All well

All is well hither. Made friends with one of my neighbors, cooked some rice and potatoes, and wonder how I can kill time. Never have I ever wanted to come to work as much as over the past 2 days when I had absolutely nothing to do. Couldn't even find a decent book shop to go get something to read from. Will have internet at home soon.

Public transport is something that Patna needs to work on urgently. You can't even get an auto-rickshaw to yourself, but have to share it with 6 other people going the same direction- it is cheap, about Rs.5, but hardly comfortable. A cycle rickshaw is more expensive, at around Rs.10 to most places within the city center, but so terribly slow. Not only that, most of the men pulling these rickshaws look so weak that I feel I should be taking them somewhere instead.

I think holding a press conference to discuss what NSPL is doing and how the community can help would be a good way to start off a public awareness campaign. And public awareness is crucial. If people can be convinced to begin segregating their compostables from the landfillable trash- that would be a tremendous victory.

Out of sight is out of mind here, with streets swept clean, and piles of garbage around the corner.

The colony that I'm trying to develop as a model project has some rather furious residents. They want to know why there is so much garbage in front of their houses. Simple answer really- they throw it there. They want to know why NSPL doesn't regularly pick up all the waste lining their roads. Good question- why don't we? It's because we have a contract to pick up waste from each and every household in the neighborhood- from their DOORSTEP. They have absolutely no business throwing their garbage onto the street when we're coming to them and picking it up.

But of course, we have to keep the trash off the streets, so I'm planning to hold a community meeting, and then a drive that cleans the streets within the neighborhood of all the garbage we see. In the meeting it'll be made sure they understand that the trash on the streets is their fault- something they can easily avoid by simply giving us the trash instead of tossing it where they feel like.

But of course, all one hears is, "you should sweep more often" or, "your people should pick up all the garbage they see." Right, and who will pay my people to sweep the roads more often? Or who will pay them to pick up trash that shouldn't be thrown on the road in the first place? Of course, the residents think it should be done for the price which we're already charging- instead of correcting their ways, we should just throw more manpower into the situation.

Without public awareness, waste management is a one sided solution to a multi-faceted problem.

Moved into my palace.

Not sure what to put in all the empty rooms, don't really want a whole lot of furniture. Rent is Rs. 5500. A thousand square feet, near the golf course, the ex-chief minister, the present chief-minister, members of parliament, for $117 a month. Only in India.

Giving out salaries today, and using Photo Booth on my mac to take pictures of all the employees for their ID's.

Also, this is where Charlie, one of the other fellows is serving his fellowship- in the state of Uttarakhand.

He's living at an ashram, designing a curriculum for the school there.

Moving in

Moving in today, provided I get a mattress. Met some Koreans yesterday, apparently there's a Korean center in town that teaches Korean. The couple spoke decent Hindi as well. Were visiting us to discuss the waste management situation in Patna, along with a professor of civil engineering who specialized in water and waste management. He had some pretty good inputs.

It's dusshera season here, so it's getting pretty hectic around the city, lots of loudspeakers blaring badly tuned spiritual songs, larger crowds and more garbage. The closer you move towards the state of Bengal, the more intense the celebrations get. Bihar, of course, is right next to Bengal.

Took a cycle rickshaw today, the old kind, not the new kind that AIF has designed. Have to take a ride in the AIF ones to see the difference. When I see one of the rickshawwallahs riding in the newfangled ones I'll ask him what he thinks of it.

Also, my apartment is a THOUSAND sq.feet. And it's just me in it. Maybe I'll make one of the rooms a home-gym/home-office. Gotta get some plants for my balcony too. Going to turn into Martha Stewart.

I have a houseva!

Finally! An apartment in Patna! And where is it? On Baily road, near the Patna Golf Course, the Zoo, Laloo's house and the current Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar's house- oh and the airport too. It's a spacious 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment on the first floor. Should be all moved in in 2 days. Just have to scrounge together the basics the first. My landlord is a retired Colonel, a grenadier. The first landlord I could hold a conversation with. Excellent.

Composting & MRF

So, we've narrowed down my 10 month focus even more. I have to make the MRF (isn't Wiki great?) turn a profit, and ramp up the composting operations.
First things on the list:
1) Figure out what system is really effective here for composting (NADEP composting looks like a winner)
2) Shove worms into it as well, so they can help the microbial action.
3) Find an Indian manufacturer of industrial grade wood chippers/shredders to make our biodegradable waste bite sized.

NADEP seems to be more agriculturally oriented, so it might need some modifications. Perhaps extra cow-dung (we have a lot of it). It might work well when coupled with worms.

The scope for recycling here seems tremendous. But to find a role for NSPL is somewhat of a challenge. Considering that there is very little segregation at source, the door to door collection will have to be put through a sorting process, which can get expensive.

On the other hand, Indian's keep aside the cans, stacks of newspaper and other such items aside and store them for a bit (to build their collection) and then sell to a kabadi or raddiwala. This person basically collects recyclable, reusable things from people's houses and then sells them to a bigger dealer, who sells them in turn to someone who actually processes those goods.

So a good balance must be found that ensures that people like the raddiwala don't lose their livelihoods while recycling is made more efficient at the same time.

