The Next Wave

Yesterday I realized that a large portion of my friends -and these are people I interact with on almost a daily basis, not distant acquaintances-are to be found doing something in the field of education.

J is part of a start-up creating ITES solutions for schools, colleges and the government.[Link]

R is repairing OLPC laptops in a small school in Nasik. [Link]

H is a Research Associate in Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab which does impact evaluations on education and other sectors. [Link]

and,

N is a fellow at Teach for India, managing an exceptionally 'energetic' 3rd grade. [Link]

If you had met these people not too long ago they were respectively a computer science student, an electrical engineer, an oil & gas field engineer and a fashion designer.

Is it happening to you and people around you too?

History and Us

You know what kind of history I like?

As much as the stories of kings and their architectures and Marshall and his plan are important what really interests me is the slice of life kind of history.

History like this:

"Finally the Tuscany reached the Gangetic delta in September 1833 to great reception. There was a reason for this enthusiasm: they were finally getting rid of the Hooghly slush which was the ice equivalent. To make Hooghly slush, boiled water was poured in earthenware and placed in shallow pits filled with straw. The cool air froze the surface creating a thin film of ice. These pots were then collected and stored in pits for sale during summer. This Hooghly slush was expensive and it was slush. The slush was available for six weeks at a rate of 4 pence per pound and now pure Boston ice was available all year around for three pence a pound." (Full article at varnam, possibly one of the best blogs on Indian History I have come across.)

History which is ordinary with respect to the people involved and at the same time is a beautifully detailed piece of the bigger picture.

During one such discussion with a colleague about his grandfather, a law student in Pune who was jailed for distributing pamphlets during the Quit India Movement, I realised that Pune was quite the hub of student activism during that time, and that some schools would only give you admission after you had signed an agreement stating  that you "...would not participate in anti Crown activities..."

Gets me thinking, 50 years later, when people talk about the single greatest thing that happened in India during our time, what would it be and would we have played a role in it?

Jaane Bi Do Yaaron?

Saw Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron again last night. Curiously, even though I was in splits watching Satish Shah as a dead body, Om Puri's drunk antics, and last but not the least that genius of a Draupadi scene, what hit me the most was the angst. I was surprised that this aspect had completely escaped me on previous viewings. The feeling of desperation that the youth feel when up against the powers that be was epitomized by one of the scenes in which Naseeruddin Shah and Ravi Baswani are at the railway station, their cash being snatched off by a hawaldar, are left without any money to go home. The look that Naseeruddin Shah gives as he asks, " Without ticket?", captures it all.

That got me thinking. We are currently one of the youngest countries in the world. Similar demographic points in the history of nations have coincided with major civil unrests. France had May '68, USA had its whole 1960s counterculture thing going, China had Tianamen. These civil unrests have more often than not led to laws being formed in favour of civil liberty, women and youth empowerment, and not to mention have been times of unparalleled artistic achievements.

For a nation which has more than 600 million citizens under the age of 30 and an equal number under the poverty line, we sure are a quiet lot.

Mobile Epiphany

After having lived in Europe without a mobile phone for a couple of weeks now and trying to get a low cost connection, I realized how easy we have it in India when it comes to mobile networks. Believe me, we are living in a dream world. Cheap call rates, the best of models, free choice of networks.

It wasn't long back in my 3rd year year of engineering that I remember I was standing in a kilometer long queue trying to get my BSNL sim. By the time I was passing out it wasn't rare to see the high end models in the hands of the freshers, and by the time I started working, mobiles were like fashion, if you didn't have the latest model in your hand you were so passe. A year at most would be the time before a mobile phone model went from being the latest in thing to i-would-rather-be-caught-dead-than-be-seen-with-one.

My opinion here was precipitated by Lekhni's realization, she says,

"...We cannot switch providers if we don’t like the service, or unlock our phones without the provider’s “approval”. We cannot buy just any phone - because phone models are “customized” by the providers, so all phones will not work with all providers. So if you want an iPhone, for instance, you are stuck with AT&T. You also won’t see all the features of the phone, just those that your provider shows you. For more ringtones, or wallpapers, you have to pay up."

Read more on her blog here.

My guess would be that this is the kind of advantage that comes with late initiation but instant adoption of technology that India experienced with mobile phones.

A big thank you to the regulators and more power to those who champion the cause of the consumer.

The Song in the Street

Its 8:30 am and I am standing in a queue in front of an ATM, I turn back to look at the view behind me. It’s a small avenue with apartments 3-4 stories high, interspersed with little shops bearing the standard banners of Airtel, Pepsi, Reliance and the like. The dust swirling around climbs the shafts of sunlight coming through the trees. Fat housewives drag their kids and shopping bags into and out of the shops. Bald men with bags and busy expressions trot along the footpath, frowning into their mobile phones. A Hero Puch jostles with a Honda City, a Maruti elbows its way between cycles and Indicas to get ahead. The smug looking autorickshaw wallahs lounge about in their resplendent sunflower yellow vehicles chatting and scratching themselves.
I had barely stifled a yawn at the sheer monotony of it when, suddenly, the scene shifted slightly in front of my eyes.
The autowallahs peeked out, the vehicles on the road slowed down a notch, the guy behind me in the line looked at me and smiled and for a second everyone on the street stopped doing what they were doing and cocked their heads, listening. Coming from somewhere far away through scratchy loudspeakers, barely audible over the clamour in the street, one could hear a chorus of children singing, “…punjab, sindh, gujarat, maratha, dravida, utkala, banga, vindhya, himachal, yamuna, ganga, uchhala jaladhi taranga…”