Lost in Andamans

There is a long pending post (gonna be an year long if I don't post now) on mine and Pv's trip to Andamans. Now that I have a reader for this post (its u Arun, you better read) who is going there, I thought it would be useful for to blog it. Also, this gives me a great chance to relive those chweet memories :-)

We took a kingfisher flight from Singara Chennai to Port Blair. As the pilot reached well ahead of time, he was asked to fly aorund in the skies of Andamans before they could find a landing space in the Veersavarkar(named after a freedom fighter) airport. The pilot kept circling the various islands and told us about each of them. The flight was not full, so we managed to get a window view to see those lovely bluish green shades hitting the sands, the bushy bushy islands -- a splendid sight I should say.

For those of you who know us well can guess what we did for the acco - yep, we went there without booking any acco. From some friends we got contact of this person by name 'Andman' Sekhar who became our tour guide (finally we realised that there was no need for a guide). We checked each and every hotel there and finally decided on Fortune Bay Island Resort. We had to make stories to the receptionist there on our futile attempts to make a prior booking. You can make such stories there to show that you really really wanna stay there and they will give you a room. But hey!! It is always better to book ur acco ahead of time unless you are like one of us who deliberately does not do. We were lucky to get a sea facing room.

DAY 1 - We planned for a week's stay in Andamans. The first day we went to cellular jail. It was so heartening to see the place and read the sufferings of the freedom fighters. The place is well maintained and don't ever miss the light and sound show. Its so good and just moves you so much. From there we left to 'Chidiya Tapu' in a omni arranged for us by A.Sekhar. On the way we saw some remains of the tusnami disaster. It has a beautiful beach and there is hardly anyone. Though we could not go all the way as some tree had fallen, we really enjoyed the beach. Actually there were only 4 people including us. It feels so nice to be out of the maddening crowd that too after marriage :-). The most memorable part of this place was we suddenly started hearing some hushing sounds coming so close by and we could no identify where the sound came from. Soon, we saw the rain moving in the direction of where we were standing. It was so cool and refreshing. On the way back, we stopped at a tea shop to sip some real hot chai....

DAY 2 - The next day, we left early morning to wandoor. This is the place from where we took a jetty to the Jollybuoy island. As we approached the island, we were asked to move to some smaller boats which had a glass bottom thru which we could see the fishes and corals underneath the water - it was a sneak peak of snorkelling. Just as we reached the place, one of the sailors took just took a jelly fish which was moving on the shore. It was a slimy feeling as I held it in my hand. We were a group of 25-30 people out there on the island. There were couple of guides there for snorkelling. To blow off some myths about snorkelling -- You don't need to know swimming, You will not feel it suffocating on wearing the mask. Just listen to what the guide says and hold the rope he shows. Just dip your head in to the water and keep going into the waters and see the real beauties of nature's creations. Some wonderful fishes, colorful ones, sea cucumbers which are the most laziest of the lot not wanting to move. Its just an amazing experience - don't ever miss it. Remember to take spare clothes to change after snorkelling.

DAY 3 - On the third day we took a ferry to Havelock island which is supposed to be one of the loveliest islands there. Make sure to book your tickets in advance as there are only 2 boats every day. I would recommend taking the Rs.150/- ticket and not the normal Rs.100/- one as it is really hot out in March and so one can't spend much time outside in the deck. Also, the ship is a very normal one not the luxury ones like in Titanic. So, there will be the smell of diesel and if you hate that do take the seat in the air-conditioned coach.

We reached Havelock in the afternoon after some 2.5 hours of sea-sickness for me. Like before, we did not book any acco here too. We used our usual tactis to get 2 day's acco in Dolphin - Government guest house. We have never seen such a beautifully maintained 'government' guest house. We took the Rs.1500/- cottage - sea facing ones. They were so big and nice. After check-in we got help of some local guy there (one of the guides whom we met at the Jetty - most of the guides are reasonable and trust worthy) to rent a bike. It was mid day and we rode to Radha Nagar beach - Asia's most beautiful beach. On seeing it you will realise why. We spent a lot of time on water and then drove back to Dolphins for lunch. The food was good like home made and only costed us 300 for 2 full days - can you believe that!!! That evening we went there again for sun set which was so beautiful.

DAY 4 - We had put alarm to get up ealry morning for sun rise. We were so dumb found on seeing the sun rise. That day we left for elephanta beach for another round of snorkelling. The next day we moved to Sea shells as we had to check out from Dolphins. Sea shells was good but Dolphins was great. DAY 5 - We spent our last day in havelock just relaxing on the sea shore.

DAY 6,7 - We came back to Port Blair the next day and spent another day just lazing around in Fortune enoying the breakfast there. Not to miss at fortune - breakfast, aaloo kaju sazbi, walk in the resort and the resort itself :-) If we go next time, may be we check if they offer candle light dinner. Even if you don't get reservation in Fortune, just go there for a meal.

One place we could not cover and desperately wanted to go - Baratang island, the place where you can find the tribes and if I remember correctly it was one the way to Nicobar. This is a day's trip by itself - so plan accordingly.

Other places one can visit if there is time - Ross island (has some British style buildings), some beach in Port Blair (not worth really) and other islands.

Time to go - Season is between Nov-Feb. It is good to go just after the season as it there is absolutely no crowd. Infact you will see the same set of people as in your flight :-). However, it will be hot.

Carry - Sunglasses, sunscreen lotions, tissues, hats
Wear - Loose clothes, tshirts, capris, tracks

Eat outs - There are plenty. If you are a veggie Annapoorna is a good choice. Remember that all these places close around 9pm as it gets dark very fast.

