Pawar Got Slapped - Office Space Turned Squalor

So, a few weeks ago around 4 pm, I was sitting in my office doing work. Like any other day around that time, I was sitting on a computer doing research up against a wall across the office, a little bored and getting tired of air conditioning. While dreaming of carne asada and Mexican guacamole, all of a sudden a commotion cracked in the office. I look behind me to see the normally calm cubicle space break out into conversations and fast movements as people ran back and fourth. Must be another rave over yet another version of Kolaveri Di, I thought. Suddenly though, everyone around me started to get up and congregate close to the epicenter of chaos, coming back in a sort of unusual simultaneously humorous and frazzled manner. Everyone is laughing and begins packing up their bags. Within a few minutes, lights begin to turn off and people are leaving, shouting "I'm going home!" in hindi and english. I am thinking, "WTF now??"

My office is sort of funny like that. Not much happens from day to day, like any other big cubicle filled office. Aside from talking about new news and when the next chai or food break is, people are usually just sprawled around at desks and tables working or chatting. Sometimes though, random and crazy chaos breaks out. The other day for example, out of nowhere a field worker brings a scale over right next to my desk. Almost instantly, the area transformed from a quiet workspace to a hectic mass of loud voices as the whole office crowded over to be weighed. I could not get any explanation for the random weigh-a-thon. Another experience was when the office turned into a game of "Clue" when someone stole a large amount of money from the safe. Everyone was sitting working, when within 10 minutes we were in lock down mode and sitting all together (all 100 of us) discussing who the possible bandit could have been, and whether they used a candlestick or revolver. My favorite though was the birthday celebration - when meetings and work actions got interrupted and suddenly replaced by a massive party that took over the rest of the day! The HR department decided to celebrate three months of birthdays on the spot.

1 Party, 3 months of Birthdays Celebration - Magic Bus

Today was different though. It was not what happened in the office that stopped work. Actually, it wasn't even in Mumbai. A politician named Sharad Pawar got slapped by a young activist in Delhi. Everyone freaked out. "Pawar got slapped! Pawar got slapped! Everyone go home! Shops are closing!" Being the ignorant foreigner in the office as usualy - I had a million questions. First of all, who the hell is Pawar??

Sharad Pawar is a politician with many hats. Currently, he is the President of the National Congress Party and has served as Minister of Defence and the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. His "tight slap" that he received was mostly for his current role as the the Union Agriculture Minister of India and the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution (how one man can be in charge of so many things -- and such big jobs at that -- for a country of 1 billion+ people is beyond me). On November 24, a young guy named Harvinder Singh got past a barricade of reporters and slapped Pawar across the face as he was leaving the New Delhi Municipal Council building. After, he attempted to punch Pawar. The justification: food inflation. India has been experiencing massive food inflation for the past few years, escalating this past year. Pawar has been accused of multiple cases of corruption and  upward Rs. 600 billion/- scams.

So what does that have to do with Magic Bus in Mumbai?? Back to my story - I am sitting there, confused, listening to everyone run around in circles are they panic that this guy in Delhi got slapped. Within 15 minutes the office was empty. Since my yoga class was right by my office at 6:30, I decided to hang out with my mentor and do more work. She filled me in that they were scared of riots. "When these things happen, people go to the street and usually riot. Things close up. It can get crazy."

Damn! Can you imagine? Just strolling up to Secretary of the US Treasury and bitch slapping him for the fiscal crisis! (Later added: Or going up to Obama and slapping him upside the head for thinking about signing the National Defense Authorization Act?) India continually surprises me like this. People seem to not care at times about politics and feel detached, others blame a generation of apathy on hopeless corruption; the middle class continues to argue over the role and importance of Anna Hazare, while millions of people are not even aware of their basic rights that are continually abused. I can not even question my boss at times because of strong cultural ties to respect. And then Harvinder Singh rolls up and slaps Pawar for costly food prices! It is not exactly aligned with Gandhi's practices of nonviolence, but how else to wake up politicians directly. Of course afterwards, even a slap did not phase much as Pawar explained that he thought nothing of it, and of course everyone now blames that Singh is mentally ill. It sounds a lot like the police's justification for attacking UC protesters and delegitimizing their words (get those facts here). Although distinct, Singh's actions remind me of the protests back home and around the world right now. Occupy, Egypt, Russia, Pakistan. One thing is for sure, the youth are getting pissed.

