A Jenma-Din [Birthday] Party

Summary: Reflections on a recent desi birthday party focus on (1) the formality of the setup, (2) the lack of pre-determined children’s games, and (3) the process of cutting and eating the cake.

My neighbor’s son recently celebrated his 10th (?) birthday, and I was invited to the celebrations. Instead of going out to Chuck E. Cheese (or the equivalent), they organized a catering service. This is because the equivalent of Chuck E. Cheese hardly exists in Lucknow. And apparently when catering service is ordered here in India, the restaurant actually sends guys (yes, usually males) to your location with raw ingredients, and the preparation and cooking is done on site.

Cooking in our driveway aside, the birthday party was a “big” event. Diwali lights were strung, fancy cloth-covered banquet chairs were brought in, and spotlights were kept outside. Women donned beautiful, sparkling saris and lots of makeup, while I entered make-up free and in my cotton FabIndia kurta.

There was a lot of mingling; the invited guests seemed to reflect the parents’ social circle just as much as it reflected the child’s. I quickly found myself connecting with the children, and was drawn into the kids’ self-organized activities. Instead of running around, jumping around in a bouncy house, or playing in a ball pit (none of which were available), these kids entertained themselves with a series of games, from “link the songs” to “telephone.” Even at a young age, there was a clear gender divide; teams were split by sex and clearly delineated by physical space.

I forget that things here happen in reverse order (relative to what I know). Instead of play, food, play, cake, the order that emerged was play, cake, food. It’s as if the food is the reward for sticking around, after which everyone is free to head his/her separate way.

I also particularly appreciate the cake cutting and eating process, something I first experienced in Tamil Nadu when one of my favorite kids picked up a slice of cake with his hand and fed me. On this day, the birthday boy engaged in a mutual cake-feeding process (not too unlike that which occurs at Western weddings) with various members of his family. To me, this tradition is simply another manifestation of the fundamental underlying sense of interconnectedness and the strength of familial bonds prevalent in Indian culture.

After the birthday boy completed this cake exchange ceremony, cake was shared with the rest of the partygoers on a communal plate. Individuals picked off a small slice from the plate with their fingers, and enjoyed it as such (without napkins). While I realize this tradition is unrelated to environmental concerns, let’s think about how many paper plates and plastic utensils are saved in this way (at 1+ billion birthdays in India per year)!

Some might call that an unintended consequence.

Nipped in the Bud

Summary: A new partnership between DSH and district-wide teacher training colleges presents an opportunity for DSH to improve the quality (and type) of training teachers get even before they enter the classroom for the first time.

Imagine a factory that manufactures teachers and places them in schools. At the government school level, these are called teacher training colleges, or DIETs (the District Institute of Education and Teaching).

Current DSH efforts focus on working with teachers who have already been placed (and theoretically trained). However, so long as the manufacturing facility remains unchanged, teachers will continue to be inadequately trained, and the need for interventions like DSH will remain. And many nonprofits would prefer to run themselves out of business, meaning solve the problem they set out to solve so that they become redundant.

Now, being adequately trained does not directly correlate with more training. Currently, teachers in the field are required to have at least 20 days of in service training per year, and trainings often occur while school is in session. These trainings are not only ineffective, but are also actually detrimental, taking teachers out of the classroom without providing a viable substitute.

To improve the quality of training these teachers get even before they first set foot into the classroom, DSH is intervening in pre-service trainings through a recent partnership with DIETs in twelve districts. Through this program, lecturers at these DIETs will use DSH videos to demonstrate effective teaching practices in an actual classroom setting. Furthermore, the teachers-to-be can use the lessons to improve their own subject matter knowledge (especially English).

This program presents a fundamentally different way of using DSH lessons. Instead of mediating the video, lecturers will lead a discussion analyzing the lesson from different pedagogical perspectives. In this way, both lecturers (many of whom have little or no actual teaching experience) and teachers-to-be will benefit.

I truly appreciate the versatility of our content and the noble goal of this initiative. However, my observations in the field have also told me that knowledge and ability of teachers is only half the battle; the rest lies in motivation, or lack thereof.

I am hopeful, if skeptical, about our current ability to influence the latter. Two observations from the DSH-led two-day training held for selected lecturers inform my opinion: (1) The first day, scheduled to begin at 10 am, did not commence until well past 11 am, and (2) The best-ranked session of the entire training was a singing energizing activity.