Shopping - There a whole lot things one can buy - t-shirts with pictures of Andaman, shell based wall hangings, some pearl jewellery (not sure of its authenticity), sea shell like ear rings which come for 10-15 bucks (my fav)

Wallet factor -- The total trip costed us around 50K. Stay at fortune is expensive but as many people say the place you stay can make or break the trip. Snorkelling can cost close to 500bucks. If you hire a guide, it might cost close to 3K for him and the vehicle. It should be okay to take an auto to move around and they go by meter.

Overall, it was a lovely trip and we had a great time. All I can say is -- we are waiting to go again!!!

Running and Catching

Life has become a running and catching game for me in the last few days. My day starts with the alarm ringing and me snoozing... ring...snooze.... in dreams... with school mates... wingies... office people... work.... and suddenly a full blown up pic of my manager's face and then there is no more snoozing or ringing -- I wake up and it is 6:45AM. "What Aarthi, even today u did not get up early, that's really bad", I tell myself and fold the bed. As I walk down, it feels like I enter a totally different world -- the world of 'running and catching' awaits my entry. I feel just like the kiddoo Ishan in the song 'Duniya ka naara Jame raho..' from Taare Zameen Par.

Over the last few days, I have been so much caught in the R&C game - wake up -- prepare brkie (rather help mom) -- pack lunch boxes -- drop mom -- come back -- drop pv sometimes -- come back -- get ready -- courier mom's application forms -- from there rush to office -- !!!halt!!! take a deep breath and relax at office trying to get things work -- gear up to face the rest of the day -- get back home and then it starts all over again -- rush to meet the eye doc -- as if you did not book an appointment, they make you wait and wait -- finally the eye doc asks to visit once again (oh man!! do they ever know how much of running it is for me?? :-( ) -- go home -- make dinner with mom -- have dinner and keep thinking and thinking of the csim project (sheeshh!! when the hell will I pull myself to do it, I need some scoldings from Aruna, else nothing is going to work.) -- clean the dishes -- and am totally exhausted and jus waiting to hit the bed.

I hate this R&C. I want a change -- Nopes, not a vacation, I've had enough of it. Though I get help doing all these tasks , I just feel I am always running to catch up with things. I have not been able to update my blog, read pv's blog post, not been able to sit in peace and close my eyes (sleep not counted here). Anniversary is coming, have not made any plans!!! Have been thinking of trying my hand at glass painting and I have been only thinking. Wanted to clean the water in the aquarium, my fishes are crying everyday, infact they are on a strike, they have stopped eating offlate.

Hey!! But life is not all that bad. I managed to complete many tasks too. Transferred all the saplings to big pots last weekend, attended ACT annual day, got to spend some good time and fun there, completed all the rounds of eye check-up and doc told me there is no need for glasses, managed to take one step towards my new year resolution, made my wish list of gifts for anniversary (very important)......

Its just that I have too little time to do everything. Lemme spend some time to restructure my day. May be I should get up early in the morning to add a few more hours in my kitty.

The White Tiger

I wanted to start this year by reading a good book. I had my eye on 'The white tiger' for some now. However I hesitated many times before picking this one from the store. The last time I tried reading the booker prize winner 'Inheritance of loss', I almost concluded that the booker prize winners are more for people who are fond of literature. The story moved at such a slow pace that a leaf falling from the tree would be so awesomely described in two pages. I understand from the view point of the author that she was trying to put in all creativity in describing it but for a reader like me - I lost patience. I could hardly reach 50 pages. This time, as PV also wanted to read it, I managed to break through all my assumptions of how this booker winner would be and took it to the counter for billing.

I don't want to tell the story as it is a true pleasure reading this book. Aravind Adiga has truly captured the economic divide in the Indian society through his fictional story characters of Balram who turns to become Ashok. All through the story, the author has picturised the state of the country from the eyes of the poor who always lives in the dark and thrives to see the light. The sarcasm in the narration has added a totally different flavor to the narration.

A few times, I got so angry at Adiga for continuously talking about the undeveloped India and leaving across the so many achievements or developments the country is witnessing. Going beyond my angst, I could see the majority of us today are lost in the developments and the developing developments that we fail to see the other side. There are many a people and things I notice today as I go on the road which I have not previously. He makes us confront the issues that are there in India today.

There is no place where you can see Adiga exaggerating the economic divide or under-playing the facts. This makes me wonder the extent of his research before writing this book. He must have spent a lot of time talking to people from different stratas of the society, observing them, their actions to understand what is going in their mind.

Sarcasm well wound in words, narrated as a fictional story bringing to light the not so good looking parts of India which we always try to hide or hide from. I neither know nor have read the other contenders for the Booker prize but there is no doubt, this one deserves it.

What a way to end the year??

In the last 2 weeks I did so many things which I would not normally - Got up late every other day (don't ask me what's new about that), ended up consuming more than two times the calories I need, had family approved gup-shup(pani puri) at road side bandi, ate hot hot mirchi bajjis on the road - went for morning walks with the intention of burning some fat, slept in the afternoons, was not hooked to the laptop more than 10 minutes every day, been with family at home not thinking of work team project ....

2 weeks of vacation - total relaxation - complete rejuvenation - all set to start the new year bright and fresh full of energy.

Feel like looking back to see how I have enjoyed the year. But I gotto sleep right now as I have to get up early tomorrow.

Me off to Puttaparthi tomorrow.. Cu all in the new year.

Happy new year!!!

