intervention or intrusion!!!

I moved to Delhi few months ago and began living with my family with minimal investment. I am on a temporary basis and not sure till when I would be here, hence did not feel the necessity to invest on comforts, hence I just stuck to bare minimums.
Things were smooth for first couple of months. Trouble started when I started entertaining my land lady out of courtesy. She began with suggestions that things need to be put in places(not that I throw them, but with no shelves in the house, I could not help it), floor to be cleaned, balcony to be washed etc. She offered me a couple of tables so that I can place my suitcases over it and the place would look less cluttered. I agreed. Then she offered a sofa and bed so that it would be comfortable and would look good even when I have guests. I accepted. This was followed by regular instructions on cleaning the sofa, putting the curtains, watering the plants and what not. She wants me to be a good wife with a house that has flower pots, clean floor, curtains, dustless sofa and uncluttered rooms.

I was sometimes agreeing, nodding, grunting, bitching and so on, then it suddenly occurred to me that this what was I have been doing for the past few years, in my job in the name of development. Our activities started in a village, suggest them couple of  easy things. Then follows the actual , that they are poor, they do not know what to do, how to live, how to earn, how to manage etc. etc...and then giving innumerable suggestions on what to do and how to do. Poor chaps, they obliged to meet us whenever we visited them, whether during their meal or their field time or leisure and listen to all the non sense what we were telling them. Some of them actually did what we asked them to do

My landlady at least gave me tables, sofa and bed but what did we give them, just a few words and some of our time, not entirely out of empathy but also because it was our job. I never realized or cared to think if I was doing things from my perspective or theirs. Intentions were good, as good as my landlady's towards me, but then were they required, was it the way to be done...were we intervening or intruding.....

my feelings....by SHG movement

"I thought you would not bother to look at me , because you are from centre, present all over the country  " said the SHG Movement (SHGM)  to the Indian Railway(IR) who was staring at her.
"Yes, I am present all over the country, but it is you who is present in every small village of this vast country, may be in different forms like JLG, cooperative, group, manch, team etc, but the essence is same. But I wonder how you could spread so deep  especially in South India, you are great, should be quite an achievement with all the visits from different countries , rewards, recognition , studies, thesis, books etc on you "

"Oh, so you are also one of those, who think of me so high. Yes, there are awards, recognition, visits. But have you noticed..how similar are we both"
"We are similar?...I could not understand"
"Your first visit was a small journey from Bombay to Thane, among many excited people. You soon spread to many places in the country. I was born in somewhere hinterlands of Karnataka then spread across the country"
"So how does it make both of us similar, the same is with roads, industries"
"Your steam engine that first worked very well was discarded and switched to diesel engine. I was happy with my books and  has now moved to computers, laptops and recently to mobiles. You are the largest employer in the country and I am the largest network of women, but there is one thing that is strikingly common "

" People from all walks of life, get into your train and get down. They purchase the ticket, it is they who want to travel and reach destination,  not realising that you are their safest and cheap mode of transport, they dirty you, comment on how bad you are, how un punctual you are and how much they detest travelling with you. But they forget that, in spite of all this they cannot but help travelling with you "

"Similar with me, everybody wants to use me, Politicians for announcing their so called welfare scheme, the govt departments for their so called convergence. I and my people are used for every activity right from census till elections till surveys till distribution of assets , only for one reason that I am the best network available like you. I am the uncorrupted network , other departments cannot be relied but for the SHG network can be totally trusted. I am called for officer visits, minister visits, meetings, programmes and what not. I am called every time and everywhere. Not that I do not want to be, but nobody cares about me , they know how useful I am,  they say I am still a baby need more nourishment , announce some schemes and forget. When I need nourishment, where is the care I am getting, I am baby but lot of activities are dumped on me without informing me. I am  nothing more than a launch pad for many, a safe,easier and convenient launch pad."