A Right Turn and Then Some

Summary: A weekend of new experiences included a friendly game of cricket and an exploration of the city on bicycle.

For those of you who have always told me that I will never become a professional cricket player, I am here to prove you right. This past weekend, I played a semi-organized game of cricket for the first time, with a bunch of other equally clueless Americans and a handful of local kids. The chosen field was in a relatively quiet neighborhood, and the boundary wall was high enough to prevent an otherwise inevitable growing crowd of curious observers.

This was, in short, the perfect introduction to cricket. Both my throwing and hitting form was a bit off, but it was nonetheless loads of fun.

My “new adventure” bug wasn’t so easily quenched. Given that cricket occurred at 10 am and took place in a semi-familiar area of town, I took the opportunity to go on a bicycle joy ride around town (never before had I left my neighborhood area of Gomti Nagar). I followed unfamiliar major roads just to end up in another (different) familiar area, from which I followed my directional instinct that was to lead me back home.

As I biked toward what I thought was Gomti Nagar, I suddenly saw a sign for Clark’s hotel. To my knowledge, there was only one Clark’s hotel, and that one existed on the far side of Hazratganj, the original familiar territory. Sure enough, this was the same one; as I biked through Hazratganj again, I racked my head trying to figure out how I managed to bike away from home.

A quick consultation with Google Maps upon reaching home clarified the situation; a right turn that took me in the wrong direction, and a left turn that took me back in a right one.

I maintain that had Lucknow been developed on a grid system, the turns I made would have taken me home. My fatal mistake was forgetting that I was in India, where urban planning doesn’t exist and things are never as you expect.

Maternity Leave and Don’t Come Back

Summary: Maternity and child-care leave benefits are examples of the way the UP government squanders money and encourages teacher apathy.

The outrageousness continues. Not only are government school teachers paid a ridiculous sum (Rs. 22,000 per month, vs. the Rs. 1500 per month some other teachers get) for not doing much, but they’re also given outrageous fringe benefits.

In a recent visit to one of our village schools, Randy asked about the prolonged absence of one of the teachers, which resulted in the following discovery: In addition to six months of maternity leave, a teacher is given two years’ paid leave for child-raising. This teacher has had two children, and hence gets five years off, with pay; this figure amounts to Rs. 1.3 million (about US $30,000).

I sure hope there’s a maximum number of years a teacher can take off on this program, because this program is a triple-whammy; it is (1) encouraging folks to have more children, (2) incentivizing teachers to stay away from their jobs, and (3) understaffing schools because of the exorbitant amount being paid out to teachers on leave.

Might I be bold enough to suggest to the government that there might be a better use of those resources? With Rs. 13 lakhs (Rs. 1.3 M), DSH can reach over twenty schools and 2000 students.

Diwali: Christmas, Meet Fourth of July

Summary: In Northern India, Diwali carries with it the significance of Christmas and the fireworks of the Fourth of July. Deciding to experience Diwali in the most authentic way possible, I spent the evening with my landlords, which consisted of a mix of pooja, fireworks, food, and house visits.

Diwali and Holi are the two biggest festivals across India, particularly in the North. Both are celebrated with lots of color and fanfare; Holi by day, and Diwali by night (+ 7 months). Holi is the Festival of Color, and Diwali is the Festival of Lights.

For me, Diwali is best characterized as a fusion of Christmas and Fourth of July. With the religious significance of Christmas (Lord Raama returns to his kingdom, having triumphed over the evil Ravana), Diwali is celebrated with lights, family and friends, food, and gifts. And, like the Fourth of July, fireworks are at the heart of celebratory activities. Bottle rockets, fountains, firecrackers, you name it. And they’re burned not only the day of Diwali, but in the week leading up to it and for some time after, explosions ringing sporadically from evening onward. You can literally hear Diwali coming.

On the night of Diwali, the entire neighborhood comes alive with personal fireworks. The fireworks actually also ignite a number of interesting conversations about noise and pollution levels and fears of terrorism. (Am I buying fireworks or other explosives?) My landlords invited me to celebrate with them, and we spent the evening doing pooja, enjoying the artificially lit up sky and making house visits. Good times were had by all.

My landlords were bold enough to leave me alone with the apartment for the next two days, while they and the other tenant family visited their relatives. Granted, they were only put at ease after they personally saw that I knew how to lock and unlock the gate, and how to use a padlock. (They had some serious doubts before they saw with their own eyes that I knew how to turn a key; they also wanted me to skip work on Monday so I could housesit for them.)