Education as it can be

Dear friends,

My weekly sessions at CSIM have completed and I am now doing an individual project. This is like a dream project which I would love to implement some day.

My passion is in 2 areas - children and education. So, I plan to do a project that would bring more meaning to these. As most of you would know, I have been volunteering for ACT for the past few years. The idea of this project is based out of my experiences with children there. It has stemmed from the feeling of helplessness, frustration while teaching children and the constant urge to motivate children to learn the right way.

I have put down my thoughts of the project. In the coming weeks I will post my findings and ways to address the issue.

I would like you all to pass on your suggestions or any inputs you have.

Love,
Me

BACKGROUND

Life of an under-privileged child

Today, there are many NGOs who work for educating under-privileged children. One of the biggest challenges these NGOs face is to sustain and increase the interest of the child in education. Being supported by the NGO, the child joins a government school enthusiastic about going the school and being the first generation literate in his/her family. Slowly as years pass by, the child keeps learning new theories and concepts in school and finds no relevance to it in daily lives. At home, their parents are uneducated and hence are not able to help them in understanding the importance or the science behind the concepts. At schools (typically government schools), the standard of teaching is poor. When the child reaches class 8 or 9, his/her interest in education drops as they hardly understand what they learn. They prefer to mug-up the question answers and score marks for the sake of exams than understanding the logic or reasoning. As time passes, they complete class 10 and face the big question of which branch/stream to choose. Most of them end up choosing commerce not because the want to become a C.A, but because they have an aversion to mathematics, physics and chemistry. Their choices are more derived from their dislikes than likes. Much before they realize, they end up gazing at the limited choices they have for an under-graduate degree. The girl enrolls herself for an arts course and the boy for a B.Com. As they have not developed their application and problem solving skills so long, they struggle to get a good job for their education. And there finally comes the irony - they land up in a job which has no relevance to what they have learnt so far.

There are multiple cascading problems here,
1. As teaching at school is more exam oriented and not application oriented, the child looses interest
2. As they loose interest, they start disliking subjects which need more logic like Maths and Science. This gives them limited options in class X and XII
3. Without developing the required problem solving skills, they don’t end up in the right jobs

Today, there are many organizations that are working for identifying the most appropriate streams for the child based on his/her capability. There are also organizations working towards getting a job for them.

OBJECTIVE

Through this project I would like to work on the root-cause of the problem which is – Learning not being application and problem solving oriented.

TARGET AUDIENCE

Education is important to every child irrespective of their background. The problem of rote learning is applicable to children in general and only to under-privileged ones. Through this project I would like to come up with some ways of addressing this issue for all children.


Coming soon ...
Results of some study/surveys
Analysis of existing solutions if any
New solutions

How terrorizing is a terror attack?

With the wake of the recent terror attacks in Mumbai, life has changed for most of us. We sit glued to the tv not watching movies or mega serials but tracking the latest updates on the investigations and closely looking out for new terror alerts and warnings. Every lunch table conversations is on the topic of what can the Indian Government do and how Pakistan is playing a double game.

Though most of us have not experienced the trauma personally being there @ the Taj or Oberoi or CST station, it has affected us completely. For me, it has been a major change in thought process -- my mind always clouded with fear and suspicion.

It was friday afternoon, we were sitting at the lunch table watching one of the news channels in the cafeteria. The usual conversations began and here my team mate told me that there is a threat warning sent for Bangalore. He continued telling us about why he cancelled all his weekend plans and wanted to stay safe at home. Dec 6th - the Babri Masjid day, seemed to be an excuse enough for another attack. I had my usual plans of a packed saturday with finishing some pending works followed by csim class and then go back home around 7:30 in the night. But after hearing to him, I was little scared and started thinking twice about my plans. At the end of our discussion, I was completely gotten to believing that it was unsafe to be out of home over the weekend though I knew I was falling prey to exactly what the terrorists want - create panic and confusion in the minds of people. Finally one of my colleagues managed to pep me up to gather some courage and move on with life.

This was not the only incident -- remember a few days ago, there was a high security alert in many airports in the country following some email threat? Around the same night was when 2 of my dear ones were supposed to land in Mumbai. I was so scared, din't know what to do. I din't want to talk about it at home and end up scaring others. That night, I hardly slept in peace.

Of-late I dream of people shooting around, sudden confusion created in the city, people running around to save their lives. It might sound exagerrated, this is exactly what I have been going thru in the last few days. I wonder what it would be like for those people who have been there.

Every other place has become unsafe. How can someone be at peace when survival itself is at stake?

The mumbai attack has been a big wake up call for all of us to identify and fix the major security loop holes and the basic issue of corruption. As a citizen, I don't have much clue of what to do? All I do today is to watch the tv and keep myself updated. That's really the sad state ...

Pix of PRAKRUT

Pics of Prakrut posted here

Life post PRAKRUT

Seems like I just got down from a roller coaster ride... yea, I now experience a sudden slow down after a speedy bumpy ride with a safe landing.

There were days when I was juggling between mails, phone calls and work (of course). My days would begin with mom constantly saying 'aarthi aarthiiiiiiiiii.. ezhuduko... mani enna theriyuma.... iduku daan seekirama thoongu nu sollaren, ketta daane...' (I don't wish to translate and loose the charm of it :-)) and then I would sleepily come down switch on my lappy and start checking mails for updates from the team on the event.

It was almost 30 days of hard work concentrated over the weekends, that is how I would define our pattern of working. It was a complete phase of putting all learning into practice. We went step by step, sometimes jumped a few steps in anxiety and enthusiasm.

