A lesson in humanity, or something like that

What an autorickshaw looks like, in case you were wondering

So, I got in an accident today. It was one of those stupid, extremely avoidable ones that left an (equally avoidable) bad taste in everyone’s mouths. My friend and I were on a motorcycle, driving very responsibly for the most part. We were less than five minutes from our destination when my friend decided to make a quick right turn onto a side street. We turn, suddenly realize there’s an autorickshaw coming full speed in the opposite direction (that’s now screeching its brakes), try to make a quick getaway, and ultimately fail.

My left foot ended up colliding head-on with the auto’s headlight; my friend flew for a bit and hit his shoulder on the pavement; both vehicles toppled onto their sides; the rickshaw passengers (a mother and son) fell on top of each other; and the rickshaw driver fell onto his side. In true Indian ish-tyle, there were 40 spontaneous spectators, a fraction of whom helped all of us up.

As they say, “it all happened so fast.”

It turned out that my foot was the only seemingly serious injury of the lot, emotional shock notwithstanding. We were luckily two blocks away from a hospital, so my immediate thought was to hobble back onto the bike and get my foot X-rayed. I was in serious pain, up to the “holding back tears so I don’t look like a wimpy little girl” point, so I was moving as fast as my good leg would allow me. However, before I could actually sit on the bike, the rickshaw driver yelled out for my friend and me.

Cash for Clunkers, meet the Bansals

Anyone who’s met my family knows we’re all a bit cracked.  My sister, for instance, can sleep for 16 hours at a stretch, can talk/text for nearly as long, and can recite the lyrics to every Biggie Smalls song ever written.  My father creates minute-by-minute vacation itineraries (which include designated 30-minute slots to “relax at the hotel”), takes ~2000 photographs per month, and purchases the latest technology for just about anything… including sound system wires, external hard disks, and fancy foot massagers.  My mother is the designated “peacekeeper” in the house.  She thinks she’s cool because she recently joined Facebook and learned how to upload embarrassing family photos.  And of course, there’s me.

In this post, I’m going to go against conventional Indian wisdom of not spreading “ghar ki baatein” and share my family’s recent experience with the Cash for Clunkers program.  Oy vey.

This Ganesh Chaturthi, please think: “What would Tilak do?”

Ganpati procession in Lalbaug, a neighbourhood in central Mumbai

After ten long days of prayer and celebration, of dancing on the streets and recklessly blocking traffic, of beating drums and reciting devotional bhajans, it will be time to bid farewell to Lord Ganesh.  Ganesh, widely regarded as the bringer of prosperity and remover of obstacles, will not slip away unnoticed.  Rather, devotees will make sure he is seen off in style, so that he may triumphantly return next year for a similar round of celebrations.

On the morning of September 3, 2009, hundreds of thousands of devotees — hands filled with some combination of coconuts, flowers, uncooked rice, and coloured powder — will flock to bodies of water.  They will loudly chant, “Ganpati bappa morya, pudcha varshi laukar ya” (Hail Lord Ganesh, return again soon next year) while dancing and dousing each other with colour.  They will then say goodbye to the beloved elephant-headed god by immersing their idols into the sea.  The idols, historically constructed of clay, are intended to dissolve in minutes and become part of the ongoing circle of life (a fitting choice, given how Ganesh himself was supposedly concocted out of sandalwood paste).

Ganesh Chaturthi is, in theory, a beautiful, colourful, and spirited celebration.  Like most Hindu festivals, its exact origins are unknown. We know that Ganesh has been worshipped in individual homes for centuries, particularly in western India.  However, the festival was revolutionized in 1893 and gained the public face it enjoys today.  It was this year that freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak installed large images of Ganesh in various pavilions around Pune city, as a subversion to the British ruling that disallowed Indians from gathering freely.  Since then, the festival has grown phenomenally around western India and to some extent globally.

Unfortunately, growth of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival has not necessarily been sustainable.  Over the years, celebrations have become more lavish: neighbourhood temples have become grander, renditions of Marathi folk songs have become louder, and Ganesh statues have become more conspicuous.  And by “more conspicuous,” I mean they reach up to 30 meters in height and are painted with the Brightest and Bestest paints artists can find.  I’m not sure this is exactly what Tilak had in mind.

Pee for free mobile minutes!

Photo credit: Economist

I love free stuff. Who doesn’t? Even if I know I’m never gonna wear that XXL fluorescent green t-shirt, I’ll still take it. And if it’s something I actually can use (free iPod, anyone?)… well, all the better. I may even do something slightly uncharacteristic — say, sing in public — if the reward is good enough.

