Transfiguration
Something which started at my one week stay at Auroville (or probably germinated years before that when I was a student in one of nondescript schools of Jharkhand) got me to think again and forced me to act on that while I stayed for a week in my hometown in Bihar. The zillion swirling questions which were subdued by a number of personal and professional decisions suddenly became potent and got their fangs back. They demanded a transfiguration, yes transfiguration of the very core.
There were a few instances when I came very close to renunciation of everything and moving on, but that seemed more of an evasive action or escapism. But, thanks to the the strands of warrior’s ingrained in my DNA.. sanity prevailed, I retracted and did not resort to escapism. Now, this time I need to equip myself to take things head on. Redefine priorities, assess the resources and move on. Both on personal as well as on professional front, though more on personal front. For some friends, this is going to be a welcome change, for others..not the same shit again. And yes, this is a personal post on this blog after a long long time. I am back again to think aloud on this blog. Kick some ass and get some nasty comments.
Calling 911
A few weeks ago I had my maiden US Trip, thanks to some professional requirement and generosity of my supervisor (need to mention this.. he reads this blog) and it could have not been more eventful. And nothing was crazier than losing your passport in a cab in Washington DC. Yup, I left my bag in a cab and walked out to collect my luggage from the back of car and walked into the hotel we were supposed to check in. A few minutes later, at the reception of counter I looked at the laptop carrypack on the back of my colleague…Damn.. I had something similar to that. I ran outside hotel as if the hotel is going to be bombed in a few moments. The guard at the revolving door was completely at sea, why this man is running.. and I never cursed the hotel security arrangements and revolving gates so much in my life.. it consumed almost a minute .. somehow I came out of the hotel and rushed to the sport where I had left the cab. And, as I expected there was no sign of the cab. I was on a foreign land without a passport and … did I mention the passport was in bag which also had my lovely MacBook, an external hard drive with all my backups… Craziness creeps in.. no storms in.
I rushed to the hotel reception counter and told him what had happened.
“I am afraid I cannot be of much help. All I can do is to let you check in and you can contact police.” The guy at the counter blabbered something like this. My mind had completely stopped registering things which were not relevant.
“Can you give me the number?”
“hmm.. let me check, for emergency we call 911 but I don’t think they take such kind of complaints.. I ll check and give you the police number.”
WTF.. is this not an emergency? I cursed him, cursed my self, cursed everyone I can. I even cursed the system of having passports to travel. It was 11 pm. I thought for a while and called my colleague, a US citizen and our contact there. I woke him up from sleep to give this wonderful news. He must be cursing me but I was hoping him to provide me some help.. What kind of help.. even I was not sure.
“Do you know the cab company?”
“No.”
“What was the color of the cab?”
“Did not notice. But I know the driver’s name. His name is Rashid and he is an asian.”
“Dude.. there are 100 of drivers with such name and how you are going to find him. I think you should try yellow pages and call cab company and enquire.”
I rushed in my hotel room, looked for yellow pages and believe me.. I was so blank that I was not sure where I should look for cab companies in yellow book. I left that there and called 911. This is an emergency. I do not want to run spend all my day at Indian Consulate at Washington and try to get an alternative.
Somebody picked the phone. I think a lady. A thick american native accent replied “Ambulance, Fire or Police”.
“Police”
“Wait for a while I am connecting you.” In a few moments a different voice asked ” How may I help you.”
“I have lost my bag in a cab and I do not know how to track the taxi company. All I know is the name of the cab driver.”
“Sir, this is not the number for this purpose. You need to call another number.”
“Listen, this is the only number I know. I am new to this place and that bag contains my passport.”
“But this is not the numebr for that purpose. I am giving you another number. But it is very difficult to find the driver this way.”
“What? Dont you guys have a database of drivers and I think you issue driving licecnse after recording all the details. It will take a few moments to search the database.” The computer geek suddenly woke up in me.
“here is the number of cab commissoner and we have registered your call and somebody will contact you on this numnber.”
I snapped the phone after noting the number. I looked at the yellow pages. Struggled my way to Cab section. Wow. There is only one cab company with Islamic name. Here I go. I called the cab company and right away bluffed.
” Hey I need to talk to your cab company driver Rashid. Can you connect me to him?”