We did everything right from identifying the social issue of concern, the target audience, how we would want to attack the problem. At the end of these discussions, we decided to choose 'Environment' as the issue of target and we decided to host an event promoting the solutions instead of talking about the problem which is the usual style. That was how and when PRAKRUT was born.

Then we went about identifying target audience and the different activities that we would do as part of the event. School children were our primary target as a change brought in to the minds of young ones tend to stay with them all through the life. We also decided to approach general public thru the children. We planned to leverage the work of NGOs and corporates having solutions in this domain to bring forth the solutions.

Slowly we moved to the most important part of budgeting the whole event. This was the most funny task as each time we did, we got a completely new figure which was way beyond the previous times result. Thank God, none of us even our wildest dreams are doing any work related to finance. Till the last minute this the one constant variable.

All pre-work for the event soon started like inviting school children for the exhibiting their eco-friendly solutions, making posters for inviting them and writing rules. I almost felt like a school principal while editing the rules list. I was wondering how it would be if I were asked to come in school uniform on a weekend and how much I hated such things as a child.

Talking to NGO's, hearing their response, coaxing them to participate, answering wierd questions like 'will you give us food?', running behind them to get confirmation. It was all fun watching the story unfold. Thanks to Aruna for her immense patience in gathering the inputs and doing all the talking. I had enough of a bad experience right in the beginning :-)

The next round of running around was for the misc activities which turned out to take more effort and time than the main ones probably coz most of the important tasks were done by then.
Publicity poster making, visiting the venue, debating what food to serve thru the day, who will arrange, how to arrange, how much to spend - it all looks so simple and silly now. Writing mails to companies asking for sponsorship was the funniest of all. If only I show you the mails I wrote, you would laugh at it. All the realization of how to write a mail to a sponsor dawned after being grilled by Varsha (I hope Varsha is reading this :-)) one saturday afternoon. Oh man!! I almost lost hopes of having the event till she finally flagged off saying we are 70% complete.

It was a lot of learning - learning how to work in a team when people are in different frequency levels, how to ensure majority of them are not hurt and still put forward your opinions, how to use somebody's strenght, how to talk in a press meet (nothing will work if you don't know to speak kannada). What can I say when we had lots of praises at the end for this wonderful event. All the hard work seemed so much fun at the end.

Missing being on top of my mails, getting interrupted at work by phone calls, calling people, being in my own world of thoughts about the event. Missing all the people and the fun.

Life seems to now be moving like a goods train, so slow. Guess, this saturday would be the time to change gears and go on another roller coaster ride. Yep, time has come for my individual project - my FAC (field action component).

PRAKRUT - An initiative to promote eco-friendly solutions

Prakrut - An initiative to promote eco-friendly solutions.

This is an event hosted by the third batch students of CSIM (Centre for Social Initiative and Management). As part of the event there are
1. Exhibits on eco-friendly solutions by school children
2. NGO's, corporates show-casing their solutions
3. Activities center where there is lots to do and learn
4. On-the-spot painting competition for children all through the day
5. Information stalls

This is one of the ways by which we are planning to sensitize people towards the environmental issues. If each of us take that one step, we would do more good to humanity and our future generations.

Please help us in spreading the word across to all your friends in Bangalore. Feel free to pass on the poster above to all your friends. It is a day long event on Sunday.

Call your colleagues, friends, neighbors to participate. Awareness spreads only by word of mouth.

VENUE - Seva Sadan, Kormanagala 3rd Block, Bangalore
Time - 10am to 6pm
Contact - Aruna - 9886833665

More details about the event - NGOPost
Yahoo calendar

Come, join hands to Nurture mother Nature.

CSIM session 10

Sustainability was the topic of this session. Ms.Lily Paul of Ashoka was back to explore this with us.

Yep, like every other week we started with the basics of understanding what we were about to talk about. This session began with an exercise making each of us think what sustainability is all about the factors that would affect it.

We all defined it in our own terms, based on our perspectives and past experiences. We settled something like -- It is taking your goals forward through the times in the same way or in an improved way. We then summed the different factors that affects sustainability. Then Lily helped us classify these in to 3 broad categories.

Institutional
1. Mission [You need to have a mission that will make the goals a reality]
2. Strategic plan [The plan is how part of the mission]
3. Leadership [Good leadership is needed to stand the test of time]
4. Organization relevance [How is your org. going to add value in whatever it does]

Resources/Financial
1. Funding [No funds.. not gonna be there for long]
2. Budget plan [To know how much funds we need]
3. Self-sustaining strategies [Most important factor, think what will happen if all donors disappear coz of economic recession!!]
4. Diversify resource sources [Find different sources of funding]
5. Transparency [In terms of accounts n processes]
6. Fund raising and reporting [Report to donors on how the fund was used]
7. Building collaborations [Join hands with related NGOs]

Social
1. Sharing org. values and mission [This makes people understand the org. better]
2. Community participation [Make the community participate in the mission]
3. Networking [Needless to explain]
4. Building acceptance with stake holders [So that they realize the importance of this work]

Well, if all that sounded so much theory here comes the big surprise - a man who has each of these in his organization and has shown us the true meaning of sustainability.

The big surprise was Mr.Ayappa Masagi. He is an Ashoka fellow, founder of rainwater conpcets and Water Literacy Foundation. A man so filled with passion for his work who firmly believes in 'Doer first teacher next'. He has brought water to more than 80,000 bore wells across the country. His book 'Jala-Nela-Jana' talks about the various technologies he uses to conserve and reuse water.