Everyday at work is interesting. Watching youtube at work: OK! Being late on deadlines: No problem! Leaving work early because of slapped politicians: Of course! Just another day at work though. Who knows what will happen tomorrow! One thing this Pawar experience reminded me of, and one theme that I constantly think of in my life (even more so in India for some reason) is that so many actions tie us all together. A slap in Delhi can in fact stop the Mumbai local trains, just as much as anything else can. Our lives are intertwined and that is undeniable.

Speaking of rowdy disapproval, here are some photos of a Anna Hazare protest against corruption that I ran into today in Mumbai:

Anna Hazare Panamoneum

"I am Anna Hazare" - slogan at 12/11 protests

Anna Hazare Protests

New AIF blog post!

Check out my new post for work @ the Clinton Fellowship blog: "They're not just poor, They're kids."

To know a little more about the fellowship I am on, the William J. Clinton Fellowship for Service through the American India Foundation (AIF), check out the websites.

To see what other fellows and myself are up to, check out the blog here!

My New Life in Mumbai!

Haji Ali

The Gateway

Be the Change?

Laxmi's Footprint. . . Diwali

The last weeks of October and beginning of November were sort of reenergizing experiences that gave me a lot of positivity on my time here in India. After a week of Diwali, I spent a week in Panchgani, a hill-station five hours away from the hustle and bustle that is Mumbai for work with Magic Bus on a peer leadership camp, and then found myself at an awesome conference in a tropical paradise. . .

Diwali with friends and family

After Laxmi Pooja, Diwali

Magic Bus Peer Leader Camp

Diwali was a special time to see a really fun holiday in Mumbai. It was nuts! Fireworks going off left and right, outside your bedroom window at 4am and under your rickshaw; bonding time with new friends and their families; everyone being so happy and eating tons of sweets. I felt so excited to be here. Then, I spent 5 days with 40 teenagers from slums across Mumbai for a weeklong peer leadership retreat that I helped develop and facilitate. The week was inspiring to say the least; it fueled my motivations to sit with 40 of these smart and enthusiastic kids that were from some of the least privileged urban neighborhoods across the world. We opened up about our lives, discussed overcoming ones family and community restraints, and discussed how to make change. Then, I found myself with the opposite: intellectuals, politicians and some of the most privileged and elite of India mixed with the middle class to talk about bigger issues to change a bigger community: our world. Huge topics from the environment, cancer, poverty, democratizing media, the Palestine-Israel and Kashmiri conflict to corruption and Bollywood were discussed, including innovations from nanotechnologies to a flying car. 

Peer Leader at Organic Farm in Panchgani

Bollywood THINKing: 
Kiran Rao, Imran Khan and Abhay Deol

Sain Zahoor, amazing Sufi Singer
This is a private VIP event I snuck into . . . 

Where was this? After the peer leadership camp, I headed to Goa for THINKFest. Goa is a weird and special place in itself. Although it is gorgeous and a very special place naturally, and also one of the friendliest as Goans usually offer a laid and kind attitude, the amount of foreigners dominating the land gives it a sort of strange, artificial feeling compared to most other parts of India. There are so many white people, that it almost felt like a new European colony (here's one Indian's point of view). For these reasons, I was always skeptical on going, but I am really glad I chose to. Aside from an amazing conference, renting a scooter and cruising to various tropical beaches and through palm jungles all around the area made me feel so revitalized after an initial two months in busy and polluted cities like Mumbai. I guess you aren't in India unless you get a situation with extremes!

