Heat and Dust ...

Like "Strategy" is an overused, all-encompassing, umbrella term in management, so is "hand-holding" in the microfinance industry. Whenever you become too curious and try to delve deeper, "hand-holding" becomes a roadblock.

Anyways, after successfully avoiding "field-visits" for a couple of weeks, I ran out of luck the bygone week. Four days of "hand-holding" microfinance institutions on the field, has left me high and dry.

As I go bar-hopping in the evenings to catch IPL matches, I have, surprisingly, covered a sizeable portion of the NCR, and that includes parts of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

The past week had been full of novel experiences - Reaching where letters never reach, interrogated by policemen for being present at the wrong place at the wrong time, chased by a pair of bulls (as if one was not enough), and being served an extra bottle of beer, by mistake - some of these I would not mind recurring in the week ahead.

And for readers, who are blessed with a liking to continuity, yes ... uncertainty still rules...

At the Crossroads ... Again

Delhi is hot!
For those of you who have already lined up a series of expletives for saying the obvious, its raining in the NCR! The massive temperature shift between night and day has left me longing for a more stable climate.
Internship @ Intellecap is unstructured, which is good. There is much scope for expanding or collapsing the "scope" of the assignment. However, people knowing me can guess which way I will do it!
With it being the largest city that I have stayed in, for a reasonable amount of time, Delhi has not cooperated with me for the timebeing. With no vehicle at my disposal, the spread-out nature of the city and the dearth of basic amenities at walking distances, has left me with a pair of sore legs and a lighter wallet. The metro is a reprieve, though.
The following seven weeks will be interesting. As I see it now, it will test my patience as well as my ability to keep myself engaged, two things among many, which I am not good at.
The immediate future is uncertain ... and for those, who are again complaining about speaking the obvious, this time, let your expletives flow. :)
See you on the other side of uncertainty...

Of Farewells and Corporate Dinners ...

The blistering Ahmedabad heat, which refuses to subside till late in the evening, made a mockery of our corporate get up, as we, residents of D-13, finally got into the act and celebrated our Corpo-D, an elaborate celebration of the dorm culture of IIM-A. It certainly lived up to my expectations, as we experienced a throwback to the days of OM-3, albeit a much more enjoyable one, in the form of nailing the "pseudo-glam" post of dorm representive. "The Pride" shook, as facchhas fought it out for the chance to "participate" in OM3-2009, and thoroughly lived up to the reputation of D-13 being one of the noisiest of dorms.

It was the last gathering of all the dorm members, as since then, slowly the tucchhas have trickled out of the dorm, out of the campus and the city. D-13 looks forlorn, not even half as noisy as it once was.

As the last of the tucchhas leave, here's wishing them a heartfelt bright future and a sincerely optimistic wishful thinking that they make up for the downsized and sliced dreams at the placements this year.

For once the residents of D-'13' need some luck ...

Winds of Change ...

The winds have changed their direction ... yet again ... a much needed change is round the corner. It was about time, though ... or shall we say, JUST in TIME.

Misery in the Midst of the Rann of Kutch

Don't be mistaken ... I am not into social work, as you would expect. It is just a course requirement, which opened a small window for me into the lives of the socially trampled and marginalised. Please be assured, again, that the biased tone of the above statement hardly signals the arrival of a new crusader-against-poverty on the block, but its just that it is the truth.

Our society has, over a period of time, defined and redefined the 'poor'. Poor sounded hackneyed ... so we decided to call them 'needy'. But needy had a self-defeating connotation to it. How can anybody with an iota of self-respect be called needy? So, he became 'deprived'. And then 'underpriviledged'. When underpriviledged was overused, he became 'disadvantaged'.

He may not have a single dime even today... but he has a great vocabulary.

I have no take-aways from this course. The window that I had talked about had a collapsible hinge. It is shut now. The salt pans are a fading memory.

But the assortment of emotions ... pride ... self-belief ... gratefulness ... the feeling of being recognised ... and a ray of hope that the video writ large on the face of a salt pan worker ... I would like to carry that along with me.

[Influenced by and drawn from Feiffer, Jules' quote]