My new Yoga teacher speaks no English. He’s young, and comes from a small town in the North. He’s moved to Mumbai to make a living. And still, he communicates via SMS so well, and has evolved his own form of English. I asked him how come he doesn’t text in Hindi, he says its an image thing – he prefers to send his clients English messages.  And he said he’s learning English this way too. Imagine the potential for so many who can’t speak but are using Texting and SMS to learn and communicate in the language!

I had a lot of fun today at TEDxMumbai. Was great to catch up with old friends, and made some new ones. The speakers were quite interesting and moving especially when they were ‘presenting’ through the narrative of story; some of them really worthy of being on any main TED stage. I tweeted that I really felt more engaged and stimulated by many of these talks than I did at TED India, perhaps because they were targeted at a more culturally homogenous (and yet quite diverse) audience.

Some of my favourite quotes of the day:

Rahul and Mattias from URBZ on Koliwada: “Matias talks about how when friends from Europe visit this so-called slum, they love it, and feel that it is an urban village—“like Florence!” Koliwada, Rahul explains, “is anachronistic to the idea of Mumbai as an urban space. [...] The word slum is too generic.” Then they move on to Dharavi. “Land in Dharavi is used in a very special way,” says Rahul. “Many people who don’t have resources, when they find a spot of land, they use it in complex ways.” He shows a slide with a typical toolhouse, with separate images depicting its component functions: “for sleeping, living, working, storing,” This messy structure of Dharavi, he says,”has an internal logic to it. Rural areas prior to the industrial revolution were sites of production.” [full quote from Amit's blog]

Also from the duo – “the home itself becomes source of wealth. It is common in Indian villages” – they’re referring to tiny urban spaces in slums like Dharavi which breed much entrepreneurship. Anyone who’s ever walked into Dharavi will be hit by how these tiny spaces are converted into economic hubs. This post and image above, from Stuart’s  blog captures it so well!

“We condition a child to be a man or a woman. Children who don’t like it are treated like they’re not normal” . ”People used to accept my art but not me. It changed when I worked on tv films” and ”give ownership to the community & they’ll show they can do it. We proved we were employable thru education” Lakshmi Narayan Tripathi who’s fighting for transgender rights through her organization Astitva. She also says “the Right to Education bill has come to India. But I don’t think our community will get the benefit of it” and “My guru Shabina is doing a PhD in Tata Institute of Social Sciences. She’s probably the first one of our community in India to get a doctorate”

Ganesh Devy – “The peculiar history of language is not from the tower of Babel, but experience, culture, civilization, climate” ”Multilingual cacophony. In india 96% speak 4% of languages & 4% speak 96% of languages. At the time of independence, the figure was 46% and not 4%. India is becoming a graveyard of languages” On why languages die ... “a language doesn’t die – it is killed. …. one reason is conquest. the command of language became the language of command”

And importantly, “Every language is a world view. Let diversity live, only then will democracy survive in a country like India”

Zubin Pastakia of The Cinemas Project: “The problem of nostalgia is that it debilitates you, and limits your way of thinking. I like exploring these cinema halls as cultural experiences of space”

I also loved Dhanashree Pundit Rai’s talk where she used her fantastic vocals to demonstrate that the language of music is a common one, across geographic and cultural boundaries (eastern and western traditions) and across ages (urging youngsters to appreciate the traditional roots in all music today). She live-demoed many forms of ornamentation as well, in Indian Classical Music and made the distinction between Indian musical traditions which relied more on melodies and western classical idioms that relied on harmony. “If the seven notes are common all over the world, then why is that something sounds Japanese, Indian, Western?” “Indian music is a very deep melodic system. Jazz and Pop can improvise a lot on it” Difficult to capture her talk in words – do look for the video on Youtube soon!!

V Raghunathan, who’s written the book Games Indians Play, and describes how Indians are “privately smart, publicly dumb” among other things!

More:

• My livetweets stream.  My twitpic stream (the only cam i had was on the iphone – so apologies for lack of clarity and no zoom!)
• Amit’s live blogging which was just fabulous and a lesson in live-blogging an event!
• Update: just noticed some great liveblogging by Navin Kabra here.
• Tedxmumbai live tweetstream

The food was great, venue cool, very good with a few exceptions, the event efficiently run, and the company just super! A wonderful way to spend a Saturday. Thank you Netra, Ankesh, Ajay, Parmesh, Priyanka, Yashesh, their teams, and the sponsors of the event Cleartrip and the venue Bluefrog.

