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We're not in Kansas anymore! |
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 Okay, so I’ve never been to Kansas, nor do I have any desire to go there. In fact, I’m in Ahmedabad, India for the next nine months. So “what is the point of referencing an old American classic like ‘The Wizard of Oz’?” you may ask. Patience, and I’ll get to the point.
Being a volunteer working at the Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram, I’ve built up a fairly substantial repertoire of answers to the barrage of questions I get asked daily. Generally questions such as, “Did Gandhi actually live here?”, “When did he live here?”, “Why did he live here?”, “Where are the toilets?”. However, recently I was posed with a question that stopped me in my intellectual tracks; a question that I had no rehearsed answer to, nor had I ever given it any real thought. Up till now that is. And that seemingly simple question was “Where did Gandhi get his courage from?”
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 “So Bhavana…what do you want to be when you grow up?”
I can’t tell you how many times I was asked that question as a child, and how much I loved it – for each time that I was asked, I had a different answer…an author, a doctor, a clown, a movie star, a plumber (yes, I actually wanted to be a plumber at one point.) It was only in college that I hated the question, because I hardly knew what I wanted to change my major to next, let alone what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. But children, they love imagining what amazing things the future holds for them; they’re unafraid, with no limitations, nothing to hold them back. The world is theirs, and they know it, and they are forever ready to claim it. And if they’re not…well then, in my view, we have a problem.
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By Aazamina Rangwala, January '07
"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." --Mahatma Gandhi
On the second day of orientation, I walked into one of the largest slums in Gujarat (Rampir Thekro) not knowing that I was going to walk away with one of the most humbling experiences of my life. There I met a widow, Nanda, who was probably in her early thirties. Just recently, her husband and son passed away from typhoid, a communicable disease that is one of the leading causes of death in India. She earns a living as a rag picker so she can support her five children. Rag pickers are generally from lower-caste or untouchable communities marginalized to urban slums, and make a living by sifting through trash found on the streets, separating it into paper, plastic, and other materials which is then sold to recycling barons (the "middle man") for cash. It is common for children of these communities to follow their parents into the trade at a very young age, as seen in Nanda's situation. Instead of going to school, Nanda's eldest daughter takes on the burden of contributing to her mother's earnings.
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By Aazamina Rangwala, January '07
“To
be nobody but yourself – in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to
make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human
being can fight; and never stop fighting.” - E.E. Cummings
For those of us with some hyphenation attached to our identity, whether it be Indian-American, Irish-American, Chinese-American or whatever – what does that really mean? Does it mean half-and-half? Does it mean balance? I have always felt short at both ends and as of late, it has been frightening to think about the possibility of the latter part of the hyphenation taking dominance.
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 By Prerna Srivastava '06
The calf walks briskly in front of us, tugging gently on the rope in my hands as if to prompt me to walk faster. Her pace quickens as we draw nearer to the water hole. She must be really thirsty.
"Isko choddo. Ye pani piyegi aur ghoomegi. Hum log is taraff chalte hai," says Sumitra, a spirited 19-year-old girl from a small, adivasi farming community named Kharia in Jhagadia, Gujarat. My eyes follow the direction she points in. She directs me to let the calf go on her own and leads my gaze elsewhere. Cotton fields seem to extend endlessly in the distance, crowned by skies of impeccable azure.
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What Comes Around, Goes Around |
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 By Ashish Gupta '06
Service can be hard. The initial hurdle of the new lifestyle, a shift from urban USA to rural India, passes soon enough. However, along with it passes the idealism of giving two years to serve India, the country of my roots. The struggle that does remain is finding the inner drive that keeps you going, the motivation which keeps you searching for ways to make this experience worthwhile for the people I chose to serve.
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 By Radhika Batra '06
It was an early March evening in Bagar and the dry heat of the summer had already creeped up on us. I hurriedly tied my shoes, filled up some water bottles and headed for the track. Running practice was about to begin and I had to be on time as Bagar’s first five kilometer race date was approaching in nearly two weeks and I wanted the participants to take preparation more seriously.
To my delight about fifteen kids showed on time: the regulars including, Dalip and Bhanu, as well as some new faces who had learned about the race from the speaking stints another fellow and I had made at various schools in order to publicize the first ever race in town.
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 By Kohl Gill '05
Parivartan is an organization in Delhi for whom I’ve been and will be volunteering for the next year. Typically, Parivartan focuses on using Delhi’s Right to Information Act to force government to follow its own regulations in the provision of infrastructure and services to a local slum community. The organization is rather small, with only about 6 full-time workers, and its impact has been rather local to the neighbourhood served. A year or so ago, Parivartan was approached with information that the water sector in Delhi would be undergoing some reforms, with questionable outcomes. Through the Right to Information Act, Parivartan uncovered some surprising and alarming facts about those proposed water reforms. The management of the water system was slated to be privatised, and due to the particular method of privatisation, the reforms would affect all Delhi citizens in a most detrimental way. To take action against the impending mismanagement of this fundamental resource, a city-wide campaign was convened: the Right to Water Campaign (RWC). While I’ve been helping Parivartan, most of my energies have been invested in this campaign.
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 By Deepa Ganachari '04
I have been doing fieldwork for the past 11 months. Traveling back and forth to a small village called Bhimashankar, situated in the midst of many hills, a few times each week. Bhimashankar is the site of the famous Bhimashankar temple, built on the site of a naturally occurring Shivaling, the symbol of Lord Shiva. It is the site of one of only twelve such Shivalings in India, and therefore is a major attraction of the region. People travel from far away to visit the temple. Despite this, Bhimashankar remains a small village. Its barely 500 inhabitants live in a mixture of mud and stone structures that are illegally constructed around the temple. Many have migrated from even smaller and more remote villages in the surrounding hills. Most families own small stalls that sell prasaad, food or knick-knacks. Most stalls are operated by the adolescent girls in the family.
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 By Kavitha Kailasam '05
Pens, or my lack thereof, have become the bane of my existence. All the staff here are always scrambling for pens, asserting that someone has stolen theirs, or otherwise safely guarding the one in their pocket or their bag. I have even picked up some pen-securing techniques since being here: when someone asks to borrow your pen, if you remove the cap for them and hold on to it, you are more likely to get your pen back!!
The thing is, without your pen, you can get nothing done! You can’t
write reports or sign reimbursement forms or write down that
inspirational idea that just came to you. I feel limited here by the
unreliable availability of resources. Indian ingenuity and innovation
are often touted as the greatest resources in this country. How great
these Indians are at making do with the materials at hand! But there
are only so many ways and things for which you can be innovative using
the materials at hand. If you don’t have a pen, you simply don’t have
a pen.
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A cool wind swept through the community center that Sunday morning. Ahmedabad’s winter finally arrived, ushering in cozy sweaters, bright kites in the pale blue sky, and rare patches of warm sun. While I finished hand-washing my colossal load of laundry, fingers and feet numb, I could only wonder, “Will they come?”
