TATA Jagriti Yatra 2008

I came to know about the Yatra from an official communication mail from the Corporate and I was impressed by the idea as soon as I saw the details on their website. The idea was to take 350 guys (and girls, ofcourse) in the age-bracket of 18-25 years from all over India to 18 role models spread over 12 cities across the length and breadth of the country on a train in 18 days. It seemed nothing short of a Herculean task to me because the things that can go wrong outnumbered the optimistic opinions by huge margins. But then again, it was a challenge that I was ready to accept. I knew that this is the best chance that God has given me to go around the country and to have more fun on the way, he gave me the option of choosing my company from among 349 other people- girls, boys, Marathi, Bangla, Tamils, Telugu, Punjabis, Delhites, Gujjus, scientists, journalists, entrepreneurs, Radio Jockeys, Teachers, engineers- all kinds of people. And my intuition was right, this Yatra proved to be life-changing in more than one ways. We started off from Mumbai, went to Trivandrum, then Kanyakumari, Pudduchery, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Bhubneshwar, Jamshedpur, Lucknow, Delhi, Tilonia, Anand and back to Mumbai. Meetings with several role models, interacting with the organizing team, talking to the other yatris and discussing the issues of national importance changed the perspective of looking at life. For the first time, I realized how important is the Bottom of the Pyramid talked about by CK Prahlad (in Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid). People are fighting through their lives to provide cloth to the poor, to create business models for the needed, to create self-reliant economies, to preserve water, to preserve wild-life and greenery, to kill the dependence of rural India on urban India. There was a lot to see and a lot to learn.
A journey that began as an experiment and that finished with an imprint in the pages of history, was the journey of a lifetime for the yatris. From Kanyakumari in the south to New Delhi in the north and from Jamshedpur in the east to Tilonia in the west, the TATA Jagriti Yatra sent the message across India that Youth is the power of today and tomorrow. Not only did it bring like-minded people from as diverse backgrounds as scientists to radio jockeys, from politicians to automotive engineers, from cardiologists to social entrepreneurship students and from businessmen to social workers, together, it also enthused our morales to an unprecedented high. During the course of the Yatra, we knew that we were being changed as human beings, changed as citizens and changed as entrepreneurs. On one side where we saw R Elango from Kuttumbhakam village in Chennai working day in and day out to develop a localized self-reliant economy of villages, Anshu Gupta on the other side, was witnessed struggling hard to reach out through his organization Goonj.. to the poorest of the poor to cover their naked shivering bodies with clothes deemed to be useless. Even Dr. V from Arvind Eye Hospital at Puducherry never retires to inspire the spirit of watching India from the eyes of all Indians and Bunker Roy never pauses to provide the poor with the skill to earn food in the deserts of Rajasthan by means of his Barefoot College at Tilonia. Yatris found the story of Tata Steel and JUSCO to be as intriguing as the enthusiasm of Joe Madiath working in the tribes of Orissa. Apart from learning the key themes of self-reliance, perseverance, focused approach and economic viability, Yatra also gave me an opportunity to know the people of India from so close. We lived in the train, ate at the platforms, bathed in the washrooms, danced in the chair-cars and enjoyed every bit of it. TATA Jagriti Yatra has given me the opportunity to shed my inhibitions towards the social entrepreneurship and has given a direction and focus to my life. At 09:40 am on 11th Jan 2009 at Mumbai Central, when the train receded to its yard for the one last time, not to be seen again with the Yatra, tears trickled down the eyes of the Yatris. Wet eyes bid a final see-off to the Yatra with a promise to be the Yatris forever, to be the learners forever and to be the agents of change. For ever.

(For you guys, I’d strongly suggest you to be a part of the Yatra next time. And guess what! I have been nominated to the Communications team and given the charge for Punjab and J&K for the NGO’s activities. The NGO is Jagriti. Go to www.jagritiyatra.com for more information.)

Naandi Foundation

A unique foundation in itself, Naandi Foundation in Bangalore seems to work with a motto of “Serve and survive.” Led by Manoj Kumar since 2000, Naandi focuses on three major issues of Child Rights, Safe Drinking Water and Sustainable Livelihoods. During the visit at one of their largest kitchens in Asia, serving more than 1.5 lakh students every day on an average, we witnessed the optimized use of technology in meeting the purpose. The success story of the Naandi foundation can be adjudged from the fact that in just about 10 years of its foundation, it has spread its wings across India. The best thing about the interaction with Manoj Kumar was his clear direction and motive to have a session with us. “I agreed to have this session with 350 young entrepreneurs, not because of charity but because I hope atleast 200 of you will join the foundation…,” said Manoj. His determination of not doing anything small is shared by his team in full faith. The beauty of the Naandi foundation is that is works as a corporate and hates to call itself an NGO. Just like any other corporate, it has a focus on sustainability of business, scalability- horizontal and vertical, and earning profits. It pays its volunteers at par with the corporate world and yet, is open to any kind of scrutiny by the government. Meeting the people at Naandi emboldened my view of the difference between a Social and a Business entrepreneur – it is just the motive and the aim that differentiates the two. Whereas a Social Entrepreneur earns money and finds means to distribute it in the society, a Business Entrepreneur earns money and finds ways to multiply it.

