On Leaving Udaipur

This month I took a two week vacation to travel with two friends from home. It was a welcome break. We went to Dharamsala, trekking in the Himalayas, Amritsar to see the Golden Temple, Jaipur, and finally the Taj Mahal. The Golden Temple and the Taj Mahal were especially spectacular – I won't attempt to describe them. Now I am back in Udaipur but soon to leave again. I have finished my project, completed my last day at work, and in two days I will leave for Varanasi and then Nepal.

Goodbye Rituals

Since I have been back, I have been facing goodbyes everywhere. At my office, the staff held a small farewell ceremony for me where they presented me with a coconut, a garland of marigolds, and put a dot of pink powder on my forehead. My host mom thought I had gone to the temple, as these are all Hindu rituals. Then all the staff members said some words about me, which all came out sounding like eulogies.

One staff member kindly invited me to his home for dinner a few nights ago. His wife cooked us my favorite meal – dal bati churma – though this time not cooked in a cow dung fire. As we were sitting on the cement floor watching Bollywood music videos and eating with our hands, I was quite content and in my element. And then my coworker let out the loudest, never-ending fart that was unfortunately amplified by the cement floor beneath him. No one even flinched. After that I lost my appetite.

Something Sustainable?

I recently watched J.K. Rowling's Harvard commencement address on youtube – a fabulous speech I highly recommend (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L445BmUEXH4). In the first part of her speech, she talks about failure and the role it played in her life and in developing her as a person.

It made me think a lot about failure in my own life. I think mostly I have been blessed with many successes, until now. Though my internship wasn't necessarily a complete failure, at times it did certainly feel that way, and it was certainly full of many small failures. Still, I think all of these frustrations have taught me more in the end than one big successful project would have.

I spent many, many hours sitting at my host desk in the hot office trying to pull a project (or myself) together. And in that time I learned a lot about myself – both strengths and weaknesses. For example, I learned I have a mammoth amount of patience (came in quite handy!). I learned I am resilient in the face of frustration, boredom, and defeat. I learned that if confronted with a task or project that I am in the least bit excited or passionate about, I have energy and self-initiative. When the task is not very exciting to me, I have to dig very deep to find the resolve to pull through. One of my main weaknesses that I had to eventually overcome was my repulsion of asking favors and being the slightest inconvenience to anyone. Since I could do nearly nothing on my own at KVK, this was at first a big problem. I'd like to think that now I am more or less over that hurdle.

In fact I have been able to overcome many of my personal flaws that at times set me back. Often crippled by over-politeness, I learned to openly speak my mind without feeling guilty for telling someone else his idea is not good. I quickly learned that Indians speak in a very blunt manner that often (unintentionally) comes across as rude to Americans. I learned that I must speak back in the same way if I wanted anyone to hear what I was saying.

I gained some good insight into the face of development in India. First and foremost, it is very privileged, and though many organizations boast a "bottom up" approach, I am not sure that is the reality of it.

In addition, the task of social change in a country like India is a daunting one. The population size is such that any efforts can barely make a dent, and it is marked by deeply-rooted traditions, beliefs, and social systems that will be in place for a long time to come. I also learned that as an outsider (by which I mean, not an Indian villager), development projects such as the ones done at KVK are incredibly difficult. There are incalculable, unforeseeable complications that arise from systems of caste, gender, religion, economic status, social hierarchy, and village customs.

I have been asked several times about the meaning of sustainability and how it can be achieved. The more I learn about sustainable development, the less answers I have. Sustainability is surely the biggest challenge in all this. I am nearly certain that my little project at KVK is not sustainable. I only hope that people who actually work in the development sector have more luck with it than I did.