Lakshmi’s talk was moving and reminded me of Sunitha Krishnan’s talk at TEDIndia which was extremely evocative. Both are on the “fringe” and both are fighting slavery and discrimination. Left me feeling as I had after Sunita’s talk –  that all of us must take responsibility for having relegated them and their communities to the fringes. And must open our own homes and offices to them. The government will then be forced to take notice. Brave words – but are we really ready for this, as a society? I was absolutely horrified to hear that last night, at the TEDxMumbai dinner at the Bombay Gymkhana, a premier club in South Mumbai, Lakshmi was asked to leave as her presence was felt inappropriate by some club members CEO of the club  (correction – based on this report on the front page of The Mumbai Mirror today). The whole tedxmumbai team and their other guests walked out too. This is inhuman and reminds me of the old British signboard – Dogs and Indians not allowed. Shame on you, management and staff of the Bombay Gymkhana for allowing this to happen.

Hehe. From Gogola ice creams to Googlle Institute of Software Studies, where you can even get a special Googlle certification!

I wonder if Googlle Institute came before or after the real Google’s 11th anniversary celebratory logo on 27 November, 2009??

Leon Benjamin argues that command and control organisation is actually killing people, in a post titled “How public companies are killing their own employees”.

“I was working in Bangalore with Tesco a few years ago. I remember having conversations with successful upwardly mobile young Indian technologists about new houses, cars, holidays.  I pointed out that what comes with all this prosperity is the slew of western ailments associated with the export of capitalism’s model of organisation – diabetes, stress, obesity, jealously, distrust, rapacious greed and so on. They just laughed at me. This was published last week:

India outsourcing workers stressed to the limit. From obesity to sleep disorders – a healthcare crisis in the making?”

I’m not surprised they laughed at you, Leon!

In many parts of India, we’re still early on in the ‘capitalism-consumption’ curve  and are at the stage where we’re enjoying the early fruits of capitalism.  From a position of having/owning little, to this desire for more more more, and more.

Perhaps this can be situated in different aspects of our emerging culture of consumption – people have the desire to own items that are badges of success and they find easy availability (many more highly compelling ‘consumer’ touch-points), and easy access (thru credit for instance) to them. It’s difficult for us to think of the possible long-term negative fall-outs as we’re still enjoying the move from not having to having.

I found this really interesting series of relevant posts called “Consumerism in India – a Faustian Bargain” by Professor Z penned in 2006 at his blog, The Curious Stall!!!  I quote here from the Epilogue to the series – it’s a fair warning to us!

An article (login may be required) in today’s New York Times provides the perfect epilogue to the now-concluded five-part series “Consumerism in India: A Faustian Bargain?” (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) In the series, I focused more on the psychological and social consequences of life in a consumer society. I also touched on the impacts on the lives of people implicated in the global chain of production and consumption. What I did not mention were diseases of affluence. Adult onset diabetes, now more widely known as Type 2 diabetes, is a perfect example:

In its hushed but unrelenting manner, Type 2 diabetes is engulfing India, swallowing up the legs and jewels of those comfortable enough to put on weight in a country better known for famine. Here, juxtaposed alongside the stick-thin poverty, the malaria and the AIDS, the number of diabetics now totals around 35 million, and counting.

The future looks only more ominous as India hurtles into the present, modernizing and urbanizing at blinding speed. Even more of its 1.1 billion people seem destined to become heavier and more vulnerable to Type 2 diabetes, a disease of high blood sugar brought on by obesity, inactivity and genes, often culminating in blindness, amputations and heart failure. In 20 years, projections are that there may be a staggering 75 million Indian diabetics.

I took this picture of Dhanaji Dongre, the farmer we visited during our Nokia Life Tools immersions, on my test N97 (which has a pretty cool camera but a lousy touch-screen esp. when compared to the iPhone). He is taking a picture of the crew on his own little camera phone, who in turn, are taking pictures and videos of him using really hi-tech cameras!! We had professional “filming” on by the Lonely Planet crew during our visits – to the right are Jere Hietala an immensely talented young Finnish photographer, and Brad from Australia, who was directing the film being made. Still, it must be remembered that photography is really a relatively new behaviour in India, encouraged by easy access to cameras on mobile phones!

