What comes to your mind when you see a 200 rupee note? How do you spend it? Is...
Bail Pola: A Gratitude Festival For Bulls
India is known all over the world for its rich collection of different...
Gavari, The Goddess Who Comes To Earth
As per Hindu mythology, when Sati married Lord Shiva, her father, Daksha was...
Living A Precarious Life On The Delta
When I first heard about the Sundarbans I thought to myself ‘Why do people...
Sundarbans: The Mystical Land
India Fellow, as part of the workshops we do all round the year with our...
How did the people do their ‘business’ then? (Part 1 of 2)
“What is the most satisfactory and peaceful time in a human’s life?” was the...
A 6KM Long Trek For Water And Why Every Drop Counts
I can never forget Anupama’s (India Fellow alum) line, “Try and understand the...
Silicosis: The Occupational Hazard Of Doing God’s Work
The Pindwara district in the state of Rajasthan is known for its mining...
The City Of Dead Dogs And Hearts
Ages and ages before Adam Smith came up with his theory that revolutionized how humans produce things together on a mass scale through industries, and also the act of production to become super-boring for the individuals involved, humans were already using the concept...
The Corn Vendor’s Insight
My co-fellow, Alston and I started our journey of testing our stereotypes by sharing a samosa on our way to a village called Devali in Udaipur. I believed that families did not prefer sending their kids, especially girls, to urban areas for higher education. As easy...
Freedom From Congestion : The Impact Of Housing Finance
He dropped out of school when he was in the seventh grade. Prakash, 34, is a diminutive young man who regrets leaving school. Nevertheless, having worked his way up, he is now a skilled worker building concrete structures. Although he was satisfied with his occupation...
स्केल कैसे होगा?
स्केल कैसे करेंगे? इस विषय में उचित सवाल है कि क्या तरीका पहले चल रहे TB प्रोग्राम जैसा होगा या अनुभव वाले साथी जाके नया वार्ड शुरू करें या कुछ और? दो वार्डों में पायलट की समाप्ति के बाद संस्था के कार्य के दायरे को बढ़ाना स्वाभाविक मोड़ है। साथ ही, हमने ट्रस्ट को जो...
Chewang Norphel : The Ice Man
A major breakthrough in the pursuit of water was achieved by Chewang Norphel. Born in 1936 to Tibetan parents, Norphel hails from Skarra village, 2.5kms away from Leh in Ladakh. All hundred families of his village have traditionally been subsistence farmers,...
What Is A Fair Wage?
I had an insightful conversation with our organisation’s—Innovators in Health—driver last month. He was going on a leave to finish some paperwork the next day. The High Court in Bihar had reiterated a judicial order by the Supreme Court of India with explicit...
Humanising Users Of Healthcare
A paid internship right out of the college—even though underpaid and compulsory and obligatory—is a perfect opportunity to assimilate the four and a half years of knowledge and finally rub one’s hands clean enough to be granted a chance to suture that open wound. That...
Camel Tales
The camel was dead, apparently it slipped off a narrow muddy path and went sliding down into a large ditch. As the rains pounded Surajgarh, the ditch got filled with water and the camel unable to drag itself out, drowned in this ditch. Dalu Gameti had allowed...
Wisdom Over Intelligence
Ladakh Before 1970 The story of education in Ladakh is intimately tied to the story of its people’s introduction to western concepts of progress and to the global marketplace. Prior to the 1970s, education in Ladakh largely took place in the village, in the fields,...
The Fellowship Epiphany
If you listen to the experience of a person who has just escaped death by drowning, this is what they will tell you – “At first you throw your hands and feet in all the directions frantically, only to realize that it’s not helping, slowly you notice the deluging...
What Drives Us To Action?
I implemented a newly designed financial literacy game with the community. The details of which will be shared in a later blog. This game is followed by a debriefing session on how you need to protect, grow and diversify wealth. I take a deep breath and launch:...
Our Design Is Designing Us Back
“Just as you grow into the world, the world grows into you. Not only do you occupy a certain place, but that place in turn occupies you … It’s culture shapes the way we see the world, its language which informs the way you think, its custom structures you as social...
This Is Water
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how's the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other...
The Mandalas Of Ladakh
There is nothing permanent except change. Ladakh is one of the few places humans have made habitable by their presence. In a land of chilling winds, scorching sun and blinding snow, an oasis of tall trees and sparkling streams is a testimony to this monumental...