House

Will find out whether or not I'll get the apartment I really want in about 2 hours. If I don't get it I'll be moving into Nidan's Executive Director's house till I find a place. It seems it's harder to find a place to live in Patna than it is in Manhattan. Lots of meetings over the last two days.

I think my project has been finalized for the next 10 months. I'm going to develop Patliputra Colony, a neighborhood with around 350 households, and through this area develop and implement solutions to the various problems concerning NSPL's day to day garbage collection, revenue collection, recycling and composting. Things that work will be scaled up to other neighborhoods that NSPL works in.

NSPL bid for a waste management contract with the Municipality of a nearby city, and if we get the contract then I shall be helping set-up operations in that city from the ground-up.

Don't have a house, but I have a neighborhood.

I now have my own neighborhood to take care of and develop as a "model" neighborhood. In terms of waste management, that is.


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Patliputra Colony, with around 850 households and about 4,250 people and around 2.5 metric tonnes of waste a day, a lot of which is compostable yard waste. Exciting. I'm going to develop the routing, collection, street cleaning, customer service and composting.

Current events.

Current project: Working on streamlining payroll and collection.

Current housing situation: Chasing down brokers.

Current language: A new mix of Bhojpuri, Hindi and English. Put a va at the end of a word- such as phoneva, gharva(house), numberva to make it Bhojpuri. Easy enough. Also, if you wish to fit in even more, try to talk like you have a large paan in your mouth, the resulting incomprehensibility will result in everyone thinking you're native.

Current mode of transport: Whomsoever gets the unfortunate task of coming to my hotel and picking me up.

Getting used to carrying 2 phones around- my mentor carries 3. 3! I think I might need a 3rd one soon too. The first is a Delhi number, the second is a Patna number that NSPL gave me, but it has many restrictions on it- so I might end up getting my own 3rd one. Or maybe a device that holds two SIM cards, so my pocket can be spared.

Even though I'm on the banks of the mighty Ganga, I've barely seen it for more than a few seconds once or twice while driving places. Have to fix that soon.

First opinions

Still searching far and wide for a place I can call home for the next 10 months. There's a shortage of decent apartments in this city, especially ones that are both easy to access and in relatively safe neighborhoods.

Getting used to life in Patna , Bihar for that matter, isn't that difficult for someone who's already acclimatized to life in India. Though the stories of chaos in the streets aren't exactly true, it can be said with confidence that much work needs to be put into this state to bring it to par with the rest of India in terms of general urban life.

There isn't one operational traffic light in this city of 1.8 million, every major chouraha (intersection) is manned by a traffic policeman who directs hordes of commuters who have absolutely no respect for the policeman's authority (he does have very little). Roads are routinely blocked for unbelievably large political convoys replete with flashing lights and blaring sirens. One would think the state politicians spend more time driving with flashing lights then enacting legislation.

The major roads are built decently enough, but lesser ways seem to be perpetually in disrepair or under construction, neither of which allows for an easy commute.

There are multiple gowshalas (dairies) within the city. The cows are sustained on a healthy diet of organic trash from the vegetable and fruit markets, domestic refuse and drain water. The very best for Patna's milk lovers. Of course, the areas surrounding these gowshalas also sustain the local energy traders. What do they trade? Barrels of crude? Electricity? Natural Gas? No. Cow dung cakes. Of course, these provide fuel to thousands of fires in the city- an essential energy source. But to have Patna's sidewalks covered in drying dung- that's something that can be worked on.

Paan. You can hate it or love it, but if you reside in Patna, or for that matter any city across this paan chewing (and spitting) belt of India you can't avoid it. I have yet to walk into a building here that doesn't have red streaks in various corners. Coming from a waste management perspective- it raises the question- how do you get people to stop spitting everywhere!? This, of course is a problem in other places in India as well- both paan and gutka are popular in India, but the rate of consumption (eye-balling it) seems much higher here, then say in Indore, MP.

Let's get to the point now, the reason I'm here- garbage. There's a lot of it here- about 700 metric tonnes a day. Unfortunately about 30% (or less- you can never believe bureaucrats) of that is picked up the same day. The amount that does get picked up is unceremoniously dumped on the outskirts of the city. Processing? What processing?

But more stuff on garbage later, I have to go find a place to live now.

Tea with the ambassador

Had some tea with the US Ambassador to India, Timoth J. Roemer.
I decided to take a quick nap while the photographer was clicking away apparently.

Update

Greetings from Patna!

I'm getting used to life here, though I'm still not settled. I've seen a few flats/apartments/houses, and am going to see a few more- I hope I'll have a place of my own soon. Patna is crowded, hot and dirty.

On most days I work out of NSPL's office in Maurya Lok Complex, on other days at Nidan's office on Boring road. Yeah, the main road in this city is called Boring Road- what that says of the city, you can think for yourself. :) Actually the full name is Boring Canal road, but between you and me, we can leave that canal bit out.

I'll go exploring around the city more when I have my own place- and some easy form of conveyance. Going to go back to work now- and put a long update up later. Have a tender for a municipal bid due tomorrow.

Much love from Patna.


Edit: Also, bear with me as I finalize what the site will look like, can't spend too much time on design at the moment. If anyone knows a good blog/content management system that is easy to integrate into a website- let me know.