Delhi's Pride
DELHI, 9th JULY - Metro: Delhi's Pride. The signs can be seen in many parts of the city. So many things going on in this city.. and its pride is the Metro? The metro is definitely a well-oiled machine. It is basically one of the newest public transit systems in the world... and covers many areas of Delhi. It's clean, efficienct, AC'ed, and fast. What more could you ask for? And, actually, from my first two visits to Delhi, I hadn't really seen anything else that Delhi could be really proud about. But this time, I was definitely hoping/expecting it to be different as we (sameer and I) actaully knew people in the city and had friends doing various interesting things.
Mridu and I took a night bus from Dehradun to Delhi, and got to Delhi in the wee hours of the morning (about 4:45 am). This was the first time for me going into a city after about 2-3 months at SIDH. I was definitely used to the village, small town lifestlye. As I stepped down from the bus... while... while I was even preparing to step down from the bus..... a whole crowd of rikshaw-wallah's... "chalo, kahaa jaanaa hai?", "chalo, mere saath"... 30 voices all at once... and barely any room to step off the bus. This isn't an unusual scene in India... but having been in the village for so long...... I felt like a villager seeing a big city for the first time.
Following this scence... Sampat and I spent about a week in Delhi, and reallly had a wonderful time!!! Thanks to all the people who opened up their worlds, homes, work, and hearts to us -- Harsh, Ankit, Mridu, Chaithi, Ravi G., Vicki Didi, Amit from Jamghat, Beyond Borders group, JV groups, etc... It was definitely a blast seeing the friends that i made while at SIDH in their natural Delhi surroundings... Urvashi, Ambika, Vinay, Sonu, Irfan, Vineet, Mukesh, Shilpi, Jenica, Pulu, Digant, Sumati, Deepti, Ruchika, etc.
From having a World Cup party and watching till 3 in the morning at mridu's place, to visiting Ravi's Manzil, to checking out Mirambika - alternate school, watching the Jamghat practice and visiting their place, talking to Harsh and his mom - a reminder of what I'm in for when I get back to States, to checking out the Beyond Borders meeting, to attending the Delhi monthly JV discussion ~~> all around a good time and valuable experience.
Quickly, I'm going to talk about a few of these expereinces.
First day that we're there... we're having lunch at some place... a "cool" spot. And the group that we haf.. included Delhi-ites, kurta-pajama wearing guys with American accents (myself and sampat), a Buddhist monk in his robes (Tenzin), a couple of hwite guys (Shae and his friend), and Asian guy (another friend of Shane's). It was just a great head-turning group... haha..
So... Ravi Gulati... started Manzil some years back. Ravi lives in an area where the extremely wealthy of Delhi live... all the bureaucrats, etc. However, for each rich family, there are probably a few poor families that serve it. Where do they live? Well, they are hid away in shanties, projects, slums, etc. Ravi - isn't really part of either of these groups... Big on travelling and learning through various experiences, has has travelled a lot. When his Dad passed away, he rushed back home to Delhi. During his stay there, some of the "poorer" boys came to him and asked if he could tutor them. He said, "why not?" So, he started tutoring in Math and English out of his home. Then, they asked if they could bring some more friends... he didn't see a problem with it, and more kids were coming to his home. His sister, who is handicapped, and his mother were supportive and also engaged with the kids. Soon, the endeavour blossomed, and Ravi started the NGO, Manzil... running out of his own home. Now, he has children, and youth of all ages coming... It started with just Math and English, but now, anytime there is a group that has other interests, they start a club. Which means, manzil now also teaches dance, music, computers, etc. From what I hear, their music group is top-notch. Other than providing a space to learn school subjects, the people who come to Manzil treat Ravi's home as their home. The door is always open, and there is a constant flux of people in and out, doing various activities, chatting, etc. They talk about curernt social issues that affect them, affect Delhi, affect the world. They talk about the effects of "English", and in India, English as power... and all the reason for feeling inferior. They talk about self-confidence. They've created great friendships with each other that are positive in nature. When you ask those who go to Manzil, usually, the reason they started was to learn English and/or Math... but ask them after they've spent some time at Manzil,that reason drops to about 4th or 5th on the list, as there's just so much more. And what does Ravi do for money? Well, Ravi worked in Canada for 9 months, where he lived a very frugal life and saved every dollar he could (rode his bike to work, etc.). Being in India, he calculated how much money he would need per month and per year to survive... he listed all the things that he considered necessary. After doing the math, he realized that he could survive off the interest that he makes from his savings in Canada. Therefore, in his late 20's, early 30's... Ravi retired. (if there any parts of this story that may be inaccurate, please forgive me... I wrote it out of memory).
Ankit is a "free lance" film-maker. Seeing his work was really cool. After graduating from film college, Ankit got a couple of good contracts on some films that paid well. Since then, he's mainly been working with differeny youth groups, schools, etc. and is guiding others in the art of film-making. We saw couple of his films where he works with a group of youth and makes the documentary with them. He uses the process of "making a film" to ignite questions in the youth's minds and his mind as well. He uses the medium of film as a process of self-exploration. For example, with a group of youth, he made a film about Delhi, and what these youths' aspirations are for Delhi, their home-town city. The youths that made this film are very Delhi... English-speaking, college-going, youngsters. So, the aspirations start with having a "modern" city with all the amenities - big malls, clean streets, safe streets, no slums, big roads, good transportation, etc. They also don't want poverty, don't want poor. As they looked deeper, some of the basic contradictions in their aspirations come to the surface. And they start asking the questions... we want all this "modernization"... but who's actually paying the human costs of this?
So yeah.. delhi was cool... we also had a pretty cool SIDH reunion before the JV meeting.. with Pawanji, myself, Tenzin, Mridu, Ankit, Sumati, Sampat... I think that's everyone.