With a mission to 'create a water literate India' he founded the Water Literacy Foundation in 2005. He has 100+ self developed technologies for bore well, stream water harvesting, rain water harvesting.

Initially he started working out as an individual who was trying to save his farms from drought. He found some innovative ways by which he could conserve water. Then, he went about taking his work to farmers in the drought prone areas, some corporates who were spending huge sum on water. All his projects became huge success. He has now worked on projects worth 40 crores with people involvement.

Talking more about people involvement - this is one of the prime factors which we termed as community involvement for sustainability. He worked with the people in proving his solutions, thereby making them participate in many activities and see the change for themselves. This helps in a big way to achieve credibility.

As he kept explaining to us about his projects, we were so curious to know how he spreads this message to people being the one man army. He then told us about how he organizes awareness programs at customer's venue. This hints around the point of diverse resource sources. He also sells books, cds and uses that money back in to running projects.

As in every other social venture, funding is a big problem here too. You either don't get funds or you get it but not at the time of need. It is no different for Masagi. He is now hoping to tackle this problem by coming up with some self-sustaining models. He has established rain water concepts which is a profit making company. A part of the profits from here will be used for running projects in WLF. Also, there is another strategy where he is planning to form a group of farmers and invest an initial sum in doing projects in that farm. He will then take a part of the profit which will be used for doing further projects. With multiple iterations of this, there is will be enough money to get this model going.

Coming back to doer first teacher next - it is so true to see that he has all systems in place at his home where now bore water comes at 3o feet when compared to 1500 feet it would take for water to come.

He is someone who is so full of passion, knowledge and the desire to spread the awareness around. At the end of the class, we were so fascinated by his work and someone (none else than a software geek could ask this Q.. ok its not me) asked a question on why he has not patented any of his technologies. Yea, what else can people like us think when we are so used to listening to patents and IP mining every other day. Masagi's answered asking why he should patent his idea when all he wants to do is to spread awareness of water literacy. Well, that's what happens when you are a social entrepreneur - you don't own your idea and stick to it; you just want to see the benefit of it reaching multiple people.

That was how our last session was - theory filled with practicality and kannada poetry. Masagi is a poet, he recites poems as he speaks. I wish I knew kannada to understand and appreciate it all.

CSIM Session 9

This session was by Ms.Sangita, CFO Dream-a-Dream. She spoke to us on Financial management for NGOs.

I did not take notes, so not much to blog here. The session was more on the importance of finance management - how to budget, allocate funds, classify expenses and file them regularly. It was a pretty informative session.

What's wrong with me?

For a change this weekend I feel I have all the time in the world and don't know what to do. I am wondering what's wrong with me. So, I decided to turn back and see what I did over the last one week.

Monday - Oh man!! seems long time ago.. Lemme recollect. It started with the usual Monday morning meetings. I had come back to office with all energy gained from the Wayanad trip and after hearing some inspiring session on 'Power of unreasonable people'. I was all charged up to take lot of work. Then interviewed some guy, it did not go all that well :-(. Then caught up on the Flex trainings.

Tuesday - The power and enthu still seem to be there in me. I was all set to go complete my work at office. After long time, I did some code changes and felt good about it though it was very minor.

Wednesday - Ahaa, there comes it. It was the day of saraswati pooja and did some tasty tashty chakara pongal, vadai and sundal. By the time we had brkie I was feeling too lazy to go to office. Took some sundal to office. And somehow managed to come home by 7 :-)

Thursday - Holiday, woohoooo. Got up and wore some new clothes. After lunch, me and pv set to accomplish our 5 month dream of ordering a book shelf :). Met our family furniture guy (like family doctor u see) and designed our shelf. When we heard his estimates, we decided to cut the frills in our design, made it plain and simple. That is our achievement of the month, rather months :-) Then did some roaming around for buying furniture for ACT. Then we went to Pinx for some dhaba chai and mini samosa. We then went to Prasidhi to do some diwali purchase and the day ended with superb tasty food at Oye Amristar.

Friday - It was a long day at work. One more interview to take. I wanted to come home early and go for a round of puchka but was getting late at office. By the time I came home I had a bad headache. Then some calls from office to fix some issue :( Bad day it was.

Saturday - Most of my excitement died down when I got a message that the CSIM class was canceled. Anyways, it gave me time to be at home and we all watched Sivaji. Then another round of diwali purchase :)

Sunday - Lazy lazy day. Did nothing at all. Finally got so irritated with myself, that we went out for a round of puchka. And now here writing this post. Waiting to goto office and do some work tomorrow.

Waiting to goto office? What's wrong with me?? Nothing, that's what happens when there are too many lean weeks :)

The story behind the Lehman Brothers collapse

Having heard and read little here and here about the Lehman Brother's bankruptcy over the last few weeks, I really could not understand what went wrong.

I was too lazy to ask anyone to know in detail. All I knew was people failed to repay home loans and that led to bankruptcy. That made me wonder how it could only happen with Lehman, it should be a common case. However, there were too many things that my mind had to munch in the last couple of weeks that this took a back seat.

Today, I came across an article in the Hindu Magazine answering all my questions and much beyond. I appreciate the way the writer has put down the facts that makes it easy to comprehend.

In short, this is how it works

Banks offer home loans to people --> Investment banks like Lehman Bros buy those loans from the banks. This is good for the bank as they get back the loan money at one shot and now they can issue more loans. Lehman brothers now coverts these loans in to funds which investors buy.
Each month the bank sends the EMI paid against the loan to Lehman Bros who then splits it and sends it across to its investors. These investors now get a monthly returns for their investments.

