WEEK 1 – Days 1 to 9

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WEEK 1 – Days 1 to 9 – September 3^rd – September 12^th.

Hushhhhhh... Thus it started! It started drizzling with the proper/formal introduction about the programme by Madhukar, Shalabh & Yasmin. Almost the entire ICICI Foundation & iVolunteer team was present on the day. We received details about the structure of the programme, briefing about the schedule & a laptop bag. I was in a team that had to make the first presentation on “Livelihood”, prior to Crispino Lobo's session on Livelihood. The drizzle slowly started picking up mass & it started to rain. Lobo is a man of simplicity. He started the journey for us by making us ask ourselves if we wanted to take the journey or not. He made us think and we were beginning to think. He watered our thoughts in the same way as his organisation WOTR watered a huge part of Maharashtra & other states.

With not going into the details & specifics about each session I would like go ahead with the flow of the rain. We had sessions on Gender & power, Development & development perspectives. Then we went to MAGIC BUS, Karjat. Karjat is on the way to Mumbai & it took almost an hour to reach the place from our VALLERINA! It was always raining in Magic Bus! We got wet, we got hurt, & we learnt a lot, moreover we gelled together as a team. We were made to carry barrels, climb walls, climb insanely large ladders with increasing distances between the steps, finish hard courses of obstacles, build catapults, place flag masts within an area without even going anywhere near the area and all the insane stuffs like that. On the whole we used both our brains & brawns in those two days. Our bonds became stronger. We came to Khandala as people with similar minds & the magic bus made us as people with similar hearts. We had learnt that even when there is no conflict or competition, humans tend to treat themselves as competitors & start to fight over resources, opportunities or results. We understood the team better & learnt many lessons on team building, team management & importance of team. The highlight of the whole journey, for me, was the moment when Ashesh rejoiced my successful completion of a course in an activity called “LOW ROPES”. I actually saw the genuineness of the happiness in his face. He hugged me happily (For all you silly minds like Romila & Akanksha who gets into imaginations, of Ashesh & me in a relationship like Willie & Shivam, it was a MAN HUG. PERIOD)

After the Magic Bus, we found ourselves more happy & SUSEGAATH. We loved each others company and we started looking at & looking after each other as family. Although our bonds were just 5 days old, we felt as if we had been together for a long time now. Then it was Mr.Prayaag Joshi who spoke about his corporate life, his disgust for the same, the school “Imlee Mahuaa” that he passionately started in the Bastar region of Chattisgarh & his own dilemmas in doing so. He gave a different perspective about the “DEVELOPMENT” & “EDUCATION”. The same day we had a session about the JAMKHED MODEL by Ravi Arole of CRHP, who explained about the health system in India & how the CRHP impacted on the same. After this we got a welcome relief in the form of screening of Well done Abba! Our understanding about the rural administrative systems was greatly widened by Mr.Amod Khanna of TAAL. He was all energy & he shared a lot with us. It was Namrata Tanna of iVolunteer, who came to introduce us to skills & ethics of photography. We all got new a Panasonic LUMIX DC Vario! The point & shoot is not a great camera in the language of the pros BUT for a beginner like me, who direly wanted a camera, it was a boon! This is my first photo in the camera.

View of the hill from my training hall.

The next three days were the beginning of the all interactive & active sessions about PRA. Participatory Rural Appraisal. Srijan Nanda made the sessions interactive & informative. He played volley ball with us & we all enjoyed. To be frank had Srijan been a little taller he would have been like my brother Ramkumar. He had the same pony tail, one of the many beards that my brother sports. In between we had the session of Mr.Utpal Isser, a banker(I hate bankers) from ICICI bank. He strengthened my distaste for bankers. In my views they are cold, rigid & opportunist in nature. Banks lend money only to those who have money, educational loans to students who excel in studies, in avenues where there are previous successes. Anyway, he came to speak about Microfinance & issues relating to microfinance. He did that with a bang. RESPECT. I would have liked a more subtle way which wouldn't have threatened the poor old Shivam! (Anyway RESPECT for you too bro., for bravely standing there like a teddy bear!). Apart from that, we did the PRA for our (native) villages & interestingly all the three (groups) villages were from the south India, 2 from Thamizh Nadu & 1 from Kerala. The group seriously lacked people with prior village exposure & experience. By the end of the three days we were able to (sort of) conduct PRA exercises. We all were all excited about the rural immersion. After the briefing and the usual codes , guidelines, rules, blah blah we all were ready to go out & see the VILLAGE. I was literally on cloud 9, when I realised that my village was the highest in the Karjat. It is called Mahad Bhavan. My team in the village consisted of Ashwini, Adarsh, Romila & myself. Of which Ashwini & Romila (Caney) stayed in the home of Kusum Thaai where as Adarsh & I stayed in the home of Kamali Thaai. We all took a photograph before leaving to the village.