An interesting juxtaposition of low tech (note the manual plough worked by bullocks too) and hi-tech in several ways – almost as if several eras coexist side-by-side.

Alan gets this super shot:

And it happens again during our Nokia Tej visit to Kolhapur  which I will be writing up shortly – we’re meeting the sales Agent at a small tea shop in the crowded market, and other customers decide we’re interesting enough to capture on their phone cameras!

Another example of this co-existence that struck me on my trip. In the picture below, on the right, you will see traditional accountants sitting on the floor, doing their manual accounting under the blessings of the Gods. It’s a huge open room, and to the left are desks with computers and the manager’s cabin which is equipped with the latest gadgets. This is an old tradition of accounting, and the owner of Arvind Textiles in Icchalkaranji, Kolhapur told Frances Linzee Gordon and me that although most of his systems are now computerized, he would never let go of these employees who have been a part of the family business for many decades, and are like family members. The practice of manual accounting, according to him, will perish only when these people are no more!

Hehe – saw this in Bandra today. I like the detailing – the search bar says “Golas made from mineral water ice”; the address bar “httt://www.gogola.in/”. Even the status bar at the bottom isn’t spared! Golas are India’s answer to ice slush, very colourful, tangy or sickly sweet and just delightful especially in the heat.

The verdict is out. An article at Business Standard (link shared with me by @aparnaray who writes Newsmericks and who encouraged me to blog my thoughts) called Impassive Indians reveals findings from a study conducted by IMRB International on the impact of the political campaigns on youth in India. What’s evident from this study is that the messaging of the online campaigns from political parties did not reach nor resonate with voters.

How much influence did the social and political awareness campaigns have on young urban voters?  Not much, says a recent IMRB International survey. Carried out between May 1 and May 5, it sought to gauge the impact of the recent social and political campaigns on individuals aged 18 to 29 in socio-economic categories A and B from four metros — Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Kolkata.

Low recall
The revelations are startling. Only 18 per cent respondents could spontaneously recall the Jaago Re campaign and 6 per cent recalled Lead India. The celebrity-ridden Kuchh Nahin Ho Sakta (Nothing can happen) campaign, which starred leading Bollywood actors like Abhishek Bachchan and Priyanka Chopra, had a low recall of just two per cent.

and a more culture-specific analysis on ‘consumption’ of advertising:

More than the social awareness campaigns, it was the advertisement campaigns launched by political parties like the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party which had better recall amongst the youth, according to the survey. While 67 per cent recalled the Congress campaign, 53 per cent recognised BJP’s campaign. More respondents remember Congress and BJP advertisements on traditional media (98 per cent for Congress and 94 per cent for BJP) than on other forms like hoardings, direct mailers, radio and the Internet. The message for media planners of the political parties is clear.

Few were aware that political parties have a web presence and fewer visited these sites, the survey reported. Only about a third of the respondents knew that the Congress and BJP have their own websites. About a tenth and fourth visited the Congress and BJP websites, respectively. Worse, only about one per cent visited websites dedicated to political heavyweights like Lal Krishna Advani, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh.

Clearly, political parties, despite having made augmented efforts this time to reach young voters through the Internet, did not generate much response. “Personally, I would see them (websites) as campaigns built to promote a party or an individual to power. There was no call to action,” Potharaju says.

Joshi, however, attributes it to the way Indians take to information, “As a culture, we don’t have the tendency to look for information through the written word. Ours is a culture that follows the oral tradition. We want the moti baat (the essence), which is why TV ads draw much better response than websites.” However, if (Barack) Obama would have been quoted as saying that he liked Advani’s blog, everyone in our cities would have read Advani’s blog, Joshi quips.

Reiteration that political campaigns online were ineffective for the most part, as they did not have the right messaging, idiom and call-to-action. Some, like the BJP’s campaign, were were visible, even in-your-face, but they failed to resonate with voters. This indicates problems with both, their tactics & message, as many in the Indian blogosphere and Twitterville have expressed.

Rahul Jauhari, in his well-written post Zero for Advani 2.0 analyzes this:

Coming to the point, the BJP was all over the web this time.
Zillions of banners across the www.
The new web savvy face of the party.
A clear attempt to connect with the youth of the country.

It didn’t work.