Magic Bus Peer Leader Camp

These weeks inspired me to think about a lot, but also just confused the hell out of me. There I was, talking to some kids about their lives living in slum neighborhoods like Dharavi, BPT, and Jogeshwari, hearing about what its like to live off of Rs.10/day ($ 0.20), have one outfit, fear of their parents wanting them to get married when their 15, drug abuse, the country forgetting about their existence in these huge slums in a crazy city like Mumbai as they live their lives in shanty scrap metal houses, and then I am sipping champagne and listening to Frank Gehry talk about creative architecture and the "modern world" that we live in (here) and some American guy talking about a flying car he built (no joke).  I sat in a circle on a porch of a farmhouse in Panchgani with kids sharing our experiences of being trouble youth (I used to be one) and then just two days later I am sitting in the Grand Hyatt hearing Imran Khan talk about making movies that matter without the interference of corporations (here).

Dayamani Barla, Jharkhand activist, speaks on Just Development

A little taste of Goan Beauty:

Goan shacks

Aram Bol, Goa

The world is crazy, but especially India is mind-blowing as always for me right now. People tend to not trust what I have to say about the world, so I thought I would dedicate the rest of this blog to sharing a few reasons with backup why India is special for those who want to know more about this place, and for those who think they know enough. Here is India in a few facts and numbers:

• India is predicted to be the fastest growing economy by 2013 (source).
• India is the ninth largest economy in the world by nominal GDP and the fourth largest by purchasing power parity (source). India should overtake Japan in 2013 to become the third-largest economy in the world at purchasing power parity (source). 
• There are 1.17 billion people here (source), almost one sixth of the worlds total population living on 2.4% of the world's land (source). Nearly half of which, or 456 million (42% of population), live in extreme poverty on less than $1.25/day (source). 100's of millions more live just above this line.
• Today, India accounts for the greatest burden of newborn deaths in the world. According to 2009 estimates, 908,000 newborns die each year (almost 2400 per day) in India alone – accounting for 28% of the total global burden of neonatal deaths and and a staggering 55% of under-5 deaths in India (source).
• India is full of rich people and tons of money (two of most expensive weddings were Indian: source, the most expensive home in history of 27-stories was build in Mumbai: Antilia, and two of the richest people in the world are Indian: source), as well as tons of food (one of the leading economies of agriculture in the world source and for example, produces 1/4 of the world's eggplants source), however still nearly half of India’s small children are malnourished: one of the highest rates of underweight children in the world, higher than most countries in sub-Saharan Africa. More than one-third of the world’s 150 million (68 million: larger than the population of most Western European countries and almost double of California) malnourished under-fives live in India (source).
• Indian is the third least consumer of meat in the world, only eating 11.5 lbs. annually. Compare that to Americans at 275.1 lbs. annually (a funny source). 30% of Indians are pure vegetarian (no animal product whatsoever) while an estimated 42% are vegetarian but do not consume eggs. Even the "nonveg" population do not eat meat frequently, with less than 30% consuming it regularly (the reasons are partially economical, partially cultural; wiki veg by country).
• 80% of children, 70% of pregnant women and 24% of adult men are deemed in some form anemic in India (source).
• They say that Indians save more than Americans and are in less debt: it is estimated that Indians save up to 62% of their income, while the average American saves only -5% (this percentage is actually debt) to 10% (source).
• India is extremely fragmented in terms of development, with the national life expectancy being 63.7, but the life expectancy of Mumbai being as low as 56.8 (source).
• India is said to be the largest democracy in the world based on it being the democratic government with the largest population, 700 million of which are eligible voters (thats almost 2x the entire size of the US, source).
• Corruption runs so deep in politics, that even Parliament has it's fair share of criminal politicians (about 162 of about 802 members of Parliament have some sort of criminal case against them: source). It is estimated that 40-50% of GDP, in the neighborhood of $600 billion, is from the informal market (source). In fact, India has lost more than $460bn since Independence because of companies and the rich illegally funnelling their wealth overseas (source). Although they are doing somethings though?
• Over the past three years, an average of 700 NGOs open daily in India, and the country is now home to 3.3 million NGOs (source source).
  
