Blog Archives
A sporty weekend [2]: Kids do Raahgiri on cycles
After a taste of the Raahgiri experience last Sunday [read about that here], the kids weren’t giving anybody any choice. In fact, the word had spread as it is wont to among the young ones and we had a larger group now. Udai was enthused about the idea of cycling around the Raahgiri route this time and I was requested to figure out the logistics. However, on Sunday morning, we were looking at a very flat front wheel and I was scurrying around in my head for a way to handle this. Our neighbor and friend Deepak came to my rescue, offering an adult’s bicycle from his home, but over and above that ensuring Udai test rode it at home before we loaded it on.
Despite Rahul not being around (and we all miss him sorely), the dads in the group Ananth and Deepak worked overtime as did the mums (Shruti, Preeti, me), dadis (Amma) and masis (Gauri) to ensure the kids had a lot of fun. Quite a bunch they were- Udai (9), Aadyaa (5), Avandeeta (6), Candy (3), Deepika (8) and Priyanka (not yet 1!!). All except the last one cycled the route, the rest of us running alongside in turns. Exhausting, but immensely satisfying, this past Sunday at Raahgiri, Gurgaon.
For those of you not in the know, Raahgiri is the name for a car free route designated for citizens to enjoy the streets in Gurgaon, otherwise known for its traffic congestion, pseudo glitzy mall culture, poor infrastructure and corporate prowess. It’s an effort spearheaded by dedicated citizens and supported by government, a win-win partnership that has inspired many of us to hope for a better world.
A sporty weekend [1]: Sports Day at Shikshantar
Just as I was getting a little cribby about Udai’s new penchant for hanging out gossiping with his friends rather than playing in the park, we spent a weekend full of outdoors fun! Winter in Delhi is perfect for sporty activities and we took full advantage of superb weather and great friends.
Saturday morning was spent attending Aadyaa’s sports day, quite a spectacle a Shikshantar where kids demonstrate complex obstacles, relays and patterns using props like balls and hoopla rings. The focus is complete immersion in the task at hand, with no regard to the idea of ‘winning a race’, quite unique to this school and absolutely age appropriate for pre-schoolers I think. I have to point out that the idea of sports for pre-schoolers is as much about the development of physical strength and skills as it is about honing social skills like sharing, encouraging peers and pushing yourself to do better. As parents, we all feel good that these little ones are protected at this point from the disappointments of losing and do whatever they can with great confidence. There will be a time and place for comparisons, but for now the happiness and enthusiasm is catching!
Here are a few snapshots from that energized morning, though I must confess I was sunburnt into a stupor afterwards!
Sports is internalized into every aspect of what the kids do at this time of the year!
Good to see them focus on a task and chellenge themselves to do better. Notice the highly informal setup with parents and grandparents, siblings and even house help (who are so integral to the family from a child’s perspective) standing or sitting around the activity area
Teamwork was introduced this year. A significant step forward for the little ones!
Cheering for her friends!
Big brother Udai watches. Later, parents and siblings also have similar activities. Wish I had pics of how much he enjoyed those, on the same team as mommy. Of course, our (more grown up) bunch was competitive as hell, yelling and behaving like the brats that I am sure we all were (or still are!)
The new person in my life! Musings on personal fitness training
I’m always into something new. It’s been a perpetual issue. The minute life goes into a routine, I get bored and restless and that’s bad news for people around me! So in line with my fitness and weight related concerns, my new deal in life is the gym. And since I am not the most motivated person on earth as far as gymming goes, the new person in my life is my trainer. PT- Personal Training has been the buzzword for many friends of mine who are fitness enthusiasts, but I never really took that step forward, thinking I could make do with my own mixed and offbeat efforts at working out. As I inch closer to 40, though, many realities sink in- Thud! It ain’t happening, that self-motivation, no matter how many times I write “6am-7am-Work out!” in my diary! Waking up early is a huge issue and there is no other suitable time of the day to exercise without messing up my routine….and there starts a litany of excuses that ends up in complete abandon of my fitness goals.
So what’s been my experience of working out with a trainer? Let me speak of the positives first. For a people-centric person like me, the conversation and banter really helps to engage me. I love being taught, so Pawan is now on my list of gurus right up there with my dance teacher and music teacher…and all the other people in my life who assume the teacher role (at times unknown to them) for specific things.