Isn't that a very interesting way of looking at the concept of home loans? Now, where could the problem come? What if the EMI is not paid on time? Well, as this concept emerged the interest rates for home loans were very low and there was close to 1% of defaulters. So, this was not considered to be a major risk at all.

Now you should see the strategy of Lehman. They now convinced AIG (Insurance) to insure these home loans. There being almost a minimal risk in the home loan payment business, AIG promptly signed the deal. Everything was going smooth. With more and more investors getting into this business, Lehman was buying more and more home loans. This internally pushed the banks to offer more loans. Slowly, the qualifying criteria of loan approvals detoriated and it seemed like anyone could get a loan. Around the same time, the interest rates all increased. All this mounted to a large number of defaulters.

As the EMI's were not paid, the banks could not give Lehman the monthly share who then had nothing to give the investors. This was when Lehman Bros felt the heat of the situation. AIG now had to insure all these defaulters and ended up loosing so much money in an area which was considered the least risk.

And the rest is history today...

CSIM Session 8

What more can we ask for than to hear on Social Entrepreneurship and strategy from CSIM founder Mr.Devarajan himself.

The basic questions were asked - What is a strategy? It is a plan of action to reach goals/objectives.
Then came the point to ponder - When does one need a strategy? Inorder to realize a vision, one needs mission and to accomplish the mission one needs a strategy.

Vision is something which lasts for a long time, it is not something valid for a few years. The vision should be simple and not time bound. With this, each of us were asked to frame our vision in 3 words. Few examples that came out
Empowerment of women
Empowerment of children
Improve quality of life
Providing widow marriage opportunities
Removing economic barriers
Social transformation together
Providing timely help
Create a better world

Out of these we were asked to choose 3 which we thought were missions that would last for generations to come. We selected the ones marked in bold.

The next step was to create a mission. For this we worked to understand what a mission means - it flows from the vision, should be measurable and have a time line. We took the example of the vision 'Improve quality of life' and framed mission statement - Promoting spiritual wellness, emotional well being and physical well being.

While creating a mission statement, ensure that it has goals set against a time line and it is measurable.

Now comes the strategy which helps to accomplish the mission. Strategy is
1. a practical plan to achieve the mission
2. needs to have a time line
3. needs to be in detail
4. identify the risk and plan to mitigate them
5. internalize the risk by planning for resources needed to mitigate the risk
6. Identify the resources [time, people, knowledge, finance, infrastructure]

The cycle of the execution of the plan is more of a common sense.


During the multiple iterations of this cycle, there will be revisions to the plan. Then the process can be documented and shared, replicated to other NGO's. This will help in reaching out to many people and scaling of the organization.

Many times, intuition plays a role in strategy formation. Intuition comes from experience and is useful in risk management.

Then Devarajan sir read out some extracts from the book 'The power of unreasonable people'. This seems to a good read, an inspirational one. One extract had some good statistics that showed why the future of social sector and social enterpreneurs will be very bright. The author says that there are 4 billion people in the bottom of the economic pyramid. These people do very small jobs like the cobblers, masons, sweepers etc. The suprising fact is that the total revenue of such small jobs across the world is 5 trillion. To re-iterate

4 billion people in the bottom of economic zone ===> generate 5 trillion revenue

Isn't that amazing? The future lies in tapping the talent in this zone, by providing them the right skills. Now, who knows best about the people in this zone? NGO's. And that is why the world is looking for SE's to try new business models, study these groups and promote a social change.

CSIM Session 7

Hurrah!! I completed blogging on one of the pending sessions. Now comes session7.

If I were to describe this session in few words, I would say it was truly inspirational. This time we had Dr.Meena Jain talking to us about Looking Beyond. Meena Jain is the founder of Sambhav foundation which works for children with disabilities.

Most of our discussion in this class was on trying to understand ourselves, our comfort zones and how to build secure zones. It began with the question on what do I see when I look beyond me?


The above pic tells us that there is my family, relatives, neighbourood, community, country beyond me. As we interact with each of these, we have some barriers causing a tunneled vision.
For example, if I had an argument with my father and did not like the way it went, I don't have the courage to go and tell papa how hurt I am. Instead I would go to ma and ask her how papa could say like that and express how hurt I am. We are not direct in our conversations and that's when we have the tuneled vision.

Then we spoke about 2 key things
1. Comfort zone - which are built from our wants, they are temporary. Most of the time, we are not able to adjust when we are in comfort zone.
2. Secure zone - built from needs - like need for shelter, family, livelihood. These are permanent needs and we are able to adjust more if we have build a good secure zone.

This session was so much talking of our day-to-day issues on our families like I am unable to convince my parents of my career choice. Most of the times, when we talk to our dear ones we don't reason out our decision, we justify it emotionally. This makes the opposite party think that we are adamant for no reason. Always use your rationale mind to reason out decisions.

But hey, I know this is no way an easy job. I have tried it many times and failed miserably. As we raised such concerns in the class, Meena Jain gave us tips on how one can work towards it to improve ones EQ.
1. Become aware of your feeling
2. Acknowledge your feeling
3. Be in control of your feeling
4. Sense and identify the feeling of others

The key take aways from the class
1. Only if you have good relationships in your family - you can be at peace and serve others
2. Trust people and let your goals reflect in all your action, interactions like in your neighbourhood, family, community. This will automatically build the trust in people.
Above all, it all lead to

Stop talking, start doing

CSIM Session 6

This has been a long pending post. Today I am planning to clear of few of my TBD (To Be Done) tasks as this bucket is now overflowing :-)

We had Varsha Avadhany from Fidelity to talk on NGO laws and regulations. Like every other session we began with trying to understand the basic words under discussion - in this case 'Laws and regulations'. Then we moved to understand why should there be laws n regulations in a non-profit sector. We came up with answers like they are needed to have a discipline, transparency, standard operating processes.