There are plenty of post mortems floating around by now.
I have 3 cents to add to the same.

1. Just because you are present on a younger forum doesn’t mean you will be seen as young. I mean I just can’t see respected Shri Advaniji as the face of new India. Sorry.
2. You don’t barge into social media and expect to be welcomed. You need to make yourself part of someone’s social world first. And then ask for favors.
3. Before you put the bucks behind the message, put some thought behind the message itself.

I guess you can’t just do an Obama and expect a landslide victory when you don’t have a credible, powerful clarion call as Obama had in the first place.

I also believe you don’t advertise on Social Networking sites.
Social Networking sites are like people’s homes.
Nobody wants an ad in his/her private space.

Mahesh Murthy of Pinstorm adds his perspective on why the BJP campaign was neither relevant, nor persuasive (classic measures of evaluating campaigns that we tend to forget about in thie Social Media world):

An online group is a platform to gather people, but that is not enough. People have to be commandeered on the platform to do something concrete to generate value, says Mahesh Murthy, founder of Pinstorm, a digital advertising firm. “The Indian political party online groups seem to have gathered people but are not directing them to action except in stray cases such as Meera Sanyal in South Mumbai. I would largely discount the BJP and Congress online groups for now as mostly valueless.”

Whether or not a campaign fulfilled the objectives it set out to accomplish is a measure of its efficacy, says Mr. Murthy. This can be measured with metrics such as engagement (amount of time and depth of user’s involvement in the message), brand impact (visibility of the message to target user), clicks, sign-ups, ‘viralness’ (how much users spread the message) and persuasion scores (measuring how persuasive the message is), he adds.

“In the specific case, say, of the BJP’s campaign, it seems to have several objectives,” says Mr. Murthy. He outlines three of those — to negate the impact on youth of Narendra Modi and project L.K. Advani as the sole BJP leader; to project the 81-year-old Mr. Advani as a relevant leader to an audience of urban 18 to 35-year-olds; and to project the BJP as the ideological choice at the polls.

He adds that the campaign has done really well on the first two but failed in the third objective. “The campaign merely projects a leader and doesn’t tackle the issues the audience cares about — from Babri to Ram Sene and more.” In advertising terms the campaign has established high reach and frequency levels and is very visible online – but it probably has done very little in the persuasion scores,” he says, adding that it had succeeded in neutralising Modi’s appeal among a section of the public and projected just one leader of the BJP.

Merely transposing years and years of traditional advertising experience onto the web does not work. Like Rahul, I was absolutely appalled to have Advani’s smiling face cluttering up my blog was a huge no-no.  Shubham at Strat.In says Political parties should continue online campaigns, and makes suggestions for the road ahead for political parties considering online political campaigns:

Why did the campaign fail? I believe that although the campaigns were successful in catching people’s attention once, but they did not convey any message to the public. If we look at the advertisement which was displayed  almost through the campaigns by BJP and Congress we see their leaders covering the screen with their political campaign statement covering the rest. What was missing was the issues they wanted people to read and discuss. People on the net are not looking for just advertisements but they want more. They already know about both the political parties but they need more information for reasons to vote for them, and this information was not passed on to them. The campaign medium was correct but the strategy was wrong.

The Road Ahead: Since the elections are now over I don’t see any advertisements from any political parties. Their online activity has also slowed down considerably. Political parties need to maintain their online campaigns (in a subdued form) for the next 5 years. Interaction of leaders through online medium, informing citizens about issues (like black money, reservations, government projects & policies), getting citizens feedback through online polls and comments, forming an active online support group, and many more activites are possible. In the next elections online campaign just might become more important. Political parties should not let the spending they have done on their online campaigns go waste, they have already built a brand and now they need to maintain it and increase the interaction.

When the common man will feel empowered by a political party, when he will feel a political party is listening to him through the net then they will definitely support them.

So, did they work – perhaps not. Can they work – absolutely.

The interest of some political parties in building online campaigns is a great sign. This too is a good sign with the Friends of the BJP asking openly at their blog what should we do, right after the defeat of the BJP/NDA.  My suggestion to them would be focus on meaningful outreach where you bring in more into the fold, rather than holding conversations with the committed! Talk with, rather than talk to people in their own spaces.

