Varalakshmi Vratam at home

This year we performed the puja at our home. Priya did everything on her own, including reading the mantras and setting up the goddess. She cooked garelu, sakkarai pongal, kheer. And she finished doing all this before her sister, mother and mother-in-law in their respective homes. She was feeling quite smug.

Dakshina Kannada contd.

A local variety of umbrella -- this is used by workers working in the rain, people can't affort not to work in the rain during the monsoons, because it rains so often




A pontificatory moment





"straight and strong and tall ..."

Sampoli - Dakshina Kannada district

Priya and I got an unexpected invitation to visit the home-village of a colleague at Arghyam last weekend. I was so kicked to get the invitation -- I think I am a confirmed village junkie. This is in the Dakshin Kannada district of Karnataka, some 50km from Mangalore. That area gets very heavy rainfall so its very green. Further the farm was a sort of plantation/jungle -- gorgeous. There is lot more to write but I don't have the tempo - unfortunate. However, there are gorgeous photographs, so I'll let them speak some of the story.




This should set the stage ..
(The farm is primarily an arecanut aka betelnut plantation)




Is this a rocking farmhouse or what ?




Idiotic blogger is erroring and not allowing me to upload more photos !*(&)) !!!!

Aaah, we're back again.



Foraging for fruit (specifically blackberries in this photo)


A vanilla creeper - beautiful symmetry







A 'fambly' photo




The river Netravathi which flows in that region.




Caught at a (good!) unguarded moment


Some more photos -- hopefully will put them up too later

Two threads

1.)
I was reflecting on how my stay at Arghyam has worked out.

I started off saying that I would help them with launching the portal, a roughly 1.5 month job. They pointed out immediately that it would be meaningful to stay atleast for a month more until things settled down after the launch, which I agreed to. Then in order to justify meeting the PM :-), I decided to stay on till April. I was firmly convinced that my interests and direction would not be met by continuing to work on the portal, as I just wanted to do a well-defined set of tasks and move on. To my surprise I found that I was quite absorbed in the post-launch dissemination and other tasks. I could see myself being fully engaged for a few more months. After that as the scope of tasks expanded I could see myself being engaged for yet more months and so set myself a year's stay as a provisional goal ie through november (always such time-bound commitments ! I wanted to work at Neoteris for 2 years, I wanted to go on a sabbatical for a year..). Most recently I got a vision in the brain that saw me engaged here for 2 years..
Well, I'm definitely in for a year, lets see what happens after that

====


2.)
Another thing I thought I would mention is some degree of understanding of my curious attitude to money, that I got over the course of this sabbatical. I realize now that there is a zone of comfort with money for me and that zone is not having much more than I concretely need in the here and now. For eg. at Juniper I was earning such that my monthly expenditure was a small fraction (25% perhaps, 50% if you count the house loan) of my income. Now, I am quite comfortable with income coming down to the level of meeting expenditure with not much left over. The point is most people I think would be very uneasy with this kind of downshift whereas I took it remarkably well. I feel its because I came down into my comfort zone. The additional money over and above expenses that I had earlier, had a steep diminishing return for me in terms of added feeling of fulfillment, security etc. So I didn't feel too bad about losing it. Looking back to my time in the US, I'm amazed by how little I saved. I just didn't have any strong sense that extra income over expenditure had to be saved for the future.

On one side one can argue that this is a classic case of a person who is bad with money and doesn't understand the compounding power of savings and blah blah blah. Its valid, but I think that there's something more fundamental in my case. I am sure I am going to suffer a bit at some point for not having enough foresight, but I think more fundamentally its just natural for me to not be earning a lot :-). When I was earning a lot more than now, I simply didn't pay the extra money the attention it deserved. Somehow I just don't tune into money that way. The first time I seriously thought about money was when we bought the flat (pushed by Priya there) and then again when I was planning the sabbatical. Then money suddenly became really interesting -- it became real to me. I was making very concrete plans for doing something that I wanted and money was a critical instrument to making that happen. Some might remember that I even published my budgeting exercise on the blog :-). This kind of use of money is different in my mind from something you save for 'retirement' or 'kids education' or 'investing in the stock market' etc. My mind simply doesn't wrap itself around those uses for money.
There are other aspects to this that don't quite fit in -- I want to travel a lot, which costs money, and I'm fascinated by the real estate market and want to buy land. But I think these are perturbations on the basic thesis above.