• Child marriage is big issues here. In some parts of India, it is estimated that 80% of girls married are under the age of 15 (source). This is no stranger to big cities like Mumbai either; most of our kids in our program face this problem in their communities.
• Mumbai: In Mumbai the population density is about 45,662 persons per square kilometer (source) - almost double compared to all of NYC (the densest city in the USA) which is about 26,000 (wiki). Half of Mumbai lives in poverty (source), half the city lives in slums--which only comprises of 6% of the total land area (source), 1.2 million live on less than Rs.20/day ($ 0.40) (source) and there are about 100,000 people sleeping on the streets (source).
• The other Mumbai: there are plans to complete several, very expensive residential skyscraper projects that include the "World One Tower," a proposed second tallest residential tower in India on land taken from a mill that used to employ 7,000 people and will require 14 million man hours and $400 million to complete; the Indian Tower will be the tallest building in India at 126 stories, double size of the current Imperial Tower, which cleared thousands of slum homes for its construction. All this is somehow part of the plan to make Mumbai "slum free" by 2015, yet these buildings (and others alike: Palais Royale and the Lokhandwala Minerva) will hardly be for the people that had to leave the land for their completion, as they will cost upward millions of dollars.
• And then there is Antilia: supposedly the most expensive and largest home in world: estimated at $1 billion to build, 27 stories high, 600 staff to run it, and situated on the most expensive block of the tenth most expensive road in the world, Altamount Rd (cost of upward $10 million/square meter). All for 5 people. And as of last month, they won't move in because they're unhappy with the design.

This country is big, fast, contradictory and special in so many ways compared to the rest of the world. My appreciation for India expands everyday. There are so many problems stacked right next to many virtues that world can learn from it (like having a pretty great appreciation for family values and marriage and possibly being happier than most Western countries). For example, having so many problems is intense to think about, but thinking that no one is doing anything is just wrong. The efforts and creative thought that happen here inspire me, even though it is hard to see at first.

The ending note of the THINKfest conference is in order to make change happen in our world, no matter what you do, you have to be creative. Thinkers are needed everywhere to challenge the barriers that surround most professional fields and personal lives. It seems like no secret, yet most people don't really question things or think beyond their limits. And it is not just India, the world has even greater problems than India has to offer, and my own country of the good ol' USA could use a whole entry itself to point out it's own blasphemy. In any context though, it is hard to be the change you want to be though when people are maintaing broken system systems, or even the most developed countries that are supposed to be the example are not upholding democratic values that they preach (source and Colbert Report). It is so difficult to help empower these kids at this camp when it seems so impossible for many of them to be the changes they want to make. Still, there is always a horizon. I guess we all need to think bigger, overcome our differences and unite in our struggle, a cliche still not yet lived (like here).

Dazed in the Mumbai Maze

Are you ready to take on the Mumbai adventure? Before you come, see how well you score with this board game!

START:

Head to Mumbai for ten months of service with AIF! Before you start, make sure you know a one thing: Mumbai is a Maximum City in every sense. If you can live here, you really can live anywhere. Chalo! Let’s get started.

Flying into Mumbai

1.) Welcome to Mumbai! Soak up the freezing air conditioning and views of the very modern airport that overlook massive slums stacked to the walls of the runway. Please exit straight outside to the thick, muggy, trash-scented air to a taxi that is looking to rip you off.

IF you didn’t get charged triple the amount for being a foreigner, please advance straight through the muggy air that reeks of trash to your new home.

OR

IF you did get ripped off, please argue with the taxi driver in crappy Hindi and American English until he understands. Collect your money back and RUN FAST with all of your bags away to the next space as he yells at you in public!

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus

2.) COOL OFF with some hot chai! Drink your first Maharashtran chai with a spicy hot samosa and smile as you advance to the next space already drenched in sweat and bliss. Make conversation with the friendly locals sitting next to you.

Mumbai Locals

3.) AUTO RICKSHAW RUN AROUND!! The moment after dropping your bags off, take an auto rickshaw to meet a random broker on the back of a random motorcycle on a random street corner.

            THINK FAST! There is an auto bundh! You will have to walk!