So, what does a single girl in Lucknow do when given such a long leash? Nothing, because let’s face it, we’re still in Lucknow. Lucky for them, my landlords came back and their house hadn’t been burnt down (which would, admittedly, have created quite a quandary since it’s made of brick and concrete).

Another Side of Agra and Delhi

Summary: Xi and I played tourist for the weekend in Agra and Delhi; though I had been to both cities previously, we explored places I had never seen before, all of which were absolutely delightful and pleasantly surprising.

This past weekend, my friend Xi and I played tourist in Agra and Delhi. As I had been to both places before, Xi was gracious enough to adjust her program to places I hadn’t yet seen. Some highlights from the trip:

Agra Cantonment Police Station: Our first destination was the Taj Mahal, and we caught an autorickshaw from the Agra Cantonment Train Station. A policeman hops into the front even before we pull out of the parking lot; I initially assume he’s just catching a free ride, but a heated argument between him and the driver hints otherwise. The bits of conversation I catch (“I picked her up from the Agra Fort station,” and “She speaks some Hindi”) aren’t enough to help me understand the nature of the dispute. We slowly turn out of the train station into a small road, and into a police station courtyard. The driver stops the autorickshaw, gets out, and continues arguing with what has now become three policemen. Only after one of the policemen confirms the autowallah’s story with us do they let us go, with smiles on their faces. Turns out they thought the driver was ripping us off, and were asking for baksheesh (a bribe) of 200 Rs., not knowing we were only paying 50 Rs. for the ride. Yet another example of justice gone wrong.

Fatehpur Sikri: A former capital during Mughal emperor Akbar’s reign in the late 16th century, before the capital was moved to Lahore. A mere 26 miles from the mayhem of Agra, Fatehpur Sikir is quite a gem. It’s not only a nice escape from the crowds and touts in Agra, but the walled palace complex itself is rather well-maintained and quite astonishing. The palace itself was in better condition than Delhi’s Red Fort, and the nearby masjid was larger and more breathtaking than the more popular Jama Masjid (also in Delhi).


The Apartment (at the Singapore High Commission): See previous post.

Imperial Hotel, Delhi: We stopped here in the morning to pick up one of Xi’s new acquaintance-friends. Easily the nicest hotel I have ever seen, the Imperial feels like an estate; I almost expected a stable in the back. The interior was beautiful, stunning, spacious, classy, and elegant. Think Titanic meets Pride and Prejudice.

Jama Masjid Minaret, Delhi: Never in my previous visits have I climbed the minaret at Jama Masjid; this time, we were lucky enough to have a male accompany us (females are not allowed up without a male). The spiral staircase to the top was extremely narrow; each time we encountered someone heading down, bags had to be dropped and both parties had to flatten against the wall. The top wasn’t any more spacious (of the 5’-radius circle, only 60% was ground one can stand on), but it provided a nice view of the expansive metropolitan city that is Delhi.

Akshardham, Delhi: An exquisite new Hindu temple complex completed in 2005, carved from red sandstone. As we walked through the complex, stripped of all our non-monetary belongings, we mused about the Disneyland / theme park ambience and debated whether or not the fact that the temple is only five years old detracts from the significance of the intricately carved figures.

All in all, it was a great weekend with good company, interesting conversation, and new experiences.

It also made me realize just how little of Lucknow I’ve actually explored.

The Country Bumpkin Meets the High Life

Summary: Sometimes, you don’t realize what you’ve got until it’s gone. Other times, you don’t realize what you’ve missed until you get it back.

The past eight months in the heart of the cow belt has turned me into a country bumpkin; this past weekend, I finally saw myself for what I’ve become.

Xi, a friend from Monitor, was recently sent to Mumbai for a project, and we arranged for a fun-filled weekend in Agra and Delhi. She has a friend working for the Singapore High Commission in Delhi, who was nice enough to let us both stay with him. Preliminary email exchanges foreshadowed what was to come – there was talk about his two spare bedrooms, playing pool and foosball in his apartment, and cars and drivers. Reading those emails in our humble office, I found myself feeling a little uncomfortable, and it wasn’t (entirely) because I was sitting on a plastic patio chair.

Delhi itself felt deceptively new for the country bumpkin. The train station, NZM, had a 24-hour Vegas-like café with music next door. There were still many lights and cars (and people!) out and about at 10:30 pm. It was like being in a dream; everything I used to know but no longer remembered.