“Sorry sir, right now he is out and you can talk to him only in morning”
Bang on target. So somebody named Rashid works here. I called him again. And announced a reward for the driver. Some sigh of relief. But the bag has a MacBook and some other stuff. Why the hell that guy will return? He can easily sell the stfuff and get more than what /i can give him. But I knew once I have tracked him, I ll get my passport.
Suddenly the hotel room’s telephone rang.
“Sir, this is your cab driver. I was trying to reach you on your hotel phone, and even tried you number given in business card in your bag, but it was not working. I have your bag, will be there in 30 minutes.”
I got my stuff back. 
I could not thank more to that Bangladeshi driver. Honesty is not completely out of fashion yet.
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Economic Environment Index
Last week we launched our Economic Environment Index (earlier it was called Economic Governance Index) and like any other index it got its fair (okey more than fair share of criticism and controversy). You can check the ranking and details on www.economicgovernance.com.
Economic Environment Index, being first of its kind ranking of districts, got a lot of media coverage and the pre launch coverage in TOI created a lot of unwarranted controversy, though it got us on the front page of Times of India. This index was primarily aimed at capturing variation within the state and focus attention on the gaps and it incorporates data from both the households and the business units.
Here are some of the links to get more on the Index.
Back to books
Finally after all the madness in las few weeks I am relaxed and completely free from any professional commitment for a week. It really feels good to be free to decide what you want to do next .. read books, listen to music or just gaze at the numerous objects in front of my eyes and get lost in thoughts.
Though the primary reason to take a week off and to be at home, is to take some rest and read some of the many unfinished books I have on my desk. Yes, I just want to read and read. There are many books which are half read, some I just started and did not get time to go back after the first couple of hours.
I have seen just one movie in last 3-4 months and the one I saw was ‘The Public Enemy’. I could not manage to get time for day or evening shows so I went for late night show. After all it was Johnny Depp and Christian Bale movie, unfortunately the movie turned out to be a disappointment. I had a lot of expectations from a Johnny Depp movie and it never reached to that level. So with diminishing interest in movies and not much time available at my hand, I am back to my first love reading books.
3-4 months back I had decided to read some of the best Hindi works and I picked up Raag Darbaari by Sri Lal Shukla, an amazing thought-provoking book filled with chuckle inducing humor. I wan to finish this first and then go on to finish The Rebel by Camus. Recently I have been reading some hindi poems thanks to online hindi websites which are doing a great job in promoting great hindi works. I remember just 2-3 years back, while I had a lot of resources to read English Classics, there were absolute no websites which provided similar content for lovers of Hindi Literature. For poems, now we have quite a number of websites which one can access, if you have not been to them and are interested in hindi literature you can check the following:
http://manaskriti.com/kaavyaalaya/
http://hindipoetry.wordpress.com/
Just explore the bloglinks given on these sites, there are some great blogs and sites listed there.
Birthday, Bihar Trip, Books and Deadlines
A blog post after almost two months does not indicate my diminishing passion for blogging but highlights the hectic professional life I had in last 2-3 months. A marathon writing session, boring sessions of number crunching and perusing some serious statistical concepts.. These things took so much control of my free time that I did not even manage a ‘happy birthday post’ on my birthday. Yes, I celebrated my birthday last month and this was my first birthday as a minimalist and guess what.. I had to treat my friends in a five star hotel 
In between I had an eventful trip to my home state Bihar. Spent almost 48 hours in car and travelled more than 900 kms. I was accompanied by an intern, a british girl of Indian origin who was having her first trip to Bihar. Bihar was facing a drought like situation when I started for Bihar but the rain welcomed us as soon as we moved out of Patna and it poured heavily for next two days. The result: we were driving on water clogged Bihar roads, and it was a tough task for the driver to negotiate the water filled potholes suddenly appearing under the wheels. Fortunately the new Bihar government has made tremendous change to road conditions in Bihar and we could still manage to reach our destination. Though it was itneresting the see expression on my co-traveller’s face while the driver negotiated the rough weather and bumpy roads. The highlight of the trip was our car breaking down around 11 pm on a deserted road and rain pouring down heavily. Imagine someone having the first trip to the ‘notorious’ Bihar and being in this situation. I must say that my co-traveller was really a courageous girl to take that trip considering the image she construed from the different books and media clips.