(Visit www.naandi.org for more information on the organization.)

Arindham Choudhary on Slumdog Millionaire

A phony poseur that has been made only to mock India for the viewing pleasure of the First World!!
The emperor's new clothes! That's "Slumdog Millionaire" for you… Five minutes into this celebrated patchwork of illogical clichés and you are struck by the jarring dialogues. The cumbersome delivery in a language which doesn't come naturally to most of the actors sounds like someone scratching on walls with one's finger nails; it ruins the possibility of a connection… Had this film been made by an Indian director, it would've been trashed as a rotting old hat, which literally stands out only because of its stench, but since the man making it happens to be from the West, we're all left celebrating the emperor's new clothes. The film borrows an undoubtedly interesting narrative style – from films like "City of God" – but then uses it to weave in a collection of clichés from the Third World's underbelly for the viewing pleasure of a First World audience. The real slumdog in the movie is not the main protagonist but India as a whole… The makers and those celebrating this movie's hard-to-spot brilliance are actually serving up India as the accidental millionaire, which in fact happens to be a slumdog… and like shameless fools we are gloating over its success without realising that it makes a caricature out of India.
The film does not have the sincerity and honesty of a "Salaam Bombay" or a "City of Joy" and nor does this slime covered fairy tale have the integrity or the rootedness of the above mentioned scripts, or even a "Shantaram" for that matter; the soundtrack and the performance of the child actors are the only bits in the film which live up to the hype. The real slumdogs who've hit the jackpot after wallowing in acres of human waste are the makers of this film who are now raking in millions while those court jesters who've critiqued the film and showered tributes and awards need to ask themselves why, scores of years after our independence, they still feel the need to suck up to the gora sahibs. It's not a question of xenophobia… it's definitely a well cinematographed film… but the film has no soul, especially after little Jamal has jumped off the train and become a teenager… The rest of the film is just a modern version of the West's view of India where slums, slumdogs and Bollywoodian clichés have replaced the elephants and snake charmers. It's a well made caricature of a country and a caricature can never be a Mona Lisa, for a masterpiece can't be one dimensional juxtaposition of sadistic extremes… and that's my grouse with the celebrations…
And I say all this not because I don't know what is India. I know its poverty and the real statistics around it a little better than most others – especially the Indian film critics who have given "Slumdog…" an average of 4 to 4.5 stars! But the fact is that the film's entire narration seems like the germination of a terribly sadistic and complex mind with the sole aim of satisfying the western idea of India – and its new found growth instincts at their cost - and it is done through a combination of illogical happenings in order to show everything in a disgustingly negative vein. Not that it doesn't exist, but it surely doesn't exist in this fictitious manner. While "Salaam Bombay" had realism, "Slumdog…" is just every scrap of dirt picked up from every corner and piled up together to try and hit back at the growing might of India. And the awards almost seem like a sadistic effort to show the world – look we knew that this was India, and these are the slumdogs we are outsourcing our jobs to. It stinks of racial arrogance and it's such a shame now on second thought to see the Indian faces – including that of the undoubted master, AR Rahman - celebrating its success. There is nothing positive about the film and it seems that a deranged sadist has painted his insecure negative self in each and every character of the movie. It illogically shows every negative thing about India happening in the protagonist's life... slums, open-air lavatories, riots, underworld, prostitution, brothels, child labour, begging, blinding and maiming of kids to make them into 'better beggars', petty peddlers, traffic jams, irresponsible call centre executives… everything apart from western pedophiles roaming around in Indian streets!! And its winning of so many awards and nominations only goes on to prove strongly that the paradigm of cinema and recognition of films are in the hands of a few retarded imperialistic minds. It's a crying shame that our media hasn't seen through this ruse and is touting "Slumdog's" nominations to claim that India is shining at the Oscars, while in fact it is lauding a film that mocks and ridicules the idea of 'India', pigeonholing its identity into the straitjacket of depraved poverty for a global audience.
When the West wanted Indians to embrace them and their companies to come to India and capture the lucrative markets, suddenly we had all the Indian women, some very beautiful and some not necessarily so, winning all the Miss Universe and Miss Worlds. Today, they are in a crisis and India is looking unstoppable despite its slums and poverty, and they are losing their businesses to us. Isn't it the best time to paint India as the Slumdog Millionaire?? All in all, the film is nothing but an endorsement of an erstwhile imperial mindset of the West and its blinkered vision of India. An English master has made an Indian slumdog. Don't even waste your time watching this film in the theatres. It sucks and there is nothing great in it as a film too. Amitabh Bachchan was spot on when he said that Bollywood has made far better mainstream films. Take out a DVD of one of his old films instead…