Pretty in pink

Priya had a bunch of her schoolteacher colleagues come over one Sunday along with their families. The women all conspired to get everyone to come dressed in pink. The results are below. Yours truly was also in pink, but behind the camera..

Project Manager Requirement at Arghyam

"
As a follow up to our second Annual Conference last week, Arghyam is looking for a dynamic individual to join our team and lead our new Urban Water Initiative. We would appreciate it greatly if you, as a friend and well-wisher of Arghyam, could take a few minutes to go over this mail and help us identify the right candidate

Arghyam is a not-for-profit foundation working in the water sector in India. Arghyam’s vision is “Enough water, safe water….always and for all”. We take up focused programs that address lack of equitable access to water, in a sustainable manner, amongst all citizens, through partnerships and grants.

Arghyam is launching a new effort in the urban water sector in April 2007. The initiative aims to develop a Practical Framework document for Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM) in our urban areas tying together topics like water supply, water quality, urban hydrology, conservation and capacity-building. The Framework document is envisioned as a guide for those who manage urban water at various levels. The Framework document will initially focus on practices relevant for small towns and emphasize simple, practical steps that can be taken to achieve equity and sustainability. It will draw on existing best practices to fill gaps that exist today in IUWM. This framework will be developed through the concerted efforts of a Core Group of urban water experts supported by Arghyam. It will be experimentally validated through pilot experiments in small towns.

We need a Project Manager to take ownership of the Urban Water Initiative at Arghyam and drive all aspects of this project.

The Project Manager duties will include:

* Manage the entire process of the Framework development by the Core Group; coordinate all the activities - from gathering requirements, prioritization, design, managing schedules, tracking progress, resolving bottlenecks etc.
* Take the bottom-line responsibility for Arghyam’s Urban Water initiative which will include pilot implementations in small towns in the second phase.
* The Project Manager will need to be able to understand the domain issues that arise, in order to make the right decisions.
* Coordinate with the larger resource group, other partners and the documentation team.
* Liaison with NGOs, international agencies, key research institutes and Government officials to forge strategic partnerships going forward.

Requirements:
* Bachelors in any field from a reputed institution. Masters or other higher qualification is a plus.
* Strong interest and understanding of the development sector is essential; basic interest in the urban water sector is required but experience is not.
* Strong Project Management experience with a proven track record of 5-10 years in executing mid-to-large projects. We are looking for someone with experience as a team lead/manager/project manager from any sector - NGO, corporate or institutional.
* Ability to get multiple groups and partners to work towards a common goal.
* Excellent analytical, written and oral communication skills required. Some travel required.

Pay will be commensurate with experience

About Us: We are a small, diverse team comprising individuals who have come together sharing the same dream and passion for making a difference to the people of India. The core members have had decades of experience in running projects in the not-for-profit, corporate and Government settings.

Please send your resume to info@arghyam.org
"

YouTube - at last !!

Finally I uploaded something to YouTube. A video of Mutyalappa. Not my work, though. This is part of the fellowship application for Asha.

Me, the blogging maniac

Can you read the brand name embossed on the lock ?




I started a blog for the Water Portal:

www.indiawaterportal.org/blog

Its pretty boring at the moment. But you can expect me to start spilling my guts out with all the pressure and angst of trying to make the Water Portal a success any moment now.


I also started a blog for Timbaktu, but that's not gotten anywhere yet.

Analysis

Okay I can't resist putting this out there.
Today, morning I got a call. From a relative whom I was formerly close to, but after a family fued we stopped talking for a couple of years. I got the call while I was in a meeting, and I said I would call back. I forgot to call back. He did call back in the evening and we talked and so on.
The curious thing that I am musing about is how I could have forgotten. He probably didn't believe me, and maybe thinks I am cold-shouldering him. When the breakup happened it was quite a painful thing for me. So now, on talking to him after about 2 years -- how come it slipped my mind so easily ? Its a big deal right ? Was my mind subconsciously trying to blank it out ?

Checking out

It is becoming more and more obvious that the blog(s) are not going anywhere fast, which is to be expected coz I have a fulltime job. I think I should accept the inevitable and formally close up shop here. The blog was supposed to track my sabbatical which comes to an end in late April (21st to be exact), if I use the 1 year timeframe I started with. So we are coming to a logical end anyway. A pseudo-profound taking-stock post is obviously called for, and hopefully I'll pull my thoughts together and do that.

The blog enabled me to keep in touch in a nice way with several people, I wonder if there is some way to keep that going without the heavy duty time commitment of a blog. I've heard of this tool called Twitter, does anyone know more about it ?