Returning to blog – updates

I have been feeling guilty of putting the updates on this blog aside for quite some time now. As it happens with quite a lot of activities I get involved in, if the time has passed beyond the end of the activity, it is always difficult to come back to finish the pending things since something interesting and challenging comes up in the queue and consumes most of the time.

During the past few months, I have had several thoughts going through my mind looking back on the trip and experiences I had. And I just thought it will be good to write a few blogs at least summarizing some of the experiences during the trip that I have not yet shared.

I will begin with this blog to just give some update on what I have been through in these past 7 months post trip and will follow up (hopefully regularly) with blogs on sharing some experiences at the broad level.

I was more confused with the role of technology for development after the trip than before the trip. I will cover this aspect in detail in a blog later. Thinking more during the confused state led to the decision of joining Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi (IIIT-Delhi) as a faculty – http://www.iiitd.edu.in/~amarjeet/.

In my new position, I wanted to work on some technology solutions that can help improve delivery of basic services to a general or a specialized group. To this effect, we started working on developing mobile based solution for healthcare. In this work, we are currently collaborating with a group at MIT called Sana and developing a mobile client that can be used to send health related information to a backend server. This information can then be accessed by a doctor sitting remotely and he/she can either diagnose remotely or ask for a patient’s visit (or more information about the patient). Parts of this project were floated as summer internships and the work of student interns in the past 2-3 months is nothing less than impressive.

We also started working on voice based value added services for farmers with a subsidiary of one of the biggest fertilizer cooperative. Several insights from this work have helped in developing a good understanding of ground realities of making a project of this scale self sustainable.

The developments in the last 6-7 months in this direction of exploring different technology solutions has been very satisfying on personal front and have far exceeded my expectations. However, another reason for taking up this position was to explicitly find time to involve myself more closely in some grassroots level activities to further my learning from the trip. This direction really took a backseat since then and I am very positive that I would be able to come back and work on moving it further as well.

Thats a broad updated on developments at my end in the past 6-7 months. I sincerely hope to regularly update this blog with some overall experiences from the trip that I would like to share with everyone.

Baa Baa Black Teeth

Its a tradition among the elders of the Wancho tribe of Arunachal to blacken their teeth by chewing some special herbs and roots found in that region. They believe that the blacker their teeth, the beautiful they look and the stronger they are! Apparently, it was believed that only wild animals and evil spirits had white teeth and this tradition was also followed in other South-east Asian countries, including Vietnam.  Read more..

Location: Village-Wakka, District-Tirap, Arunachal Pradesh.

Rani Padmini

Rani Padmini, the famous queen of Chittor, led all the royal ladies of Chittor to commit suicide (known as Jauhar) in the 13th century A.D.  Inorder to save their honour from the lustful army of the Sultan of Delhi, a huge fire was lit and all ladies jumped into the fire following Rani Padmini.

Location: Maharana Pratap Memorial, Udaipur, Rajasthan.

First generation learners..

These girls are refered to as the ‘first generation learners’ simply because no one from their previous generations has ever gone to school. I don’t quite like the word because I dont agree with this concept! Having stayed in their tribal village ‘Mozda’ I know for sure that the knowledge and wisdom of this community is far superior than most of the people like us who’ve been through formal education!

 

Location: Mozda, Gujarat.

Share a meal!

I spent quite some time observing these kids pickup a poly-bag with some left-over meal in it. Both of them seemed really hungry and nibbled on some crumbs bit by bit. When there was a last chunk of bread left, the elder one happily offered it entirely to the little one, without hesitating a bit. It made me sit back and think that all of us were selfless as kids but somewhere in the process of growing up, this innocence disappears and gets overpowered by greed.

Location: Udaipur, Rajasthan.

Raas Leela~

This photograph was taken at Saheliyon-ki-bari at Udaipur. This place was built for the royal ladies and their friends where they would perform raas~leela, which was presided by their Raaj-mata.

 

Location: Udaipur, Rajasthan.

Self-sustaining community.

This lady belongs to the indigenous self-sustaining tribal community of Mozda, Gujrat. For a very long time, ’salt’ was the only commodity that they bought from the market; everything else was produced by them in their village, including cotton (for khadi clothes), cattle (for milk, manure, fuel) and used solar electricity to light lamps at night!

 

Location: Mozda, Gujarat.