, 38

24^th , 25^th and 26^th May, 2011

Tata – a brand associated with almost every business. They make everything from watches to salt to cars and software. Come on! Who doesn’t know them! I mention the name of Tatas here because since last three days I have been meeting Mr Russi M Lala – a well known non-fiction author who had known the Tatas quite well. He has written a lot of books on the Tatas; The creation of wealth, the heartbeat of a trust and beyond the last blue mountain – to name a few. I first time met him in the MRA center. The interns here had a special session with him. He was happy to see the young people getting into the idea of MRA. At the first look, he is an old man of 82 years with shivering limbs who can hardly walk with the use of his walker. But when he speaks, he gets a new wave of energy in every new thread of thoughts he starts. His sentences are full of knowledge and each word he speaks carries the load of the experience he has gathered during these 82 years. Probably that might be the reason of his looks. The way he explains things is amazing. The voice modulation with the modulating emotions seems quite natural in his speech. Well, you can understand if one can do wonders with his pen, what if that pen starts speaking!

Suresh uncle gave me a recording of RM Lala’s lecture on ‘The role of purpose in Life’. I broke it into 6 parts and uploaded them on youtube. Suresh uncle asked me to show to Mr Lala, what exactly have I done. So I brought my lappy and after lunch I showed him his videos on youtube. Well, it was a small job for me but I was astonished to see the pleasure on Mr Lala's face when he saw himself being published on net. He asked me to come for lunch the next day to Pune. He was going to have lunch with Mr Chetan Tolia, the director of Tata Management Training Center, Pune. I really find myself privileged to have lunch with such dignitaries. They both had some stories and anecdotes to share about their experiences with Tatas. Mr Lala shared a story about how JRD cared about people. I have read many such stories about JRD. But this was the first time I was listening it from some one who has been WITH JRD when things happened! It was as if everything turned live. He insisted me on going to Tata Archives and have a look at the exhibition about the Tatas. It is one place to visit in a life time. When rest of the population in India was struggling for the political freedom, this family was preparing for India’s economic liberalization. From India’s aviation industry to automobile, from steel to software – they have pioneered many such industries. And in this exhibition there were bits and pieces of those moments. Its like visiting the Gandhi Ashram. I am thankful to Mr Lala who insisted me on going there. Otherwise I was in a plan to skip it.

All in all, I had wonderful time with the man called Russi Lala. Some of the most precious moments that I would carry back would be from these 3 days.

-SD

P.S. The Video Link - Role of purpose in life; RM Lala's website

Day 35

23^rd May, 2011

We visited Abhepuri today to attend the Grampanchayat meeting and then discuss things about the present and future projects. The discussion was more about a plantation program. The objective of the Panchayat was not to plant trees, but to get the monitory grants from government. The plan was to plant about 100 saplings. For that they needed 100 pits. This was a huge task. We suggested about Shramdaan, but the villagers were more keen on getting the JCB machines to dig the pits. They did not even plan for the maintenance. So it became very clear that their objective is not plantation, but the grant. During the discussion we met a person called Sachin. He was an electrician by profession and worked in Pune. He was a person full of energy. I was astonished to learn that the whole village was under debt of 60 millions. The village was facing water scarcity program and did not have more than one crop in a year. So they were in no condition to pay it back. And Sachin even feared that the banks might keep their lands on auction in future if they were not able to pay them back.

How come the whole village was in debt! That should be the next question. There was a scheme. A scheme to get water from the dam. I really don’t understand what happened and how the villagers were convinced, but all the villagers took debts from various banks. The scheme failed. The maintenance cost went too high. Moreover, no one was ready to take ownership. And so they did not attain the breakeven and finally in debt they are of 60 millions.

Sachin had a plan in mind. He had been studying some documents and maps. He had the map of the pipes and pumps in place. He had a plan in mind of how the village can be connected with the water in the dam. But then I don’t know why, the authorities did not seem to be convinced by it. Rather probably they did not want to get convinced. What ever the case may be, but there seemed a divide between the sarpanch and sachin. We went to the places around with Sachin. He showed us the pumps and wells. Jared said that if this system works out, most of the water problems of Abhepuri might get over. Lets see whats next.

-SD

Day 33, 34

21^st, 22^nd May, 2011, Saturday – Sunday

This weekend was fun. Saturday the interns planned to visit Pune. The Koreans wanted some authentic Korean food and rest all wanted to go for shopping. We started in the morning after tea and reached Pune by 10 30. The shops were still in the sleeping state. So went to one of the malls nearby. The lunch was planned at Café Maroo – a Korean restaurant. Koreans went crazy looking at the restaurant and the menu. Most of the items were non-veg, but they ordered something veg for me. It was a good experience having ‘Kimchi’ – a cabbage salad with a lot of red pepper and ‘Bibbibab’- very similar to mix veg pulao. But then it is always nice to experience something new. And in addition, having the sight of Korean girls eating religiously, I am happy for them. The rest of the day went in shopping! Amazing day.

The Sunday went lazy. Did not do much. Just lazed around, talked to people, cleaned the room and read a book.

More to come later

-SD

Day 31

19th May, 2011

Learning comes at very later part of the life - these are the words of Mr Vartak, the secretary of the MRA trust. Yesterday i had a chance to listen to the life story of Mr and Mrs Vartak. They are a very jovial couple. The turning and the learning points of their lives have really made an impact on my mind. This happens at the MRA center once in a week. Some or the other has to share their life story. This helps others in understanding the person better. So, that was it. These days I spend more time in the office. That too more on the internet searching for some or the other article or white paper written on anything related to rural villages and information and communication technology. I really wonder how the researchers can do this amount of research! Its really boring job. You have to first go through a hell lot of things that some other people have worked upon so that you do not re invent the wheel. It is not only going through, but you also need to understand what they have written all about! And trust me, its tough to read them. All the geeky and jargon-y language! I don't think I can do that. And I am kind of person who believes in getting some thing tangible, something that can be felt and touched, something that shows out put quickly. Lack of patience - I call it. But then yes, the research and the papers too are important. They create a base for what tangible output we can get from a system. Anyway. These days even Disha is taking up a form. Disha is a MRA or IofC Magazine published quarterly. The next Disha is dedicated to Grampari. And probably I would have an article or two in that. Lets see how it goes!

-SD