Second, there is now method to the madness. I am a great believer in trusting someone’s expertise. It is much easier to work out when you are told what to do and when someone stands right next to you to make sure you do. Also, to see if you are doing it right, which is critical when it comes to physical exercise, or indeed any kind of learning. It is also much easier to push yourself when you see that half mocking look on the trainer’s face, however hard he tries to keep his expressions neutral!
I am always amused to observe Pawan’s strategy while training. There is a careful mix of praise and admonishment, peppered with encouragement. There is also a mix of banter and reserve. Carefully measured, casually administered.
The negatives? In the initial sessions, it is vital to tell the trainer if you have weak joints, injuries, etc. Of course, they will assess independently as well, but it is not worth it to sustain further injuries only because you are excessively polite or are trying too hard to prove yourself! My knees and ankles are an issue, for instance, so we’re now trying to work out how much we push without damaging those joints. Also, get ready for excruciating pain in the first week (meetha meetha dard as one friend called it)….and you aren’t really allowed to complain. If you do, most likely you will get a shrug as response!
These are, of course, the musings of a near novice and I’ll probably have deeper insights as I go along. I’m watching myself to see how long my determination lasts and patting myself on the back after every session is completed!
Informed and inspired by the SSA Workshop on Urban Poverty in Mumbai
Of the 40-odd people who attended this workshop on the 11th of December in Mumbai, most came in not knowing what to expect. Urban poverty is a term that confuses and confounds many, even among those of us who work in the development sector. Lina Sonne from Intellecap, which brings out the Searchlight South Asia newsletter for the Rockefeller Foundation and had organized the event, pointed out that there is still an overwhelming focus on rural poverty and a need to move away from thinking of urban poverty as a problem that stems from a failure to address rural issues. Urbanization is clearly a force by itself, the urban poor face issues that are distinct and overwhelming, and there needs to be a focus on resolving these if cities are to truly be the engines of economic growth that India is pinning its hopes on.
The workshop was held at the Dutch Design Workspace, which is intimate, well located
As the first presenter, I struggled a little bit to gauge the mood, the interest areas and the expectations of the audience, which came from diverse backgrounds. Some were here to listen and learn, and there were others with a fire in their belly who were already doing really interesting things on the ground with poor communities as well as corporations that were striving to drive change through more sensitive leadership.
So I decided to focus on mHS’ vision for housing solutions that envisages a portfolio of housing options ranging from dormitories and shelters for the homeless and pavement dwellers, all the way up to ownership housing. The idea is that the urban poor are a heterogeneous bunch, every bit ambitious and enterprising as any other citizen if not more, and they should be able to self-select what sort of housing they want to live in. (Within this portfolio, mHS is currently focused on catalyzing self-construction in informal settlements through providing technical assistance in the form of engineering and architectural services to homeowners). To make this portfolio of housing possible, not only do we need policy changes and involvement from the government, but essentially there is a need to look at urban problems from an interdisciplinary perspective with the goal to make cities more inclusive and provide better opportunities for everyone.
All the sessions and discussion were captured by posters. This one sums up the mHS session
The other presentations were also very interesting and a lot of the content was new to me. Abhishek Bhardwaj from Alternative Realities spoke eloquently about the homeless in Mumbai and his proposal for “housing in continuum” aligns closely with mHS’ vision. Baby Mohite and Vishnu from Swach in Pune presented the pioneering work that an association of 2200 wastepickers has done in association with Pune Municipal Corporation in being able to bring solid waste management to about 4 lakh households in the city. This happens through door-to-door garbage collection. The wastepickers then segregate the waste, utilizing the ‘wet’ waste to produce manure and biogas and recyclable materials of all sorts are picked out of the ‘dry’ waste. The results are dramatic and the high level of innovation impressive, like the ST Dispo Bag that allows women to dispose sanitary napkins in a distinct bag so wastepickers don’t have to directly handle soiled napkins! They sell about 50,000 bags per month and all because the wastepicker women had conversations with the middle class women in the households they serve and connected on a woman-to-woman level.
I was quite touched by the presentation by young Shweta from Kranti, which is an NGO run by two spunky women to rehabilitate young girls who have grown up in Kamathipura, Mumbai’s red light district. Shweta, one of the ‘girls’, spoke in an endearing pseudo-accent and told us about how her confidence has grown, how she doesn’t care about what society thinks, how she is influencing her sisters to stand up for themselves back home in the red light district and how she wants to change the world. Shweta and other “krantikaris” (revolutionists) are actively involved in teaching and holding workshops with marginalized girls and children across India. Two other presentations discussed initiatives in education (Doorstep School) and health.
