Sunday, March 25, 2007

A Fine Balance

“It is a fine balance between despair and hope” - Rohinton Mistry. In my opinion, this pretty much sums up life in India.

Hope – There is now a sleeper bus to Bijapur. It costs 400 Rupees one way but I could stretch my legs and try to sleep during the twelve-hour overnight journey from Bangalore to Bijapur. Bijapur seems to be a happening enough place for people to go to in sleeper buses.

Despair – The bus turns up 3 hours late. I was supposed to leave Bangalore by 7.15 pm and I actually left around 10.30.

Hope (mini) – The bus reached Bijapur by the scheduled arrival time of 8 am in the morning. So those 3 hours was just a buffer in their planning. The VRL travels probably allows for more buffer in their schedules than any of the famed software companies. May be our software tycoons should travel more in VRL buses to understand the concept of planning and scheduling.

Hope – The Shikshana Vahini program run by SVYM and supported by Asha has an ambitious goal of enabling all the SDMCs in Bijapur district by 2010. The team (of 5 people) seems to be very dedicated and energetic. Rather than simply running a school for around 200 children, Mamatha of SVYM has immersed herself in the un-enviable task of enabling the local communities to take ownership of the performance of their neighborhood schools funded by the government.

Despair – This trip only reaffirmed my opinion that it is easy to spout “community involvement” as an inane mantra but in reality it is a back and soul breaking effort. The program has been operational for 18 months. We visited 3 schools and met the SDMC and the teachers. There seems to be no ownership from the SDMC. The strong message from them is that the teachers are paid and so everything, including getting the children to school, is the teacher’s job. It is strange to hear from parents that they would not spend any effort in sending their wards to school but the teachers would have to run around every day to round up the children in the village and get them into the school. The schools are badly understaffed. Pressure on the BEOs (block education officers) is not working. The schools are in a moribund shape.

Despair (untrammelled) – Child marriage is still very prevalent in Bijapur! In every class I visited there were at least 2 or 3 girls who were already married. We are talking about elementary school here, 3rd and 4th grades. I didn’t have the heart to ask if they were married to adults or children. Some continue to live with their parents after the “marriage” and others actually live with their in-laws. If the civil society has not been able to stop this pernicious practice after 50 long years, do we really have hope about quality education and such esoteric stuff?

Hope (am I trying hard here?) – The SVYM team fully understands the current status and its implications. There was a very open and involved discussion on how to change track and tactics to be more effective. I was absolutely amazed at the energy and verve shown by two Asha Silicon Valley volunteers, Padma and Kiran, with whom I was traveling. They have come for a few weeks vacation from the US and in spite of the pressures to meet and spend time with family they took considerable time off to travel to these “projects”. I can’t stop gushing about them. They are ultra marathon runners and they hold Indian records. They have raised phenomenal amount of money through their running for Asha. Even if we consider all this as to be expected, the mental effort they spent in understanding the situation (in such a short time) and working with the SVYM team to find solutions does give hope. Does it not?

Do we really have a choice otherwise?

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Pinch Me!

It has been a while since I have been in Bangalore for a reasonable duration. It was Chennai during Dec-Jan. A nice trip to Vishakapatnam (I would highly recommend that town, go forth and move there and make it another Bangalore, please...), Orissa and then longish trips to Lucknow, Kanpur and a brief but nice stop in Goa on the way back.

Something has changed in Bangalore. It seems to be getting better. Am in a dream? Or is it that as further time has elapsed since my regular agony of commuting through Hosur road to Electronic City I seem to be in a better mood in general to deal with Bangalore traffic?

Day before I had to drop someone to the railway station at 8 in the evening. Peak hour. But it took only 35 minutes for the 12 kms! Amazing isn't it? H.D.Kumaraswamy is making all the right noises of hauling up the recalcitrant bureaucracy, is he really serious about it? Is it showing effect?... I am still not able to believe this...

Well it is not an isolated case. For all the hype about the turn around of the Indian Railways, it does seem really true. I have been using the railways heavily in the recent past. I had shuddered to think of traveling in sleeper class to the badlands of UP. But it was indeed not so unpleasant. Trains run reasonably on time (The Farakkah Express was only 4 hours late, it was usually expected to be around 12 hours, so massive progress there). The food from the pantry car is actually hygienic and tastes reasonable. I did not fall sick after having more than 10 railway meals in a span of a week. I was stunned when the fellow from the pantry car came to me with a feedback form! The stations are clean. What is going on?

Are we seeing a new vigour in public administration or am I just day dreaming?