This is the thinking the folks at MIT’s famed D-Lab (Development Lab) — specifically, at Innovations in International Health – employed when they devised “X out TB. ” They rightly identified lack of patient compliance as one of the biggest obstacles to making tuberculosis treatment effective. Basically, patients need to take their daily course for 6 months in order to prevent nasty drug resistance and relapse. The problem is, people often don’t like taking their medicine, even if there’s a spoonful of sugar involved. Most TB symptoms disappear after month 2-ish, and the medicine can cause unpleasant side effects like nausea, diarrhea, and orange-colored urine.

According to this week’s Economist, MIT’s researchers used the weird orange pee phenomenon to their advantage. They created a device that changes color only if the urine shows traces of certain chemicals (the same ones that make it orange in the first place). And if it does, magic happens: a code appears that the patient can type into their cell phones, to avail of free minutes! Way cooler than anything Mary Poppins could ever offer.

The team is currently working on making the reward applicable to a wider audience (e.g., many women in Pakistan do not use mobile phones, and thus may be better incentivized by free food). I’m pretty impressed, though. If the X out TB team can make this financially sustainable, they could change the face of TB treatment forever.

Potentially the worst job in the world?

Photo credit - Newsweek

“OMG, isn’t it, like, so disturbing to see all those beggars in India, with their disfigured limbs and stuff?”

You won’t believe how many times I’ve been asked that question. The sad part is that after living here for so long, it’s actually not that disturbing. It’s part of life. Regardless of how one may choose to respond (pay up, ignore, recoil, stare-but-try-not-to-stare), beggars have broadly been accepted as part of India’s daily urban fabric. Which is saying a lot, considering how this group includes children with severe malnutrition, men with missing limbs, broad-shouldered hermaphrodites, women carrying under-bathed infants, mentally retarded adolescents, and blind elderly couples. In certain societies, some of these guys may have a shot at joining a sickly voyeuristic circus; here, many have almost been normalized.

Despite India’s ability to absorb most “unusual” individuals, there is one sub-group that will probably always be shunned: the manual sewer workers. This sub-class of Dalits, known as balmikis, is forever destined to live on society’s extreme fringes. Unlike their brethren in the developed world, who are often provided bunny suits and respiratory gear before entering serpentine manholes, these Dalit sanitation workers usually enter with little more than a loincloth and a split bamboo stick. Upon entering the antiquated sewer pipes, they literally swim through pounds of liquefied feces to clear any blockages, all the while taking care to not touch the cockroach-laden walls. They continually breathe the offensive smell of human excreta, along with her toxic first cousins, Methane and Hydrogen sulfide. When they come up for air, they sometimes bruise themselves on the manhole’s rim, dizzy from the gases.

Within India’s silently strict social hierarchy, these Dalits are the untouchabliest untouchables. Even other so-called “untouchables” won’t go near these guys.

Voyeurism 2.0: If you can’t beat ‘em, make ‘em socially responsible

Three times in the past week, I’ve unexpectedly been a participant in conversations regarding Mumbai’s hottest new tourist spot: Dharavi. In case any of you missed the Slumdog Millionaire bus (er, bulldozer?), Dharavi has the dubious honor of being Asia’s largest slum. It houses upwards of 1 million people over a 175 hectare expanse of marshy land in the northern part of the city. First-time international visitors to Mumbai may be surprised, upon descent of their aircraft, to see the runway nestled against a sea of seemingly makeshift blue tarp and corrugated metal. Yup, that’s Dharavi.

Eight Academy awards and several Vogue cover shoots later, Mumbai has entered something of a post-Slumdog era. Local newspapers have always covered Dharavi, but now they actually take the trouble to talk to residents. International DJ’s are keen on using the area’s vivid neighborhoods as backdrops for their sickest new parties. And of course, slum tourism is shooting up faster than Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting.

Note: I must confess that I have not yet been on a tour of Dharavi, so my opinions here are based primarily on hearsay. Then again, I’ve worked as a consultant for over two years, so I’m quite accustomed to this :)

Breaking News: Obama Going Gray

For those of you who haven’t discovered the sheer comic brilliance of The Onion, please check out “America’s Finest News Source” now. Wait, not now. First finish reading!

So this week’s top story, titled “Obama outfitted with 238 motion capture sensors for 3-D record of presidency,” chronicles the excitement felt by area historians on how they can capture the president’s every “landmark” move:

Kiss me, I’m a visionary

Every society needs visionaries. Individuals who see clear potential for a “better” future while recognizing the complexity of today’s limitations. Individuals who can see the big steps needed to get entire health care and economic systems back on track. Individuals who quietly push those around them to think and act outside the norm.

These folks aren’t exactly a dime a dozen. While innumerable armchair philosophers can offer grandiose visions of a better tomorrow, few can back it with enough intelligence, passion, and some degree of pragmatic know-how to make it credible. And even fewer can do it well enough (and be lucky enough) to start an international movement and effectively change life forever after.

After considerable internal debate, I believe that Mohammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, may be one of today’s best living examples of a true visionary.