Looking at the posters before re-convening to discuss our takeaways from the workshop
The presentations spun off some interesting discussions. One was the conflict between being innovative in addressing urban poverty through grant-funded initiatives and the need to go to scale and impact a larger number. The future of social enterprises was a concern and some felt acutely the need for social entrepreneurs to get real and find sustainable business models. Some exciting sparring happened on that one!
Another takeaway for many of us was the need for more interaction among those working in the development sector among the urban poor. There is considerable convergence in how different grassroots organizations are beginning to think about the huge problem of how to provide better quality of life for urban residents and much can be learned through sharing and collaborations.
Delightful moment: Photo op with the Sohna Road squatter potters- Aug 6, 2012
There is a small community of potters on Sohna Road. We pass them nearly every day and I finf myself wondering about their life every now and then. They live in tent-like structures. Charpais (single beds made of bamboo and coir weaving) lie in front of these shelters. Their wares are displayed on the floor right there and their entire lives are led right in front of a million people who pass by in an assortment of vehicles that range from jugaads (carts with a motor strapped onto it literally), tractors and bicycles to Audis, BMWs and Ferraris. No kidding! This row of squatter potters (I like the ring of that) is located strategically at an important junction. Policemen sit right there plaguing regular folks, buses stop there, people pedal their wares…it’s the regular desi mela. Through several rounds of digging to lay sewerage pipes and now the latest round to put the electric cables underground, this little row has somehow held onto their space.
Yesterday, as we drove by the nth time, I remembered Aadyaa had to take a small pot to school with her. Krishna is her absolute favorite person (that he doesn;t actually exist in flesh and blood completely eludes her; she has asked me many many times to take her to Dwarka to meet him and Balram and Yashoda maiyya!). There has been much activity at school building up to Krishna’s birthday (janmasthani) this Friday and decorating the pot of buttermilk is something she is looking forward to.
So there we were, choosing a matka (pot). The gypsy lady suggested a buy a slightly larger, better quality one and then I mentioned its for the kid to paint on in school. The lady’s face lit up. “Radha banogi kya?”, she asked Aadyaa. Will you be Radha, Krishna’s love? And Aadyaa nodded, smiling brightly. I loved the shared moment between these two. For that instant, the tremendous disparities between rich and poor, educated and illiterate, fortunate and unfortunate, secure and insecure, were eliminated as they shared a common joyful thought. I wondered at the spontaneity and simplicity that we see in children and in the poor, who despite all their troubles, have an attitude of forthrightness devoid of suspicion.
We were soon brought back to earth when an older lady sitting on the charpai interrupted with a request for Aadyaa’s old clothes for her granddaughter. The child’s mother is apparently in hospital with dengue fever, I was told in a by-the-way sort of tone, perhaps to put me in a sympathy mode. Still, I detected no whining in her tone, just a simple request made with a smiling face. I found myself saying I’d do my best and then, I called in the kids for a picture. Here they all are, smiling into the camera as if they had not a care in the world!
Check out the grins and the jewelry on the old lady!
And they all joined in!
Weighty issues on my mind: Craving for fitness- May 27, 2012
I’ve wanted to write about this for the longest time, but never had the guts to. It’s my weight problem! I’ve been overweight for as long as I remember, precisely since higher secondary school. Even in college, weight was a hugely sensitive issue with me. Someone had to just make a passing joke about it and I would sulk the entire day, mulling the comment over and over, killing myself with guilt and low self-esteem.
And then I got married to Rahul, who always loved me for what I was and never ever ran me down on the weight aspect. Two kids down the line, my struggle with my weight has become more realistic and less paranoid. I’ve tried various things and I kind of know what works and what doesn’t.
I have to say this, though. My motivations for losing weight remain a strange mix of three things:
Health-I worry about the slight knee pains I have now and then, weak ankles, and the usual lifestyle disease worries.
Looks-I really do want to wear what I want without worrying about how the outfit will look on me, or worse, whether the shop would have it in my size…hugely embarrassing and depressing experience when they give you that sheepish but unapologetic look!
Self-esteem- I have this self-image of myself as a reasonably thin person. When I look in the mirror, that’s who I see. When I break the illusion, on some days, I see this obese person who is me, but isn’t me really! I don’t want to be schizophrenic. I simply need to thin down into my real size!
Of late, I’ve started realizing that I truly crave for fitness as well. Its a new target, one I am turning over in my head and hoping to really internalize in the next few weeks. Come July, I intend to develop a more holistic training routine. 2013 will see a new me, for sure!
ramblinginthecity 