Overall, I do believe that political parties and their social media ‘experts’ need to have a much better understanding of the conversational and social nature of the medium (it’s not called Social Media for nothing!!).  While there are issues with the messaging, there are also issues with the tactics of the campaigns. Using classical push-advertising, one-t0-many tactics on the web will not work. Conversations matter, as value flows in webs. There are new emergent ways to assessing social media campaigns that include both quantitative and qualitative measures of engagement, participation, influence, stickiness, imagination and energy.

Last thought – does anyone know how effective the mobile phone and SMS campaigns have been?

Why? It’s an interesting question. One raised by Harini Calamur through a tweet on Twitter -”#indiavotes09 – 26/11 obviously did not impact the elections in Mumbai. Congress clean sweep!”

My hypotheses on why that happened:

• Perhaps because I feel that the people of Mumbai do not want more fear and hatred and negativity being imposed on us by our politicians. I was so proud of my city and relieved that the terrible event did not spark of the usual Hindu-Muslim riots!  The alternative to the ruling party would have been the right-wing alliance between Shiv Sena and BJP, which would have really played up the Hindutva card. The city said NO.
  
• Perhaps because Mumbai doesn’t believe any politician or party could have really avoided it?
  
• Perhaps because Mumbai voted for a government for stability and progress rather than for the politics of governance? We want a stable government that can last 5 years rather than an adhoc assembly of parties with mixed philosophies that we do not believe would either last long enough or have the clear mandate to take hard decisions.
  
• Perhaps because, as Harini says in another Tweet – my life is better than it was 5 years ago?

What do you feel?

Update: Ajit in the comments mentioned the MNS factor – that they split the votes meant for the ShivSena/BJP combine.  Have seen the numbers now, and that’s actually very true (although I dissed that thought in the comments before seeing the actual numbers – my bad).  So yes, that’s a huge factor too – however I still stand by the other hypotheses too – particularly the one about wanting a stable and progressive government that will not operate out of fear or hatred but embrace diversity.

Harini in the comments, suggests that the BJP campaign had no clear communication plank and that Mumbai is driven by economics and not security.

KK and Sandeep too feel that security (or the perceived lack thereof) was not an issue with voters.

VijayKarthik reiterates the need for a stable government.

The lazy blogger in me taking the short-cut and pasting my tweets on the election results here. I am thrilled at the UPA victory and more, about the nature of the mandate from the people, for several reasons that I will try and summarize here:

1. Indian voters are smarter than we think – they seem to have really voted in good governance and progress rather than good politicians. State assemblies which have done well in terms of progress have been successfully voted back – AP, TN, Orissa, Rajasthan, even Maharashtra and Gujarat — here, Governments have been voted back despite the politics

2. To quote @robinjabraham off twitter: “Manmohan Singh has never been a politician…he’s always been a doer and that’s all I care about”. This resonates totally. I’m so glad that the people of India have recognized the difference between politics and governance, and have voted in the latter.

3. This is proved by the fact that many state governments that have performed really well, despite their politics, have been rewarded, like AP, TN, Orissa, Rajasthan, even Maharashtra and Gujarat.

4. Of course, I cannot be happier about the fact that we will not have the BJP and it’s allies ruling us – they operate out of a culture of fear, negativity and cynicism that was evident in their personal attacks on the PM.

5. All that noise about regional parties ‘taking over’ the national elections has proven to be just that – noise.  The two national parties have the votes for the most part. Having said that, it will be interesting to see how each state votes in State Assembly elections! Moreover, am glad as a citizen that there will be no horsetrading now!!!

6. I think we’re seeing the emergence of a very smart, astute, patient and gutsy Rahul Gandhi in this election. I wonder whether it’s going to make BJP go back to a more hard-line Hindutva stance with Narendra Modi as the key anchor to take on Rahul!

7. I’d love to see the split up of votes for the online population – would be good to study the effectiveness of the online campaigns from different parties. The BJP had a lot of presence – however I do believe they were ‘pushing’ their case through advertising, rather than holding conversations that really mattered. Participatory democracy and transparency in governance and policies are still a long way off.