Bandra Station

4.) SUCCESS. Take 4 steps forward and collect 30,000 Rupees as you visit 8 different apartments on your first day in Mumbai and receive your first month’s stipend!

5.) SNEAK ATTACK!!! Take 5 steps backwards and pay 3,000 Rupees when you realize that none of the places are livable, except for the first one – which is way out of your budget! Stay on track. . .

GO FORWARD 1 space for every three apartments you look at as you continue your search! GO BACKWARDS 3 spaces for every place that is completely out of your budget!

6.) EAT, PRAY, GROOVE

Dance Garba for Navrati as you are reborn into the next activity

OR

Engage in pooja to Durga and eat Bengali bhog beneath her pandal as you are blessed with tika and advance forward

Durga Pooja

Line for Bhog at a Durga Pooja Celebration

7.) JUMP ON THE FAST TRAIN to Churchgate and check out the Gateway to India! Enjoy the beautiful views and peaceful atmosphere as you sit amongst families and friends in front of Mumbai’s proudest monument.

Gateway to India and Taj Mahal Palace Hotel

‘TREAT YOURSELF’ to extremely overpriced souvenirs and food in the most touristic neighborhood in India! If you speak Hindi, take off ¾ of the price.

OR

Avoid the stalls and sneak into a bar for a drink and some of the funniest locals you can meet on this side of the Arabian Sea!

8.) SLLLLLOOOOOOWWW DOWN on a slow train! Take the Mumbai “local” Western Rail to Lower Parel as you head to work.

Mumbai Local Trains

FREE SHOVES! Fight your way on the train every single day as you get elbowed, stepped on, pushed over, scratched at and spat at while at least twenty-five other very sweaty and anxious people try to get past you. For every two people you push and every one person you elbow, you arrive at work 2 minutes earlier.

Take a step backwards if you get pushed out of a moving train at Dadar Station or stand on the wrong side and miss your stop! If you can jump back on the moving train, you may only be 30 minutes late!

9.) NOT YET SUCKER! Just when you think it is time to start work, go back 10 spaces to apartment hunting!! 

Deal with crazy landlords and shady brokers as you fight your way into an apartment! Bargain hard for a decent deposit, then pay way too much money to get out of the hassle and into your own place that is completely unfurnished. PLUS SIDE: Enjoy amazing new roommates.

10.) MAGIC CARD! Take a stroll along Carter Road with new Mumbai friends and check out the peaceful Ganesha beach temple. Soak in the Mumbai skyline and take one step forward as you realize your dreams have come true. Head to a friends house for dinner to hang with inspiring and talented people of this country.

11.) BONDING TIME! You finally begin work. Interview some of the most underprivileged people in the world during community visits to Dharavi, BPT and Thane to see some of the most complex slum-communities in South Asia. Interact with amazing people whose resilience lifts you forward 5 more spaces.

*Move backwards 5 spaces if you feel pity for these people or disgusted with these places. The only thing they need is advocacy, not critics.

12.) JUMP UP AND DOWN and forward 5 spaces as you finally get a cell phone and make a few friends! If you actually get network, keep moving forward another space!

13.) CAUTION TAPE! You are not welcome to the communities you work with because you are white. Please start over and figure out why you are playing this game!

Dharavi by Night

14.) NEW BEGINNING! Revise your role in your NGO and what project you can with only 8 months remaining! Convince people that not all white people are bad, even though a lot are. Finish this all in 5….4….3….2….1….

Footsteps for Good NGO Charity Event

15.) TILT-A-WHIRL!! Spin around really fast to imitate the pressures of Mumbai!

Feel the pressure as dozens of auto drivers drive past you and ignore you, the trains get fuller everyday, an old homeless man pees on you, you witness babies crawling around in trash heaps with rats and insects, your landlord gets more demanding, your Hindi gets worse, people do not trust you, rabid decomposing dogs chase you home and a child cries at the sight of your face!

16.) SIT BACK AND RELAX on a rickety old merry go-round that is manually operated by three small boys on Chowpatty Beach.