Meanwhile I finished the second book in Millenium trilogy ( a best-selling series translated from Swedish), The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson. I must say Lisbeth Salander rocks. She is the most intriguing, sensuous and engrossing charachter I have came across in recent times.
Looking back.. 5 years back
Being a researcher has its own pros and cons but the opportunity this profession provides to learn new things is big enough incentive to be a researcher. The last six months period has been a blur considering the events, fieldwork, report writing and fighting deadlines of several other things in between. When I walked into IIFM for my post graduate diploma I never thought being researcher as one of the possible career options. But again someone wisely stated that the most of the career paths are never planned. And that happened to me as well.
If you are wondering why I am getting nostalgic and IIFM-sick, there are a couple of reasons, a) exactly five years back I landed up at IIFM, so five years of being an IIFMight. b) last few days, I have been heavily referring to books on SPSS, statistics and quantitative research, something which dominated the first two terms at IIFM. It reminded me of my first two terms at IIFM, those two terms would be surely be remembered by most for Levin and Rubin/Sweeney and Anderson and late night prowls for the elusive fellow students who could throw some light on quants assignments to be submitted next morning. Now, when I go back to those books or SPSS/SAS, some memories of those days do stretch their limbs and try to push me in a reverie.
Oh..again now you realize how a mention of IIFM is always accompanied by some memories, I started with talks of being a researcher and spent almost two paragraphs talking about IIFM. Though this time it was not too off target, as fortunately or unfortunately I am working for a sector which uses the same set of jargons, tools and techniques, and my research skills owe a lot to the exposure at IIFM. Now, with a lot of focus being shifted on Base of Pyramid markets, the unique course curriculum (sometime we wondered what is the use of topics such as tribal culture, forest produce etc.. if I am going to work for a bank or consultancy) would become more useful. Oh.. it seems I am writing a sales pitch for IIFM and I don’t think I need to.
On another note, my blog became five year old last week. …..
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Confessions of a ‘brand slave’
A few months back a colleague of mine termed me as a ‘brand slave’ and I just laughed it off as I did not see any truth in it. Just possessing a few ‘decent’ shirts and some gizmos does not make someone a brand slave. But his remarks made me think for a while and there were some specks of truth here and there.
Some introspection, retrospection and inspection of credit card bills confirmed that I might not be brand slave but I share many common characteristics. Recently I have been shopping like a maniac and shopping from the big brands..paying some extravagant amounts for things which could have easily been acquired at half the prices. Though this has more to do with my laziness and propensity to visit only a few locations (read shopping malls in Chennai) on weekends and most of the things catching my fancy there (hmmm .. do not get me wrong most of the time I am looking for things I really need .. no clean clothes.. presentation in morning hours.. no option other than buying some new clothes..) were having tags from big names. I cannot recall how many times I wanted to buy just a book but ended up buying which I never intended.
So what now… the last two months I have completely curbed by desire to shop (though the I had already made up my mind to get MacBook for my personal use so I am not counting that … anyway a Mac is a necessity considering the terrible to Windows Vista) and realized I am far better off this way. It is not long enough to conclude anything, but I realized that I never wanted to go for brands, it was just that whenever I decided to buy something I was at places which were dominated by big brands. Probably if I had lower priced alternative that prominently registering their presence I would have gone for that. Moreover I realized that I am in bad habit of not looking at price if something caught my fancy.. thanks to ICIC Bank and their pestering tele-callers who pushed three credit cards in my pocket. I don’t want to tell you how I felt when I used to get the credit cards bills. But thankfully things are under control.
On other front, I am halfway through two books and hope to finish them once I get some breather from these couple of hectic work weeks. Both the books are quite interesting.. hope to write about them in details once I finish them..
- “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” by Murakami, and
- “Kill Your Friends” by John Niven
Ranchi Trip
Last month, I visited Ranchi for a couple of days almost after
the water tank on hilltop
23 years. I was so excited to visit that place, to see my school and go to those places which were slowly getting eroded from my memory. But the menace of ‘Naxalism’ completely ruined my enthusiasm. We could not go to remote villages and surely not in a ‘car or jeep’ as they generated extra attention, and one local naxalite expert told me that in election time Naxals do not think before bashing up any outside face. Their policy.. first bash them up.. we will see the other issues later.