Then there was the Apartment. When I first stepped into said Apartment at 11:32 pm on Saturday, October 10, 2009, I felt like I entered a parallel universe. Seventeen seconds later, I took my first breath in this foreign place, and commenced the exploration process. There were many things that “first” caught my eye – the spaciousness, the cleanliness, the pool table, the big-screen LCD television, the cleanliness, the couch, the brightness, the white walls, the shiny floor, and, did I mention the cleanliness? (He is from Singapore, after all.) Now, unless you’ve actually experienced life here in Lucknow, it’s hard for me to explain exactly why I was so struck by each and every one of those items listed.

After almost an hour of jaw-dropping awe, I made it into the bathroom to take a much-needed shower. As some background information, I’m lucky enough to have a shower at home, though poor water pressure sometimes forces me to surrender to the buckets. In order to maximize enjoyment from the shower, however, I have to time it very precisely, given that I rely on the sun to heat my water.

So I step into his shower underneath the raindrop shower head, and I turn the hot water on. The water starts falling on me, and washes away any remaining sanity left on me. I laugh. Not just any laugh, but the guttural laugh of a madwoman who has lost her last screw. And I can’t stop laughing. The more the water falls, the harder I laugh.

I finally pause long enough to see the shower settings (because yes, there were settings), and, like any good explorer, I test them all. There’s the stylish removable showerhead spray, the lateral jacuzzi-massage jet spray, and the regular spigot. I tried them all, in every possible combination.

As I stepped out of the steam-filled bathroom onto the tile floor, I finally remembered what it feels like to be clean. To feel like I am at home.

Which Edge of the Sword?: Rookie Start-Up Mistakes

Summary: One of the reasons I joined Digital StudyHall was to learn about social entrepreneurship. In the past seven months, I’ve seen DSH struggle with some important strategic and financial decisions, challenges that are common to start-ups.

Sandwiched between the Silicon Valley and the venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road, Stanford is plagued by the entrepreneurship bug and I, being an MS&E (i.e., business) student, was smack in the middle of it.

Now, I am a type-“A,” semi-OCD person who secretly derives pleasure from systematically named computer files and generally prefers events that are pre-planned, though you’ll never find “Spontaneous Activity” penciled into my calendar. However, I dislike cubicles and sterile environments even more than I like structure and organization; hence my decision to ride the entrepreneurship wave and give the “start-up experience” a try.

Based on my sample size of one, my first conclusion is that no two start-ups are the same. (I say this with no sense of irony, despite the fact that differentiation is the basic premise of any entrepreneurial venture.) There is a saying in philanthropy which I believe extends equally to entrepreneurships: “When you know one foundation, you know one foundation.” So much for seeing whether the start-up life is for me.

At the same time, however, I think there are some challenges and mistakes common to many start-ups. My time at Digital StudyHall has shown me the importance of both learning from your own mistakes and those of others.

Working at Digital StudyHall, therefore, has taught me a lot about struggles of start-up operations, whether they be traps people fall into or desperately try to avoid. Some of the most salient include:

1. Overspending on things of little value-add: What counts as “worthwhile” expenditures, of course, differs not only from person to person, but also over time. DSH decided that at this stage, office furniture is not an important expenditure (explaining the patio chairs); others may argue that a professional office environment can have a major effect on morale and productivity. Every organization will also have its own “spending” threshold; also, the more money an organization has, the higher its threshold is likely to be. It’s important to note that the disagreements and resulting discussions themselves are critical, for they heighten awareness and force deliberate decisions about the use of resources.


2. Being overly frugal: It’s easy to understand how a well-intentioned but resource-strapped organization can err on the side of over-frugality, to the point where it under-invests in people. It’s hard to argue with a diminishing banking account, but I believe that such underinvestment leads to mediocre performance at best and organizational death at worst. I haven’t yet been able to decide on which side of the scale DSH sits; my hunch says we err on the side of frugality, though I’m not sure if that’s because I migrated from the consulting culture (and its Herman Millers).


3. Develop a 5-year plan and follow it religiously: I admit, I like plans and goals. But I also recognize the impracticalities of 5-year plans (not to be confused with the vision) in the start-up environment. Things change. Ideas fail. Challenges arise. There aren’t enough contingency plans to cover all possible scenarios. If for nothing else, DSH embraces the idea of experimentation as a way to adapt and learn. In spite of our implicit prioritization criteria (e.g., is the idea scalable?), I think DSH places too high a premium on trying new ideas. The risks associated with over-experimentation are, (a) spreading already limited resources even thinner, thereby possibly compromising the quality of all programs, (b) developing a culture that lacks direction and supports the “flavor of the month,” and (c) creating a feeling of stagnation in the organization.


