Ananthoo's updates

When all trees have been cut down, when all animals have been hunted, when all waters are polluted, when all air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money. - Cree Prophecy

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Indian Quagmire

Swamped with problems we say right..i see that literally these days..
It wud start of like a small simple benign errand/job and then wud complicate at each and every step and blow on ur face..No. am not exaggerating..
Lets take this recent example!
I hit up on a prof from MIT who is also the NSS coordinator there..as we were talking about their camps, program etc am a bit more interested in their next camp..then I probe a bit more and try pushing them to have their camp in my neighbourhood (nanmangalam) village.
Ok, I was a bit selfish here..bcos it wud render my neighbourhood a bit tidy and help planting of more trees and cleaning up of the large lake in our area. (NSS camps achieve more than u can get with just the residents involved). I can also pitch in more areas if its close by. These camps are for 10 days normally. These days such camps are compulsory for the students else they cant appear in the third year exams, am told. Now I need to arrange for acco for these kids (boys n girls). So here it starts.
I talk to the panchayat president of that village. While he is glad to have the students (read free service) he says pl try and accommodate them somehow and definitely carry this out. He doesn’t come out with solution. (actually he can get acco thru school or other building under the panchayat)
So now I run to the govt school of nanamangalam. Iam lucky they have a building. (am told that building was constructed last year after years of persuasion). I speak to the HM and she throws a bomb. ‘ we wud be glad to house kids esp NSS ones, but there is no water in this building. I ask ‘whattttttt? in a school where there are 1000 kids, u don’t have water?’..she says we have requested connection and 3 times we got installed the water pipe line, the very night the tap, underground pipe all are looted by some one. So we never did that any more. We have one connection hidden at the end and so get water from there for all emergencies. So now I have an appointment with the authorities to arrange for water and sanitary facilities for the school – BDO, panchayat, police and so will run there.
Dunno what awaits me there..
And each time this is what I see..each task has 3 new surprises and problems and many a times I lose sight of the task I started off with.

Note: But how do I run still? Its not so gloomy always. People like Nirmal infuse enof optimism many times. Ofcourse there are nice things and people that happen too that keeps me going. For eg here at nanmangalam I was directed to Satya Sai old age home. It’s a neat small old age home run purely out of donation. As I talk to them about housing the MIT kids they are more than glad and then ask me if I could source them some compost fertilizer at a discounted price and when I said I can but wud like them to make their own compost out of their domestic waste, they were more than willing. Such additional tasks are never a burden, u see. Also one thing striking these days is, its NGOs that really perform and give us glimmer of hopes. Governments smack of bad governance, sadly.

Labels: ,

2 Comments:

  • At June 18, 2008 8:23 AM, Blogger Preethi said…

    You are doing a wonderful job.. in India road blocks appear around every corner, and its really amazing how when met with them, you are trying to help them too.. Hats off!

     
  • At June 19, 2008 9:11 AM, Blogger Ananthoo said…

    thx preethi, its embarrassing tho..i wrote that to vent my feelings especially on the state of the govt school..also bcos it will some of the readers here who will be sponsoring the wall/toilet if no govt body (re)acts..

     

Post a Comment

<< Home