I am the PHOTOGRAPHER!

September 12^th was the birthday of Ankit, my room mate, my city guy & a good friend. So at 00:00 we literally bumped into the (our) room & kidnapped him out of his usual 2 hour long conversation with his girl. We all assembled in Adarsh's room, which was right next to our room & we gave the birthday boy his dose of cakes, surprises, songs & beatings. It was one hell of a night! :-)

Photo within a photo is my speciality!

 SLEEEEEEEEP!

WEEK T-1 August 31st to September 2nd

It was 12:00 hours on the last day of the August, 2012 & the train #11042 Mumbai Express started from Chennai Central (MAS). I would like  to mention about the last moment glitch that I made around 10:30 hours, when I came to notice the mail from the ivolunteer stating that my expected date of arrival was on 2^nd of September and not on the 1^st. I had already changed my previous schedule of the journey, according to which I should have started from Chennai on 28^th & reached Mumbai on 30^th. I had previously thought of spending a couple of days in my friend Harry's place but due to the other reasons I had cancelled the ticket that was booked by Nivethan. As soon as I saw the mail, I thought of changing my departure date to September 1^st but I was unable to find the ticket on the next day. So, I started from Chennai without the passport size photos, medical certificate & some other provisions that I wanted. As far as the send off was concerned, THEY were sentimental & they broke to tears. I was pretty much unfazed by the beginning of the journey. I knew that I MAY not see them or for that matter the whole of South India itself, for the next 15 months. I wouldn't say that I was prepared for it but I was expecting it. (Being prepared for the future is different from knowing what the future is. Although I know what the future is, I didn't know how the future will be or what all may happen, so in a way I was open to the incidents that may/will occur in the future.) To just give an example of my unpreparedness for the future, All the projects of the fellowship were in North India that too mostly in the Hindi speaking belt. Even though I kind of learnt Hindi from class I to VIII, I had no prior experience of speaking in Hindi. Anyway as soon as the train started from Chennai, a wise old man became a friend of me & he shared a lot of his experiences, foods & “GYAAN” over the rest of the journey. Incidentally, he, Mr.Dharmaraj, a chemical engineer & now a man of 70-75 was also going to Pune to join with his son's family for a week. I was picked in the Pune railway station by Mr.Mohammed Ali, a friend of my mother's friend. He gave me the accommodation & the food for the day. In the evening I met up with my M.B.A. classmate & friend Girish, on whose suggestion I applied for the ICICI fellowship.

The next day I woke up got ready & went to the Pune railway station for my pick up. Apart from Girish,  I met Shivam, Yashaswini & Ankit with whom I attended the assessment day. The journey from Pune to Khandala was great and the landscape slowly changed into a serene new world filled with lush green meadows and pure white streams. When I reached Khandala I was welcomed with a cool and rosy drizzle. As soon as I reached the HOTEL VALLERINA, I knew that I am going to have the time of my life in one way or the other. Then I met Adarsh, Ashwini, Akanksha, Romila,  Khalid & Rohan. We all had lunch together and that was an elaborate lunch & it was a king's meal! In the evening we played a game of bluff, had food & spoke for sometime so that we could understand a little about others. All of us were full of excitement & we were eager to start our journey of 456 days of monsoon. We didn't know what the days ahead would make of us or what we would make of the days ahead of us but we were sure of one thing, the monsoon ahead would feed us with a lot of rain for our thought & growth. The clouds were dark & it was all set for a heavy rain!