Slowly we moved to the intricacies of the formation of non-profits, the different forms under which they can be registered
1. Trust
[This is the oldest way, a minimum of 2 members are required to form a trust. Can be started within by members of the same family]
2. Society registration
[A minimum of 7 members, not more than 2 people can be blood relatives. The board member cannot be an employee of that society]
3. Non-profit company
[Companies sometimes use their profit to start a non-profit (NP) company which works on the same line of business but don't run for profit]
Example of this - Maya organics, mobility India
So, the selling price of the product this NP company sells should be equal to the cost price.

This was already so much of gyaan for us, hardly did we know that it was just the tip of the iceberg :-)

We later covered aspects of tax filing, the different exemtions like 80G where there is a 50% tax exemption, 35AC where there is a 100% tax exemption. The FCRA act and its regulations were an interesting topic.

FCRA stands for Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (1976). For a NPO to get FCRA approval, they need to be functional for atleast 3 years. There are 2 ways of getting permission -
1. Apply for FCRA which will take atleast a year for the approval
2. Apply to the Central Govt. for prior permission for a particular project
On approval, the NPO can get foreign contributions.


The Ministry of Home Affairs grants FCRA approval and they have many rounds of processing and cross verification which makes it time consuming. All FCRA contributions are monitored by intelligence agency across the world.

At last the point that was dirven again and again in to our head was

TO BE ETHICALLY RIGHT.

CSIM Session 5

VALUEable or inVALUEable ??

Both I would say... That's how I will describe the few hours of our interaction with Mr. & Mrs. Chandran. The title slide projected 'Values and beliefs' as the topic for the day, I thought it would be a moral science class. S0mething like - you should do this you should not do this and probably some stories too (tats one reason why I liked these classes in school).

The class started with the duo (Mr and Mrs Chandran) asking us a very basic question - What do you understand by Value? This question stumped me big time. We keep using this word so very often and when I was asked to define value I was BLINKING. Values are learned beliefs like honesty is a value, punctuality is a value. As we practice these values they become habits or virtues and when a group of people exhibit this value it becomes ethics. That's the definition incase someone asks you.

This class was so filled with exercises that we never felt the time passing by. We did multiple hands on sessions. We began identifying the values which are important for each of us. Following that we had to give priority of the identfied 7. Once that was done, we were asked to split a sum of 10,000Rs against these 7 in varied proportion. At the end we did some basic math like add, multiply and found out which value rates high for each one. This gave us an idea of what takes more priority for us - power/position, aesthetic sense, social/helping others etc. This was a wonderful exercise which re-iterated to me that I am a person who loves being with people and enjoy helping people.

We then came to an interesting conversation on can a project that works for a social cause be profit oriented. This one is many people's favourite. We all agreed on the fact that social projects need not always be non-profit ones. As we reached this point, there was a confusion in distinguishing a business from a social project. If both are profit oriented models what is the difference in them. And here is where the duo helped us see the key difference - in a social cause the profit comes from the work that is done and not at the expense of the customer.

The session turned more and more captivating as we identified that our discussions were bringing forth the on-the-field qualities one needs to be a social worker. Some of the most important ones are
1. Understand the people you work for. Read between the lines - both verbal and non-verbal communication
2. Be objective as you hear to the people. Never judge using your value system.
We were given a wonderful example for this
A lady comes to you - she is pregnant for the 7th time - all the children born so far are either deaf or dumb - she is suffering from syphilis - what would you suggest - abortion??
The question left us in a fix - atleast I did not know what to say - couple of folks suggested an abortion as the chances of the 7th child being normal is less. The rest were against it as they could not accept the whole idea of taking life off.
And know what? The 7th child was Beethoven.

As a social worker it helps to be a
1. empathetic listener
2. have cultural sensitivity [I came across a mail on Bihar relief activity where they were urging people to donate sarees. The women of Bihar have never worn anything other than saree. The person/organization here was culturally sensitive to the needs of the people.]
3. Gender sensitivity
4. good communicator
5. Establish trust

The most important thing is to be one with the mass. That's one reason why Gandhi was loved and Nehru was respected.

Before we realised the clock struck 6 and the session was over. It was - Invaluably valuble.

Hats off to the duo - they had so much energy in them to keep the class going for 4 hrs. At their age, I am not sure if I will be able to talk for 30 minutes continuously. They were so knowledgable and down to earth.

Thanks to CSIM - We are getting a life-time opportunity to meet such great people and spend time with them.

Tum ho to ...

Tum Ho To Gaata Hai Dil, Tum Nahin To Geet Kahan..
Tum Ho To Hai Sab Haasil, Tum Nahin To Kya Hai Yahan..
Tum Ho To Hai Sapno Ke Jaisa Haseen Ek Sama…
Jo Tum Ho To Yeh Lagta Hai Ke Mil Gayi.. Har Khushi
Jo Tum Na Ho Yeh Lagta Hai Ke Har Khushi.. Mein Hai Kami
Tumko Hai Maangti Yeh Zindagi…

One of my favorite soft beat songs from Rock On movie. I liked this one rendered by Joe (Arjun Rampal) in the movie.