Image below is a screenshot of a Map that is being updated live at NDTV.com (liked their coverage today lots on TV). Go Blue

My Twitter timeline on #IndiaVotes09 (most recent first):

1. this mandate seems to be for good governance – stability & progress & optimism as opposed to fear. governance not politicians. #indiavotes095 minutes ago from twhirl

2. NDTV: best performance for a national party since 1991. what was all that abt the take-over of regional parties in national politics? #i …16 minutes ago from twhirl

3. congress fighting UP/Bihar on it’s own was a great decision. Rahul Gandhi is emerging as a smart, gutsy & patient man. #indiavotes0919 minutes ago from twhirl

4. @patrix i voted for his governance. not his politics. he could contest and win but that doesn’t make a difference to meabout 1 hour ago from twhirl in reply to patrix

5. @patrix you know it doesn’t really matter. he is a leader of a different kind. i respect and believe that he is good for the countryabout 1 hour ago from twhirl in reply to patrix

6. this is an affirmation! my vote counts. it was for Dr. Manmohan Singh #indiavotes09about 2 hours ago from twhirl

7. Go Blue!! Neat map from NDTV #indiavotes09 http://www.ndtv.com/electio…about 2 hours ago from twhirl

8. omg – sorry Rahul Gandhi not Rajiv Gandhi – thanks for pointing that out @ravibhushan about 2 hours ago from twhirl in reply to ravibhushan

9. this is the rise of Rajiv Rahul Gandhi. chidambaram, mani shankar aiyer trailing.regional parties trailing. v smart electorate. #indiaelections09about 3 hours ago from twhirl

10. RT @Asfaq : @keithdsouza UPA FTW!!!! #indiavotes09about 3 hours ago from twhirl

11. @thecomicproject i meant to say – I have respect for him – that sounded like an order !!!! about 3 hours ago from twhirl in reply to thecomicproject

12. @thecomicproject hv respect for Prannoy Roy, NDTV. he’s an elections veteran along w Dorab Sopariwala. & not given to hasty judgement.about 3 hours ago from twhirl in reply to thecomicproject

13. impressed with NDTV presentation of election results using touchscreen. just wish they’d get out of satellite image mode. #indiavotes09about 3 hours ago from twhirl

14. damn Raj Thackeray’s MNS leading in South Bombay. But Shiv Sena seems to be losing many so that’s good. Hinudtva FAIL #indiavotes09about 3 hours ago from twhirl

15. @shashib more sources for India election results http://is.gd/AiKj which i think is the official EC site and check the Hindu. #indiavotes09about 4 hours ago from twhirl

16. @shashib check live feeds on ndtv.com or ibnlive.in.com. the twitter hashtag #indiavotes09 probably the quickest.about 4 hours ago from twhirl in reply to shashib

17. acc.to Prannoy Roy on NDTV – no other country counts its votes as fast as India. Is this true? #indiavotes09. leads rolling in quickly!

I did. Got to the Municipal School at Khar Danda at 2.45 pm (my registration is still at my Carter Road address) and it was complete chaos. All we had with us was a little chit (printed with my name and address handwritten on it) which had my serial number on it – 793, but no details on which classroom to go and cast my vote. I asked a couple of cops and officers (couldn’t really tell who was and wasn’t clearly) and they directed me to room no. 93.  I was thrilled as the queue there was really short. Tweeted it too!

And then, after getting into the classroom to vote, I was told I need to go downstairs and get the classroom number again because my name was not on this list. The officers who had directed me to room 93 must have decided to ignore the 7 on the number 793 (my voter number) and sent me to the wrong room!  So I went to the main courtyard downstairs and stood in another queue which took me an hour to clear, where the officer was actually wading through manual lists and locating our rooms for us – so for eg. he had lists by classrooms – he was checking no. 793 (my voter number) in each of the manuals until he found the correct room for me. Having done that, he issued me another little chit with my name, age 53 years!!!! and the classroom number 87 all handwritten.

I go and stand in queue no. 87 which was really long – it was about 4 pm by then and we got inside the classroom only to be told once again, we were in the wrong one as our names weren’t on the list. I was really really pissed off. The officer in that classroom said he ‘thought’ we should be in room no. 88 but wasn’t sure – so back again downstairs to check.  I knew the polling ends at 5 pm and had almost given up, as it was 4.45 by then. Luckily, 88 it was, and there was no queue.

Tough huh.  I’m hoping in time, this entire process is eased.  I’m educated and have access to sites like Jaago Re and I still had all these problems. There were so many others there who had been at the booth for over 2 hours and still trying to figure out where to go to vote. Moreover, all data on voters is now available electronically to the government – why can’t they make it simple for us to exercise our ballot online?