Though Ranchi city seemed quite peaceful, I ventured out on bike to find my childhood school and all I knew about that school was that there used to be a small hillock near the school and at top of that hillock there was a water tank. I called my mother to get more info, she told that the school was near a Hanuman temple in Harmu. We drove in and around Harmu and were able to locate almost 4-5 temples but the hillock was nowhere. That means there was no way to get to my school. New constructions and other developments made this place completely different from the image of this place I had in mind.
So came back to guesthouse, disappointed and full of thoughts. Naxalism, Development, Urbanization etc.. My plan to take a road trip to Daltonganj, Garhwa and Ranka stood cancelled. I wanted to use this weekend for that. It would have been an experience to visit these places but the fear of Naxalites and poor connectivity to these places have left me with no options. Probably I will dare again, after the elections when the naxal activities subside.
my school
Next day I as busy in my official chores and I had given up on finding my old school in the concrete jungle, but a local resident and employee of the host organization here in Ranchi, blessed me with his local knowledge. He knew the location of the hillock which has a water tank on top. I realized I can still see my school and I ventured out. He took me near the hillock, in front of a very big nice looking school, St. Francis High School. He was sure that this was my school, but I knew I was not that lucky to have studied in schools like these. But I could still see the hillock and the water tank on top, our favorite place for having lunch around 23 years ago.
I wanted to go there again on the hilltop and somehow I found a way to go there and on the way I could see a almost dilapidated building and here I was. That’s my school, I shouted. Rajkiya Krit Madhya Vidyalaya, Harmu – 12. Suddenly those faint memories became vivid. I could remember the place I used to stand for morning prayers and the school gate and numerous related incidents. School gate was a common factor in most of the incidents. I jumped the wall to go inside the campus (once inside I realized there were numerous ways, and surely not intended ones, to get inside the campus, the surrounding wall was broken at many places) and saw menu of the food served under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan painted on the wall.
I pulled out my cam, wanted to capture these moments of relived, realized nostalgia. Great feeling to be there. If I look back on my school days, the biggest complaint (apart from not being able to study in any ‘decent’ schools) is my fathers job forcing frequent school changes for me, that means I could never have those childhood friends. All gone. No trails.
No more a nomadic
So finally I know what my schedule is going to be tomorrow, what I am going to eat, where I am going to spend my time and whom I am going to meet. Yes, the nomadic life I have been living for last four months is finally over. At least for the time being. 
Traveling is always enjoyable if you control your schedule, you know what is next and your mind is not preoccupied with hundred thoughts and trying to find out some illusive insight (does it exist?) amidst natural beauty of lush green forests or scenic sylvan settings. We were on the mission to understand some piece of BoP market (Bottom of Pyramid market for the un-initiated.). And considering the number of places and meetings were packed in this tour there was very little scope for sight seeing, though we made good use of whatever time available after all the FGDs(Focus Group Discussions) and interviews. I could still manage to s
ee Puri and Konark (thanks to Shrey) and get a glimpse of divine beauty of Munnar (will surely make a leisure trip to this place. It’s amazing). I think after this four month long trip I know which places to visit if I have time.
In the four months we covered, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. And yes, these visits were not to the urban centers most of the time we were 100 kms away from the district headquarter meeting villagers, tribals, villagers trying to act like naxals and naxals trying to act like villagers. We could not visit a number of places as we were not allowed by our host organization; they could not ignore the risks of naxals in election time.
Now I am back. Back and too busy with report writing and analysis. The next couple of months are too much packed with professional commitments.
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We are in news..
Since last one year we have been working on it, right from developing concept paper to fine tuning the methodology. The District Level Economic Governance for Tamilnadu is now in news.
See the links..
It all started with the concept paper ( http://ifmr.ac.in/cdf/downloads/egi.pdf) I wrote last year and since then we have been working on developing indicators/ sub-indices and facing the problems such as how to assign weightage to different sub-indices, how to ensure buy in from different stake-holders..etc. Now we are in quite advance stage and very soon this index is going to make a lot of noise…
Etc. Etc.
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