Slumdog Millionaire

Praise from all sectors of the world for the Slumdog Millionare was so greedily picked up by every media channel and newspaper as if the movie has made India proud in the world. Three awards for AR Rehman were being triumphed on Tv channels as if it’s the first time he has created such class music. We always fail to understand and absorb the fact that what the western world likes is India poverty, crime and riots. They love to see unruly India with children blinded and handicapped to be forced towards beggary and girls raised for prostitution. And when they see this in a movie, they get overwhelmed by another scene that says, “Now you see the true America” and the American lady hands over a $100 bill to the boy who just showed them “real India”.
Are we that bad? Yes, the movie is actually lived by lakhs of children in India. Yes, India has lawlessness. Yes, India is poor. But is this the only part of India? Don’t we have the likes of Ratan Tata and Sunil Bharti Mittal? Don’t we have Mahatma Gandhi and Manmohan Singh? Don’t we have Taj Mahal and Imam Bara? We are lucky to be the generation to witness the businesses flourishing and India Shining. And we are fortunate to be able to make that change. And then you see again this India being highlighted world-over and the hard-work gone into changing the image of India, goes down the drain.
When will we become aggressive in improvising our image in the world? When will we slap the faces of these “pieces of art” that tear apart the dreams of young India?
It’s the time for us to rise and show our unity against this effort to tarnish the image of India and show the world that this is not the only India that exists.

A night in the train

After having an amazing experience of the tribes of Bhubaneshawar who had their own Bio-gas plants and solar panels fitted on their roofs, we reached the small station just outside the main-city of Bhubaneshwar. It was already very late and everyone felt very sleepy after around 12 hours of journey over the day. By 12 at night, everyone was in their beds having a sound sleep relieved of all the tensions and giving rest to those loudly singing throats of theirs. And then something happened that was least expected to happen on the journey. A boy named Piyush (usually found in shining red and black shirts) came running to all the boggies to “awaken” us from our metaphorical sleeps as well as our practical sleeps. All of us were shocked because no Indian train can ever cover the long distance from Bhubneshwar to Jamshedpur in 2 hours. And that’s when the shinning boy announced, “Arun, Lee, utho. Train is going for inspection.” Everyone was once again baffled and the laziness of the sleep was gone at once with a thought crossing the minds, “Has Jagriti Yatra also been targeted by the terrorists? Are we that famous? Did LeT really take note of this unique Yatra (by this time, we were sure that the Yatra is ‘unique’)?” Amidst all this hue and cry, we were told by some divine voice that you can use the First Class Waiting Room to sleep for 2 hours and the train was supposed to be back by then. The moment we came out of the train, our astonishment new no end when we saw the Bhubneshwar board in front of our eyes. “What the F**k! We are still in Bhubneshwar”, was the voice that I listened from very close proximity. And our fate had lots and lots for us in store that we were yet to explore. The First Class Waiting Hall was nowhere to be found in that haze of eyes or weather, I don’t remember. And when we finally found it, we realized that the room (not actually a hall, as the name suggests) is big enough to adjust only tens of us and not hundreds. Thank God that this realization came very soon and we found a cozy spot on the platform. And then there were a number of Dostanas happening here and there on the platform with people trying their best to fight with mildly cold morning winds and stretch their blankets to cover ‘almost all’ parts of the body. And true to the spirit of the Yatra, train was back on the track in just five and a half hours at 7:30 in the morning. But this gave me a chance to accompany our Bengali-Bihari friend Siddharth to the nearby dhaba and have his favorite Bengali mithai whose name I don’t remember any more because of its complicacy.

That’s how we spent one of those memorable nights in the train during the Yatra. It was amazing experience to see 350 young people from across India enthused with the potential and motivation to change the country, brought together by Jagriti Yatra and made to sleep on the platform of Bhubneshwar!

Jokes apart, I really enjoyed that experience and I know that you’ve similar feelings about the Yatra.

Yaaro chalo, badalne ki rut hai,Yaaro chalo, sanwarne ki rut hai…