I was amazed to see the number of elderly people at the booth. Didn’t see as many youth as I had expected though.  One young guy – a first time voter was standing behind me in the queue and we got talking. He was really thrilled that he was voting. I asked him what motivated him, and he said that he is eligible and had received his election card so he was here. His friends he said had not received their cards and were disappointed that they could not vote. He thought he was in a separate line for first-time voters and was excited to use the electronic voting machine and had tons of questions about how to go about it. Then he asked – who should I vote for – and it was funny how a lot of people there pounced on him and said “we aren’t supposed to tell!”

There was this elderly fisherwoman in the line too who caught my attention for a different reason. Right outside each classroom was a chart with the names of candidates, their political parties and their visual symbol. She was intrigued by the symbols there – she picked on the banana of a certain independent candidate and started giggling and said she would vote for the ‘kela’.  Then when she saw the ceiling fan against another independent candidate’s name, she said she changed her mind – it was hot at the booth you see. She had all of us laughing!

Last thoughts … it’s weird this time they got our middle fingers marked. Here’s mine, and since yesterday it has this strange disposition .

A potential tool for protest if the government does not shape up – best explained by Nita here.

And next time, if they don’t revert to the neat black dot at the base of your nail, I will apply nail polish before I go voting – my nail is so badly stained!

Responding to a query at the Anthrodesign group, I collated this list of projects/resources on slums in Bangalore. Does anyone know of any other projects or research being done in this area? Do let me know. Thanks!

- Book: Living in India’s Slums : A Case Study of Bangalore/edited by Hans Schenk. Delhi, Manohar, 2001, 311 p., ISBN 81-7304-270-5.

- News articles about slums in Bangalore

- Janaagraha – an organization of citizen volunteers working for change – they’re doing some interesting research

- dynamics of participation in Bangalore slums

- water project http://www.adb.org/Water/Actions/ind/bangalore-slums.asp

- Slum Jagatthu – a monthly magazine being published out of the slums in Bangalore

I’m getting a huge load of comments around the politics of religion, of division and hate at my last few posts on the Mumbai terror attacks. While religion and politics may have a lot to do with the state of our world today, my blog’s not the forum to air or feed these divisions. I almost feel it’s a violation of my own person.

So I am deleting them. Sorry. All other comments and conversations are welcome, as always!

The #Mumbai Twitter feed is now flooded with them too. I’m stopping watching it. I’m certainly not playing.

For all those who feel they have lots to say – I’d recommend they do something more constructive. Start by reading Ingrid Srinath’s post titled This is not India’s 9/11 [thanks Peter, for the link] and Priyanka Joshi’s comments there.

Picture source – The Big Picture. More amazing pictures on the site, many are visceral and disturbing.  Description of this image: “Schoolchildren hold candles during a vigil held in memory of the victims of Wednesday’s shootings in Mumbai, in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad November 27, 2008. Elite Indian commandos fought room to room battles with Islamist militants inside two luxury hotels to save scores of people trapped or taken hostage, as the country’s prime minister blamed neighbouring countries. (REUTERS/Amit Dave]”.

Thank you to our armed forces, police force, firefighters. Many have lost their lives in the last 50 hours protecting us during and after the terror attacks. Many are still fighting for us, even as I write this post.

We can show our gratitude and respect for all they’ve done since the night of 26th November.

It’s festival time here and I am baulking at how much people spend on celebrations, rituals and the accompanying firecrackers that are driving me crazy. It makes me so furious sometimes that people who have to work so hard and live a hand-to-mouth existence, just blow up their money like this.

Then I remembered this incident a couple of years ago – I remember really shouting at this lady who helps clean my house (yes we do have help to clean and cook here in India), who wanted to borrow money to conduct a series of religious rituals in her hut during one of the festivals and call all the neighbours etc.  I began explaining all the logical reasons for using the money in more ‘productive’ ways. I tried explaining to her the difference between religiousity and religious rituals – and although I am not a believer, I do respect her right to believe, but not throw away money on wasteful (in my perception) rituals.  She wouldn’t listen and I was losing my temper with her and was at the point of refusing to give her the money.

Then she just broke down and said to me simply:

“Didi (big sister) – all I have is my faith, it keeps me alive – don’t take that away from me”

I was am so humbled. This is soul stuff!