Happy Thanksgiving

Enjoy your turkeys, and your mashed potatoes, and your cranberry sauce. I'll be having chicken curry instead.

Back in Patna

Back in Patna. I've traveled a lot in India, from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu and every western state. But I never traveled East, or North East (of Indore that is). This was my first trip to Jharkhad, and to Jamshedpur. I must say that it was an eye opener. That city (at least the TATA controlled part) is clean, organized, efficient and GREEN. More so than any other city. Perhaps privatization of certain things (in India) is good. Bureaucrats shouldn't manage cities- or rather the current crop of Indian bureaucrats shouldn't. Dealing with them in Patna is a nightmare, and I've often thought that the city would operate better if it weren't for all the red-tape. A visit to Jamshedpur shows that this is indeed true.

Jamshedpur

In Jamshedpur right now. Great city. One of only 2 planned cities in India, the other one being Chandigarh. Which means they mapped out the city, the streets, parks etc, before they started constructing it. Managed entirely by Tata Steel. The only city in India privately managed. One can see the difference. I'm partial to Tata to begin with and Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, JRD, and all are awesome. They have avenues here. Saw a sign for 7th and 8th avenues. That's how planned it is. And it's clean. Spectacularly clean compared to Patna, or even Indore. It helps to have India's largest infrastructure, steel, auto- etc company manage it.

More updates later.

Busy busy

Sorry for the long gap in between posts. My bike arrived from Indore, which means I now spend a lot more time in the field- Starting at 6 AM, I visit Patliputra colony and Patna City (the old city- now a suburb of Patna). I'm leading a new recycling project in Patna city that will increase the livelihoods of over 300 female rag-pickers directly while providing them with insurance and free education to their children. The program involves setting up 10 cooperatives that purchase recyclables from the rag pickers (20 to each cooperative) and are given seed money by us. They in turn sell the recyclables to our MRF (material recovery facility) and earn a profit. We process, sort and pack the recyclables and then sell them to end processors. This increases the amount of stuff being recycled, increases the livelihoods of these women by giving them a place to sell the stuff they scavenge at a price higher than the market price offered by other exploitative recyclers and gives them insurance, their children education and also provides them with an ID which they can use to escape harassment from police while out scavenging.

A good project over all, but it means I get back to the office around 3 PM, and then spend the rest of the day (sometimes till 8-9pm) working on proposals for other places, or crunching numbers. Also we no longer have wireless internet at work because the router broke, so now you have to sit next to it and connect via an ethernet cord, which is means I can't write blog updates from my desk when free.

Joined a gym last week. Although that means I have to get up at 5 some days to make it there and then go make sure that trash is being picked up by 6:30.

Patna is beginning to feel like home. I find myself speaking Hindi with a Patna accent if not attempting Bhojpuri. I'll definitely add another language to the resume by the end of these 10 months.

Here's a video taken from my cell phone (sorry for the haziness) on one of the main market roads in Patna City. It shows trash recently taken out from a large nala (open drain) and now being dumped into a tractor. Having a small Bobcat, and a compactor truck would make this so much more efficient and environmentally/health friendly. But you have to use the tools you have.