The movie is awesome, God salute to Farhan Akthar for his amazing acting and singing. Never knew someone could be so mutli-talented.

CSIM Session 4

Today I decided to shed off little laziness and write about my previous sessions. There is too much to write and so I start without any foreground background.

Session 4 - We had Vishal Talreja from Dream-a-dream come and talk to us. He was young, dynamic and of course very inspiring. The session was focussed on leadership. We discussed some of the aspects of a leader and then did a case study which was very interesting.

Here is a jist of the case -- Ravi is the head of DWF foundation which supports around 800 children in Bangalore. Over the period of time, he feels that organization has become stagnant in terms of growth. So he comes up with a project where DWF can start supporting children in Chennai and Mysore. There a couple of organizations who wants to partner with DWF for this. Now, Ravi takes this proposal to his team, everyone is excited about this but are not willing to take it forward. The reasons being they are stretching themselves already and will not be able to give time to any new work, how can they trust the credibility of the partners and how can they get to know their work ethics, what if their mission is very different. The case ended with the question - If you are Ravi how would you take this project forward and convince your team.

On a first read, the question resonated a typical corporate team behaviour. How many teams we would have felt that we are already over working and our manager comes with some new task thinking we have all the time in the world to do it. All the while, I was seeing the problem from the eyes of someone working in the team. With this case study I was forced to reverse roles, tables turned and for once I pitied all my managers and thought of the tough times they would have had convincing someone like me :-)

Coming back to the case, we were 4 in our team and each one was thinking tangential to the other. Somehow at the end we managed to streamline our thoughts though one person was totally against Ravi's decision. There were 3 teams. The first team's presentation was awesome - J had come to present and for the next 10-15 minutes we only saw Ravi there and not J. Truly fantastic presentation I should say. Hats off folks. They gave ideas like Ravi would take the lead and go to chennai and Mysore to start these operations. This way, he would move out of Bangalore and give way to the team to lead the efforts in Bangalore. Most of their points was based on this key idea. Though it seemed to work, the project now looked like Ravi's child and not the teams.

The second team presented ideas on how to solve the existing problems in Bangalore so that the team can start working on the new projects. The idea was good, they had a plan in place to solve the issues but the only point that was missed is what if they get caught in the loop of solving the problems in Bangalore. There were couple of comments from other teams as the plan did not bring out the qualities of a leader who would empower his people to solve their problems.

Last was our team and we knew that our analysis of the problem was not enough. We had brought out ideas like how to partner with the local NGOs, how to reduce the work load of the team so that they can take up new work. Also we split the growth numbers into smaller chunks for it to sound realistic and achievable. Somehow we managed to get appreciation from other teams.

At the end of the case study, we came up with a list of qualities of a good leader. A few of what I can recollect (those which sounded very important to me) -
1. Transformatory thinking or think big and out of the box
2. Empowerment of people
3. Understand the people
4. Have a vision for the future

Apart from these are the essential values like integrity, honesty and others.

That was how our session ended. It was a fabulous case study with a lot of thoughts flowing from everyone.

More to come on the 5th session.

God!! Please help me get up early so that I can blog my thoughts.

Zoommm Vrooooooommmmmmm

Hurrah, I crossed 1000 kms on my cutie bike. For me its a big achievement. I remember those days when I wanted to buy a 2 wheeler and was so hesitant only coz it was long long time since I had ridden a bike. I was so scared to be ride on on the roads of Bengaluru where half the driving population know no rules.

Thanks to pv, with all the encouragement and motivation we bought pleasure a few months back. It was a like a dream come true for me (one of my small dreams :)). The first week I feared to take it anywhere that was a kilometer away from home. All I did was go round and round the same street. And all of a sudden there came a day when I had to take my sis on the bike all the way to HSR layout. Now, it was not only to ride my way but also to ensure my sis is safe. Too much pressure, somehow I managed to go and then it was all fun ...

That day alone I drove on the inner ring road, outer ring road, marathahalli, whitefield. Confidence grew and from then on all I did was to zoom and vroom and this week I crossed the 1000km mark. For all those bikers, it would seem wierd that I am jumping up and down just for this. But this one is very special to me.

In all these days, I have had so much fun on the bike. Offlate I have started scolding more, scolding somoene on the road who does not drive the way I want him/her to :-). I know almost every other driver would have scolded me. Recently, I had the best experience on the bike.

As usual one morning I started the bike to go to office without realizing the tough times I would face soon. I slowed the bike a little to cross a hump on the road and tak my bike stopped. Then i pressed the button to get it started but it failed to respond. I put the choke on and then things fell in place. And there came the next time where I slowed down coz of traffic. This was the beginning of all troubles - my bike failed to start no matter what. I had no way but to pull it to the side with all those heartless four wheeler guyz honking behind. Then I shook the bike this side and that side without knowing why I did. Well, I remember many people doing that way and I wanted to try my luck too. I was left with no option but to push the bike to some place and park it. That was the time it struck me that its been a real long time since I filled some fuel, but the fuel indicator was showing the petrol tank was half full. Also, that was morning was when I had the wonderful thought that the bike has started giving good milage after the service. With all this in mind, I decided to check the fuel tank myself. I opened to see that it was empty with not even a drop of petrol :) What else, I walked to the nearest petrol bunk, got a half litre can of petrol and filled the tank. After two three kicks, my bike decided to take me to office.

Morals of the story -
Don't always trust your fuel indicator
Don't dream of big milage increase after the first service

Now every time I fill petrol, I use my elementary math to calculate how many kms would come before I have to refill.