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April 08
Right! Hello hello everyone, and greetings from sunny sunny Mayur Vihar. I've been pleasantly surprised to find that being uncommonly cheerful has the same effect as me being uncommonly angry - namely the desire to write a blog. It might have something to do with the fact that I can't really explain any of it to my friends here - in the same way as I'd look witheringly at anyone getting excited by black cabs in London, I get odd looks when I get excited but things that are just, well, life. Which should warn you all that this email is going to be mundane and booooring.
But there have been various exciting things. No. 1 on my list (and perhaps only understandable to four other people in the world)….. a momo man has set up shop! Today! In Mayur Vihar! Exactly opposite my house! Woo! I'm too excited in fact to even go and buy some momos - I fear I might make rather a fool of myself. But that's my evening sorted anyway, oh yeah. Oh momos, precious momos. I think it's a reward for spending obscene amounts of time and extortionate amounts of money trying to track them down with Liam on Sunday (ah the irony [strictly in the alanis (sp?) morrissette (sp?) way, of course])
Also, now the temperature's a-rising it seems like Mayur Vihar has finally come to life. There are people everywhere, there are swings and fairground rides (including the dodgiest and smallest big wheel in the world), everyone's out and about and smiling and ambling and avoiding momo man (which might be a bad sign, you never know….). And for some reason my walk to the shops has suddenly today turned into a Beauty-and-the-Beast "Good Morning Belle!" experience (minus the ravishing beauty of the heroine and any hint of a Garcon or whatever his name was, of course)…. Even the grouchy veg seller waved hello whilst trying to draw my attention to a surprisingly large radish (no, that's not a euphemism). Perhaps my existence in the colony is finally accepted (it only took 5 months), or perhaps it's just that everyone needs a bit of sun to cheer up.
Which leads me to my third good thing. I've just discovered that my house is the opposite of a sun-trap. A cool trap, maybe? At any rate, I might reasonably survive the summer because this place feels anywhere between 5 and 10o cooler than the outside world. I thought the temperature rise had stopped - but no, I just hadn't been outside during the day for a while. No, 'I'm melting' scenarios then, woop woop!
However, my muchly anticipated project management has been delayed (again!) by the govt deciding not to decide to release payment on time. Which is somewhat irritating as I was enjoying finally getting my teeth (not literally, it being a sanitation project that would be most unhygienic) into an actual project and not just reports, proposals, blah de blah. Although the unseasonal rains that have flooded most of tamil nadu make sanitation a slightly redundant issue. But on the other hand government inefficiency at least means that a project we were meant to start aaaages ago has only just got sanctioned, so Jess is again project in-charge. This time it's about evaluating the role, performance and impact of Joint Forest Management, but it's so depressing to see that tribal rights feature only as a postscript. I had some really interesting conversations with Liam about exactly this (he was working on a project for Forest Peoples' Action (I think??) in Chhattisgarh, where the IFC [a private bank part of the World Bank group] has, as is typical, kicked the forest tribes off their ancestral land without giving them any information despite apparently stringent measures against this in place in their own proposal). The concept of Joint Forest Management is that the govt departments and the tribal villagers jointly manage their forest to ensure sustainable and efficient maintenance of the forest environment and to maintain tribal control over their land-holdings, whilst any profits from forest enterprises are split 75 : 25%. Despite the fact that the JFM Committees are meant to be composed predominantly of and run by the local tribal populations, the govt literature focuses on the workings of the govt officials involved (who, incidentally, themselves choose the tribal members of the committees), and seems more bothered with assessing the effectiveness of the plantation schemes and soil bunding than the functioning of the JFMC programme. This brings up a central point - why even jointly? Why should the govt have the control over the people's land - the agro-forestry and environmental advice & support could easily be provided without demanding control and 75% of the profits of the tribal lands. But perhaps I'm getting a bit carried away - after all, our evaluation is sanctioned by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, not the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, and heaven forbid that any ministry should talk to another. The added difficulty is that kicking the forest peoples off their land would allow the building of a vast power plant to provide much need electricity to the whole of India - ah, utilitarianism essay from 2nd year all over again!
Nb. whilst I'm building up to rant mode, thought I'd post something I found my boss had written in a file entitled 'feb plans 08':
"To see justice done we must find meaningful ways of coupling the
generosity of the rich with the perceived needs of the meritorious poor"
I don't think anything I've read has made me quite so angry for a while (apart from the DFID report on just what percentage of old people below the poverty line have to pay a bribe to receive their meagre pension - namely, a lot) - but it at least confirms that I'm no conservative (with a small c, anyone else do the development of charitable theory before 1910 for AS history?). And here again, the Victorian sentiment of 'deserving poor' emerges. Somewhat akin to my idiot nemesis who threw out half the slum kids from the centre because they are bad and undeserving children. Now I know (Liam conversation again!) that we should be more aware of how dangerously 'western-centric' our demands for development on our terms is: human rights, corruption, etc etc are all meaningless if not contextualised. And I know that it's neo-colonialism of the highest order to try and enforce our culture's mores upon another in the name of development, but I'm afraid the tiger in me rises (or perhaps that should be bull-dog!! Or lion..) when I see a grown man grabbing a 12-year-old child by the neck for the crime of being 'undeserving poor' (i.e. poor, with behavioural problems & cheeky). Although the harshest telling off I've ever given nemesis (now he deserves no pronoun) - and that's saying something since I've screamed, shouted and called him a 'pathetic little s***' before - just elicited a "it's your fault the children are bad, you, you….. [fill in the blanks with 'western immoral w****']". Oh love that cultural exchange.
[I took advantage of the computer running out of battery to pop out and buy some momos…. Ahhhh! So good, so momo-y! Even without the original momo man. Momo man #2 is now my new best friend!]
Anyway, another thing I wanted to mention that struck me today as I was rickshawing my way through the slums behind my colony (ooh, another reason I'm quite so jolly today - first unaccompanied visit to the slums / resettlement colony, and this time I was relaxed enough to muse rather than spending the time escaping from the beggar kids and avoiding the hostile stares. And I returned alive and unscathed, to the obvious disappointment and despite the numerous warnings of nemesis. all a good sign….of something!), the thing I realised was that I'll never fit in here. It's a strange thought. It's not sad, it's not that I ever expected to 'fit in' and be completely at home & accepted (especially with my poor hindi - though good hindi will my new mission for the next 6 months), it's just that it had never struck me before that I will never be able to go anywhere and not be easily identifiable as an outsider, a foreigner. (sorry for the poor syntax and far too many negatives, hope you know what I mean). No matter how many years I'm here, no matter how well I speak Hindi or wear Indian clothing, in this India I'll always be an outsider, obviously so. Perhaps no-one has a clue what I'm on about, but it's the same feeling as generated by Liam's realisation the other day that he'll never be able to visit every country in the world. I guess limitation is just as hard to grasp as infinity
Oh god, just realised I'm sounding like carrie whatsherface, the most irritating female character ever invented. So I'll shut up. But wish me luck in trying to organise a summer camp for the 'undeserving' kids - since we and the govt have failed them in every other way - and I'll send you lots of happy sunny indjan thoughts.
All the best, your ever garrulous jess.xxxx
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