But yeah... I would have to say that I think Delhi's got a little more than just its Metro.
Mridu and I took a night bus from Dehradun to Delhi, and got to Delhi in the wee hours of the morning (about 4:45 am). This was the first time for me going into a city after about 2-3 months at SIDH. I was definitely used to the village, small town lifestlye. As I stepped down from the bus... while... while I was even preparing to step down from the bus..... a whole crowd of rikshaw-wallah's... "chalo, kahaa jaanaa hai?", "chalo, mere saath"... 30 voices all at once... and barely any room to step off the bus. This isn't an unusual scene in India... but having been in the village for so long...... I felt like a villager seeing a big city for the first time.
Following this scence... Sampat and I spent about a week in Delhi, and reallly had a wonderful time!!! Thanks to all the people who opened up their worlds, homes, work, and hearts to us -- Harsh, Ankit, Mridu, Chaithi, Ravi G., Vicki Didi, Amit from Jamghat, Beyond Borders group, JV groups, etc... It was definitely a blast seeing the friends that i made while at SIDH in their natural Delhi surroundings... Urvashi, Ambika, Vinay, Sonu, Irfan, Vineet, Mukesh, Shilpi, Jenica, Pulu, Digant, Sumati, Deepti, Ruchika, etc.
From having a World Cup party and watching till 3 in the morning at mridu's place, to visiting Ravi's Manzil, to checking out Mirambika - alternate school, watching the Jamghat practice and visiting their place, talking to Harsh and his mom - a reminder of what I'm in for when I get back to States, to checking out the Beyond Borders meeting, to attending the Delhi monthly JV discussion ~~> all around a good time and valuable experience.
Quickly, I'm going to talk about a few of these expereinces.
First day that we're there... we're having lunch at some place... a "cool" spot. And the group that we haf.. included Delhi-ites, kurta-pajama wearing guys with American accents (myself and sampat), a Buddhist monk in his robes (Tenzin), a couple of hwite guys (Shae and his friend), and Asian guy (another friend of Shane's). It was just a great head-turning group... haha..
So... Ravi Gulati... started Manzil some years back. Ravi lives in an area where the extremely wealthy of Delhi live... all the bureaucrats, etc. However, for each rich family, there are probably a few poor families that serve it. Where do they live? Well, they are hid away in shanties, projects, slums, etc. Ravi - isn't really part of either of these groups... Big on travelling and learning through various experiences, has has travelled a lot. When his Dad passed away, he rushed back home to Delhi. During his stay there, some of the "poorer" boys came to him and asked if he could tutor them. He said, "why not?" So, he started tutoring in Math and English out of his home. Then, they asked if they could bring some more friends... he didn't see a problem with it, and more kids were coming to his home. His sister, who is handicapped, and his mother were supportive and also engaged with the kids. Soon, the endeavour blossomed, and Ravi started the NGO, Manzil... running out of his own home. Now, he has children, and youth of all ages coming... It started with just Math and English, but now, anytime there is a group that has other interests, they start a club. Which means, manzil now also teaches dance, music, computers, etc. From what I hear, their music group is top-notch. Other than providing a space to learn school subjects, the people who come to Manzil treat Ravi's home as their home. The door is always open, and there is a constant flux of people in and out, doing various activities, chatting, etc. They talk about curernt social issues that affect them, affect Delhi, affect the world. They talk about the effects of "English", and in India, English as power... and all the reason for feeling inferior. They talk about self-confidence. They've created great friendships with each other that are positive in nature. When you ask those who go to Manzil, usually, the reason they started was to learn English and/or Math... but ask them after they've spent some time at Manzil,that reason drops to about 4th or 5th on the list, as there's just so much more. And what does Ravi do for money? Well, Ravi worked in Canada for 9 months, where he lived a very frugal life and saved every dollar he could (rode his bike to work, etc.). Being in India, he calculated how much money he would need per month and per year to survive... he listed all the things that he considered necessary. After doing the math, he realized that he could survive off the interest that he makes from his savings in Canada. Therefore, in his late 20's, early 30's... Ravi retired. (if there any parts of this story that may be inaccurate, please forgive me... I wrote it out of memory).
Ankit is a "free lance" film-maker. Seeing his work was really cool. After graduating from film college, Ankit got a couple of good contracts on some films that paid well. Since then, he's mainly been working with differeny youth groups, schools, etc. and is guiding others in the art of film-making. We saw couple of his films where he works with a group of youth and makes the documentary with them. He uses the process of "making a film" to ignite questions in the youth's minds and his mind as well. He uses the medium of film as a process of self-exploration. For example, with a group of youth, he made a film about Delhi, and what these youths' aspirations are for Delhi, their home-town city. The youths that made this film are very Delhi... English-speaking, college-going, youngsters. So, the aspirations start with having a "modern" city with all the amenities - big malls, clean streets, safe streets, no slums, big roads, good transportation, etc. They also don't want poverty, don't want poor. As they looked deeper, some of the basic contradictions in their aspirations come to the surface. And they start asking the questions... we want all this "modernization"... but who's actually paying the human costs of this?
So yeah.. delhi was cool... we also had a pretty cool SIDH reunion before the JV meeting.. with Pawanji, myself, Tenzin, Mridu, Ankit, Sumati, Sampat... I think that's everyone.
But yeah... I would have to say that I think Delhi's got a little more than just its Metro.
posted by Raj Kanani | 11:28 AM
2 Comments:
wish i cud be there to join in and feel the exuberance as mentioned here...thats all i can say for now...and as far as delhi is concerned...its got more than the metro for me...its got my sisters and my one yr nephew....:P
sounds like a great time in delhi. dude, the number of names you're dropping!..you've created a similar network as you have in the states. :) some really inspiring stories as well.
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