letters from paderu -3

I look forward to be in the world.... 
where need of the SHG member is thought out before the devil named as  target 
where smile on a woman's face is considered more Godly than the data in a report 
where safety of women is considered a priority than providing suit-accomodation to senior officers
where we think of providing toilets in MMS office before constructing western toilet overnight for a visitor
where the SHG women are not corrputed by commissions  
where the SHGs are accepted as they are and not forcing to fit into our five rule frameworks
where giving timely water and food to women is treated more important than arranging fresh fruits and slightly ghee roasted ,salted cashew to some stupid person who neither cares about women nor the spirit of SHGs
where individuals at different (read as top) levels realize that they are working for the same simple women of their once upon time left villages
where waiting for SHG response is considered to be far, far better over waiting for some political big shot
where the staff is treated as an individual with family and personal needs and not as supplier of data and people for meeting

Oh Almighty God, make me enough lucky to live in such world and allow me to  play my humble part.

letters from Paderu -2

I remember Senthil asking that why pilots are successful and why we fail when we are scaling those successful pilots. The most common answer is that we forget or take it for granted the environmental factors while scaling up. True, but its not complete answer, there are many more intricacies to it.

Ask any of our field staff, and they would start narrating how they worked during the early years of project, how much time they used to spend walking to villages, interacting with the community, eating with them and sleeping in those villages.  I personally came to know about a CC, who used to leave her child in a hotel that was a junction between two villages where she was working and used to feed the child while travelling between those two villages. There are many such incidents. I always wonder, why such motivating incidents happened only during the early 2000.

It was the time when staff had time to talk to other staff, in spite of no CUG. It was the time when our staff used to walk long to reach villages. Perhaps they used to carry one note book with them, rather a scribbling pad. Now there are CUG phones, most of them have bikes and we have computers /laptops/ ebooks but why visit to villages have reduced.

No, the answer is not because now there are many initiatives, the reason is not because our field team was young and single then.

The reason and answer to this is communication and only communication.
Communication in all forms and at/from all levels.
Communication free of egos and free of all power tussles.
Communication that is whole hearted and objective

Its been long time that our staff have been appreciated for the job they are doing. Its been long time, they have been involved in strategy planning. Every thing is planned and then they are given task of implementation due to which we see lack of ownership.

Everything is urgent, so no time for thinking. When there is no time for thinking then when will they discuss among their peers and colleagues.

There is no moral fear of committing a mistake because we do not have a proper mechanism for punishment. For that matter, we do not have  a mechanism for rewards also. So how does it bother if one works or not?

And more importantly, they are not sharing the same vision as envisioned in SERP

( I am not sure if i made myself clear, but there are many thoughts running parallelly in my mind that the writing has become more of jig-jag rather than an order of thoughts)

letters from paderu -1

Ever since that myself and Bhanu have moved to Paderu, there have been various experiences that we wanted to document and share. However it was a conscious decision to slow down , so that our emotions will not overpower the objectivity of views.

Touch wood - everything has been positive so far here. The first two months was more of observing and adapting. Also this period helped me to appreciate the context and complexities of TPMU.

I visited a VO called Kommangi in Chintapally mandal. This VO was just about 15 km away from Mandal Headquarter, but somehow neither the meetings nor the savings were happenings in all the SHGs. During my visit, I had discussion with the SHG women in three shifts in three hamlets. During the meeting I asked them what were their problems. They immediately took me to a check dam about a km or two away from the village and showed how it got stagnated with weeds. Check dam was built on the slope where they used to wash clothes earlier. Due to this stagnation all of them were suffering from rashes.

What made me wondered was

• their immediate problem was something which i expected least.
• No body asked me regarding loans or jobs or something else but this was their first issue.
• How an intervention (here check dam) meant for some other purpose had different externalities, some of which we may not visualize at all.

May not be the same issue, but these kinds of surprises used to pop up in every meetings. It has been and still is, really a challenge to understand their priority issues and interweave them in our agenda. Somehow till today, I could not dare to put aside completely my agenda and go with their's. May be because I am viewing my agenda to be different from theirs or may be it really is.