the Eleventh

we are in the last lap of the survey. i did not get any inputs from the supposed PI for this study. so on a sampling strategy designed by me, the survey was conducted. How it'll be used? why is it required? what was this done for?
wasteful expenditures of a so to be developmennt research organisation!! i dont even know what i feel right now. but the aim is to get grants and then squander the money. uff. uff. and uff again!!

the tenth

abbe yaar..

weird :P

mixed emotions

nothing to write

learning to clear my mind.

by the way, boogie woogie rocks!

the Ninth

The work is good. Things are fine and yet there is something missing. The uncertainty about the future, not knowing where i am headed..the original plan has changed a bit. I mean i am ok with things changing, really. I do take time adjusting but i do n i have a great family n great friends. they have been there providing me all the love n support that i need.

Today, my voice has gone. it can be attributed to exertion and the temperature variation in my room. Look at the irony in life. I am the same person who goes visits villages everyday and comes to this AC room which has taken away my voice. What kind of a psedo development do i believe in?

My questioning will never cease. I shall change hopefully striving for a better tomorrow always!

the eighth

When will i learn to use my mind more than my heart?I am going to be 26 but i dont have the sense of a 12 year old mind!

For somebody like me feeling everything is more important than going by logic. If it doesn't feel right, i wont do it. How do i explain this? Does it happen to other people? Do they also feel things as deeply as me? I feel hurt at the smallest of things. I make mountains out of molehills. I m weird as a human being. i can care a lot for strangers too. Deep concern for a fellow human being, the rights and wrongs. I wish i could change my being, not be driven by emotions.

The acting first and thinking later philosophy gets me into trouble, leaves me hurt. Trusting people hurts me too. the emotionaal turmoil continues within. Sometimes i wish i pocessed Prof Dumbledore's penseive to just put my thoughts inside and observe them as an onlooker/outsider.

I worry about the most trivial of things, things which dont deserve even a minute of my life. I worry about people who might not be aware of my existence. i give too much importance to people, to friends and sometimes i expect and then i feel hurt.

I wish i could change. I hope i can change. I want to become a stronger and a better person than what i am!

the seventh

Ah, the seventh entry! reminds me of the song, saat samundar paarmai tere peeche peeche aa gayi!Granted, i can be extremely corny at times!!

So anyway, here it goes..

Field work is a lot of hard work. It is hectic because you have to walk a lot in the villages.And when you dont understand the language, you cant even communicate. So you end up being the laughing stock at times!Just the other day, couple of kids pointed at my eyebrows and said somethin in bangla which i didnt understand. Then they said "beauty parlour" what could i say to that. then they pointed at my nose, asking me why i hadn't got it pierced. And i told them i will get it done and very soon indeed. (communicated through one of the people who knew hindi n bangla:) )

So well, its nice to be away from office but trust me you visit one village or ten, if you dont know the language, there is no point!:(

the sixth

It is easy to prepare a sampling strategy in an air conditioned office at Taramani, Chennai. It is a completely different ball game altogether when you have to implement the same in a village in Howrah district of West Bengal especially when the researchert becomes the supervisor. Parched with thirst and soaked in sweat, the researcher wonders whether it makes more sense to just lose weight and become a model. (i Wish)
Then she is reminded of what a very good friend, who never answers the phone had said " let not the smiles on their faces deceive you into being indifferent to the blasts of vacuum throbbing in their empty stomachs..let not the tears down their cheekbones lure into being attached to the tragedy of their sub-human drama..coz oh dear researcher..observe with equanimity and thou shalt be observed with compassion!"
Pray but what am I? A development worker? hah! At best, i can be described as a pseudo development worker.
it becomes all the more difficult when the researcher is somebody who starts caring a lot. I mean it doesnt matter for whom. Once in my sphere of influence, i'll care about anyone and anything. So the worries start. Accommodation, food for the surveyors etc. etc.
my visits to villages. They make me apprehensive. I still cant figure out what i want. i feel happy in villages. but one thing is clear, my work is hardly developmental. It is just about receiving grants and squandering the money.
crux of the matter-area profiling study has nothing to do with development and i am not a development worker. just a shady researcher who is confused in the head. needs sorting in the head!

rocking fifth

this is my most random blog enty i suppose..its just some thoughts...but having stayed almost half a year in Chennai, i m learning a bit about southern culture..so now i know that lord KArthikeya is worshiped a lot in souther land. and i believe north, we worship lord Ganesha more. anyway he is my favourite God. No prizes for guessing why.. and once this came to my mind, i started thinkin why.. its because my Lord Ganesha loves eating :) and so do i and most punjabis "bhai maal shaal lao"!!