INDULGE and enjoy the best chaat in Maharashtra. Treat yourself to fresh pani puri, dahi puri, pav bhaji and a mango milkshake. Sit still for this round and calm yourself from the all the spinning fun and stress.

*Despite the craziness, remember how calm and challenging last summer was in Eastern rural India for the opposite reasons. Embrace the madness of Mumbai for the sake of keeping yourself entertained and think hard about your role at your NGO, Magic Bus. What meaningful project can you do there?

17.) EXPAT TRAP! Looking for friends? Take the Sea Link to Bandra West! Get trapped with foreigners (and really rich Indians who want to be foreigners) that are complaining about India all the time, recreating a USA party-all-the-time culture and spending waaaayyy too much money! Remember, most foreigners really are rich and have more money than you!

Either hang with them and blow your stipend, sending you right back to START as well as diminishing any attempt to understand India

OR

Drop them and deal with your solitude as you focus on work and figure out how to make genuine friends as well as a great project.

18.) BONUS! For feeding a street child lunch one afternoon, someone will be a little nicer to you on the train and not push you.

REALITY CHECK: After he tells you that both of his parents died of a fever last month, you feel even worse and more powerless in this living machine that is Mumbai. This child is one of almost a million in Mumbai. Take one step back.

19.) HOMESICK REMEDY! After missing your family, distract yourself with Diwali! Cover your apartment in bright, tacky, colorful lights! For Dhanteras, purchase dipas and enjoy the light show at night as the five-day festival of lights commences!

Rangoli - Getting Ready for Diwali

Diwali Madness

POW!! Random fireworks outside your window and around your office resemble the gunshots from back home in the US. Jump out of your skin and scream like a girl as you head backwards three spaces! Exchange sweets with friends in order to feel better.

 Fireworks

20.) STARVE YOURSELF! Since you spend all day on trains, trying to find auto-rickshaws and wasting time trying to connect to the internet – you have no time or energy to make food and you don’t have enough money to eat out!

One of Many Commuter Crowds

Give in and pay a bai to make you lunch and dinner everyday. Fill your belly with ghee, and move forward two spaces. Realize your privilege!

21.) MOSEY AROUND TOWN until you wind up in South Bombay. Sit and marvel at Haji Ali – a sacred and beautiful example of Indian Islamic Architecture that reminds you of the struggle Muslims continue to fight in this country and across the world. Feel good about today and go forward to the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel where you can pretend you are rich guest just to use their bathroom.

Dhobi Ghat - Mahalaxmi Station

22.) LUCKY YOU!!! A bird defecates on your head for the 12^th time since you arrived! This is considered good luck in India, so you can take those feces and run ahead five spaces!

Lucky Bird

SORRY! A monsoon hits and washes away your good luck, and in the mean time also soaks your laptop bag and all of your clothes! Go back wards five spaces, then take the train all the way home soaking wet!

23.) WAKE UP AND SMELL THE FUMES! You get stuck in traffic and nearly suffocated by gas fumes for 2 hours from Andheri to Bandra during rush hour, a distance of only 13 km! But you still arrive to your destination before anyone else! Go forward one space!

24.) DANCE IT OFF after a long week of quantitative data collection in slum communities at a Mumbai club where you score free entrance. Get sweaty and step outside to get even more sweaty from the thick October heat as you look out into the contradictory landscape that is Mumbai, where even you are a part of the massive contradiction that houses over 20 million people.

Mumbai Juxtaposed

25.) HAND STANDS IN BANDSTAND! Have fun with street kids and do handstands in your neighborhood as snooty onlookers judge you with their eyes. Embrace a light attitude about life and feel good about a new beginning in this crazy huge city!

Sunset off Carter Road

FINISH?

Yeah right! Keep your chin up and don’t run into any more cows while walking or offend your Indian coworkers with your ignorant foreignness!

The journey continues. . . only 20,461 more spaces to go!

Holy Shit: Bharat Part 3

Really?