4. Resist all bureaucracy and organizational structure: Psychologically, humans have an inherent need to categorize and structure the world; without a sense of structure, we flounder. Start-ups tend to lack processes and structure for one of two reasons, often both: (a) they take pride in their independent, revolutionary spirit, which contrasts sharply with the corporate monsters they’re taking on (think: TPS reports), or (b) they think that building their offering is a better use of their time than putting processes in place. With respect to the latter, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle; without sound structure and processes, the organization is ironically slowing itself down.


5. Scale too quickly: Something DSH adamantly wants to avoid is scaling before we’re “ready,” as many entrepreneurial organizations have died doing. On the other hand, there’s a sense of fear and paralysis regarding the challenges of scaling that can only be addressed when we cross that bridge; you often don’t know you’re ready until you do it. I’m not sure DSH is ready to scale, but status quo is certainly dissatisfying. I’ve only been here seven months and I’m getting restless! (Is this the impatience of youth?)

Even as I write this, I realize there are two sides to each “mistake” or challenge; nothing is ever as clear as it seems. As my former manager used to ask, “Clear as mud?”

Which brings me to my second major conclusion about start-ups and, in this case, life in general: the choices lining most decisions* are double-edged swords. The catch(-22) is that one side is sharper than the other; the sharp side will cause a quick death, and the dull side will cause a slower, prolonged death (with, of course, a potential future possibility to “stop the bleeding”).

Moderation is key. Perhaps the “best” decision involves the unspoken third edge of the sword – the flat edge.

* Every item in the list above boils down to a decision the leaders of the entrepreneurship must make.

On the Road: Nainital

Summary: A short, relatively uneventful weekend trip to Nainital, a nearby hill station, gave me a taste of a “local’s vacation.”

Many festivals and holidays occur in the months of September and October, and I decided to take advantage of one of the rare two-day weekends at the office.

After much wavering, a last-minute decision was made to visit Nainital, a small, colonial “hill station” built around a lake. A recommended escape into an admittedly over-commercialized version of nature, Nainital is a family vacation hotpot amongst locals.

Given that the images of Nepal burned into my mind are still so fresh they’re hot to the touch, I didn’t have very high expectations of this place; this proved wise, as Nainital neither impressed nor disappointed. Nainital felt like a fusion of Lake Tahoe and Pokhara, but unfortunately less beautiful and stunning than both.

One of the first things my friend and I did was trek up to the Eco Cave Park, which is a group of six natural caves open for exploration, with only a few directional signs and even fewer safety precautions. Tempted as I may be, I can’t in good conscience call this experience “spelunking.” On the other hand, as I squirmed through small openings and climbed over muddy, slippery boulders, I couldn’t help but to think that a place like this would be a law suit waiting to happen in the U.S. But such was not the case in India; instead, couples and families freely explored the dimly lit and mildly dangerous caves, accepting the risk as part of the 15 Rs. entry fee.

While I can’t say much about the naturalistic scene of Nainital, I will talk about the culinary experience, as the rest of our day, aside from the hour on the lake in a peddle boat, was spent hopping between food joints. Now, I’m going to go out on a limb and claim that Nainital has the best momos my recalibrated palate has ever tasted. (If you ever find yourself in Nainital, find Sonum’s Fast Food in the Tibetan Market.) This small town managed to harbor quite a few gems, including (real) feta cheese, fro-yo (i.e., frozen yogurt, or soft serve), and…persimmons! Granted, the fro-yo was disappointing at best, but the persimmons were heavenly.

Our second (and last) day was spent with a group of three foreigners, after a chance encounter left us all walking up together to Snow View, which is, on a clear day, supposed to have great mountain views. We were not so lucky, and ended up being the view ourselves. Back in town, however, we managed to catch a bit of the Dussehra festivities.

All in all, Nainital wouldn’t rank particularly high on my list of recommended places to visit in India (perhaps on par with Lucknow), but I can see why it would be overrun by families on vacation. When I have a family, maybe we’ll go to Lake Tahoe and I’ll tell them about how it reminds me of a small town I once visited in India called Nainital.