so after making more of a mess in life by falling ill at home n giving a hard time to evryone whilst leaving, and before that bumping into Markus at United coffee house in CP, i m finally back in chennai :) we went to Corbett National Park where i met some crocodiles, alligators, elephants, peacock dancing , rare birds, wild boar but no tigers...there are just 1411 left :( it was great the whole team building exercise!!! dumb charades and tabboo :)

now office has shifted..i have described the new office as maggi hot n sweet tomato chilly sauce:) because its different! we all in the IFMR ecosystem sit together..its fun :) but i also miss the sandwich aunty and the breakfast guy on first floor n the so many shops :(

anyway, my house is closer to the new office so it should be suited to my advantage! and office is closer to the only Mc donalds in Chennai..chalo dekho...

happy fourth

so after every possible mess that i was into the past week and even till yesterday, today in a random chat with Sahay, we jointly established that i am a happy individual and shouldnt really crib about the hassles which make my life. :)
anyway, it was funny...post weekend i was almost like Kareena in jab we met ...rem the dialogue.."bhagwanji..boring bana do iss night ko" wohi haal tha!!
now i am in the process of sorting out things.the mind feels settled..and i am going holidaying..not too bad

unforgettable third

ok, so the day was 19th february 2010, friday. On a usual friday, i am cheerful and in high spirits..the weekend is knocking at my door..its a blissful day where nothing matters because there would be 2 days of relaxation. but this friday, when i was in the bus everything conspired against me...right from me not having my side purse to keepin my wallet in the pocket where i never do in my backpack..usually i hand my backpack to a helpful soul around but on this day there were women carryin babies in the seats close to me...so well, anyway, the bus was becoming crowded and suddenly this one guy asked me if i had a golden wallet...i said yea n he said he saw someone take it frm the bag and get off at the last stop. was this man dumb? anyway, so i got off...a little low, almost crying, boarded an auto and rushed to the nearby police station. believe me, its difficult in a city where you dont understand the language...thankfully the autowala could speak hindi n he came wit me to the police stn..so i lodged the FIR ..teary eyed not because of money but because of my PAn card and voters Id(mind u, it took a year to come)i have upheld the family tradition of losing election cards
so anyway, then i was on my way back to office when the auto wala stopped so i could have breakfast and paid for me :)such a nice guy
n he said "good people always meet good people" and i wondered how he knew that i was good..he definitely was
it was also the day i was looked out of the house..id kept my lock somewhere and my roomie couldnt find it..she called me when i was sitting dazed thru a meeting..i told her to lock with sa new lock and keep the key ...so now i had nowhere to go..thank god for deepti..i camped at her place..
morning dikshant came and i had a good time eating dosas..it was extremely hot though..i was tired walking at marina, and in adyar..evening i was supposed to meet deepti and friends fr dinner and the auto i was in met wit an accident..it was close, honestly..but roof top dinner was fun so was the stay yesterday at deepti's where i had the laziest possible sunday watching tv and having ghar ka khaana..thanks guys for making chennai home for me :)

the second

i started naming my entries as the first and the second because i lack the creativity of thinking of a suitable title for each of the entries. so my point is that it becomes very tough sometimes to know what you want and so when i came to chennai, all starry eyed, i wanted to make a change. i thought i was 'development ki bandi' anyhow, my misconceptions and that which i realise with each passing day, how wrong, how naive i was..even people who work for development..i dont know how to put this in words..
but if we pretend that we work for the poorest of the poor, thats the biggest possible lie ever..because ultimately profits drive evrything...every thought and hence microfinance and microinsurance are actually targetted at the dynamic poor..the ones who take the initiative..nobody does anythn for the poorest of the lot.. :(

the first

Its been a while(less than a year, actually) since I am working. I consider myself a development professional. After having studied Economics for seven years after school, seven years with the subject seems a lot. Also, after Hindu, i got a job at Progeon in Bangalore which i left in three weeks after i got through JNU. Sometimes i wonder, if i had taken it up full time, i would have been a hard core capitalist. Life would have taken a different turn altogether. But after JNU, i pursued the subject for another 2 yrs before i decided to work a bit and fathom whether i wanted to do a PhD for myself, whether i possess the capability, the dedication that a PhD requires. And so i packed my bags from IGIDR, Bombay and shifted base to Chennai where i started research work in the field of micro insurance. I always wanted a job in the development sector and this was my dream job. However, there are days when a big question mark looms in my mind about what i wanted to do and what i ended up doing. I wanted to teach children of tribal communities. I remember even having taking the contact from somebody who worked for tribals. When i got this job, i came here starry eyed. my heart thought i would work for the poor. But things are a little different..