Back to India.  If someone would have told me three years ago that by this time in my life, I would have visited India more than any other country in the world, I would not have believed it.  "How the hell would I get to India once, let alone three times!" is probably what I would have thought.  Well, life is weird, man.  Today is my twenty-seventh day of my third trip to India.  This is also the second time I am working here, at another NGO.  Also, I will be here for the longest amount of time I have ever been abroad: nearly 1 year.  "Holy shit."

Bahá'í Lotus Temple, Delhi

Humayun's Tomb

That's all I kept thinking for the entire six weeks I was back home in the States before coming back to India.  It was absolutely unbelievable to me that I was about to fly half way around the world again to live in Mumbai, one of my favorite cities in the world, for 10 months.  "Holy shit."  Not only am I coming back to India, but I am also leaving the country after just returning from being in Ghana for 6 months and having had the luck of traveling through Europe for a month and a half.  In the past year, I have been on over 25 planes, and was about to board three more to get to Mumbai.  "Holy Shit."  Above all, I am not just coming for a short internship or a galavanting travel expedition.  I am actually being paid by a foundation to come and work for and NGO.  I am going to be a fellow under the name of the ex-president Bill Clinton.  I am going to be paid to come to Mumbai and work for a youth development organization that offers its services within slums across the mega-city.  Right after my final study abroad in Ghana in the spring, I am going to work on the ground in one of the most fascinating and socially stratified cities in the world.  "Holy shit."

Lower Parel - My walk to work from the train

My good friend Mini and I at an Art Show (furniture made from recycled trash)

Marine Drive - Mumbai

This year will be pretty different for me.  I am representing the American India Foundation (www.aif.org) as a Clinton Fellow for Service (http://www.aifclintonfellowship.org/blog/).  My job is to work with Magic Bus, a Mumbai-based Youth Development and Sports for Development NGO, to do some project to benefit the NGO, the beneficiaries and myself.  Upon arriving in Delhi, I did not really know what to expect.  Yet, as days passed by, the Fellowship became more and more interesting.    We met the American Ambassador of India, had dinner with big Delhi socialites that are into development and philanthropy, partied on the rooftop at the nicest Sushi restaurant in Delhi, met heads of NGOs and non-profits ranging from rural livelihoods to women's rights, discussed politics withthe Editor and Chief of the Indian Express, talked caste with distinguished professors and even got a lecture on sexual minorities from a rep from a Delhi based MSM org.  This fellowship is way more complex than I thought, having fellows doing work from public health to social enterprise to human rights to education.  The most interesting part are probably the fellow themselves: some of the most talented and experienced people I have met.  Meeting past alumni of this program has also made me realize what a great opportunity this is begin something even greater for myself after this fellowship ends.  The group dynamic was great though, and I really enjoyed hanging out in Delhi with everyone, as well as getting to know some amazing people.  Every day up until we left was packed with some activity, and then we all dispersed all over India.  Once again, for the sixth time, I flew into Mumbai.

Hitting the clubs in Delhi

Some of the AIF crew at orientation, Delhi

India is one of those places for me that just never gets old.  Beyond the appeal of being extremely foreign to me as a Westerner, it is a place that keeps anyone's senses occupied to the maximum.  It felt good to land and know what to expect right away, while simultaneously remaining eager to continue to learn more that I still do not understand.  It takes a local a lifetime to really know their homeland inside and out, and even they still are surprised by what happens in their own hood.  This is a great lesson I have learned staying with my family in Ohio.  Even though they know their city, they fit in culturally, they understand the local language, and even though they keep up with what's going on around them, they are still surprised by the traffic, by people's unexplainable behavior, by politics they can not explain, by things that have been there forever.  This is my third time in India, but it is still only my 137th day in this country all together.  Even two years here would not be enough to know it all.  Yet, even though the learning curve for a traveler is steep, with greater effort you can learn a lot.  I want this next ten months to never be dull.  Everyday I hope to figure something new out through conversation, getting lost around Mumbai, practicing language, eating something new, reading up Indian books and authors and just living life in Mumbai.  "Holy Shit," this is real!

Durga Pooja

Durga Pooja

Durga Pooja