Category Archives: Home
Indian Women Don’t Pee
On any trip through any part of Bangalore, one catches a glimpse of a man relieving himself. It’s normal to have several such sightings. These sightings of this ‘natural’ behaviour are the inspiration for the cartoon printed in ToI, shown on the right. In fact, that is true in all cities in India (except Mumbai [...]
Also posted in Rajesh essays, Water Issues Tagged dignity, pee, privacy, sanitary, sanitation, urinating, urine, women 7 Comments
A Volunteer’s Adventures Part Three: A Day in the Life
In addition to learning thousands of things about water and sanitation, I am also having the greatest time learning about Indian office life and sipping chai about six times a day! I usually wake up around seven to the lovely sound of water buffalo and goats cruising along on the road outside my window. I [...]
Also posted in Peer Water Exchange (PWX) Leave a comment
A Volunteer’s Adventures Part Two: Hydrogeology and Golpapur
Not only is the campus absolutely gorgeous, but all of the staff and volunteers I’ve met working for and with Gram Vikas are incredible as well! In addition to the 500 or so employees of Gram Vikas, various contacts from all kinds of organizations come through Mohuda all the time. For a traveler exploring the [...]
Also posted in Peer Water Exchange (PWX) Leave a comment
Adventures in Volunteering
Experiencing reality in the field of water - jumping off from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado to land in rural Orissa on the Gram Vikas campus.
Also posted in Peer Water Exchange (PWX) Leave a comment
In Praise Of Inefficiency And (Dis)Organization
This essay is about my personality and process, written in 2002. It might explain how the idea of PWX came about, as it was in the period when BPR closed down without having a solution to the challenge of scale after a frenzy of activity including opening an office. I was lucky to not have [...]
Also posted in Rajesh essays Tagged disorganization, efficiency, inefficiency, organization Leave a comment
Airing Clean Laundry
While laundry is about water (see other article on Household Water Usage), this essay is about status symbols. Starting by looking at the energy used in drying our clean clothes, i end with the challenge of creating status symbols appropriate for our situation today. Today, in India brands abound and the rich are using more [...]
Terrorism: The Only Alternative?
A challenge to my classmates in ’97: Can we create a society that manages to prevent certain problems? Can we create a system which rewards or at least accepts people who focus on preventing problems. We face a water crisis that is not showing any signs of reducing, and a climate change threat, and an [...]
Change, the Motor Industry, and Water
Motors are used for many purposes today and consume an estimated 40-50% of India’s electricity. Is there a need to become efficient? They also are used heavily for water, starting in Bangalore in 1894 and now used commonly in borewells across the countryside. Does the industry bear any responsibility for declining groundwater levels? A short [...]
Also posted in Rajesh essays, Water Issues Tagged bangalore, efficiency, efficient, electric, history, industry, motor, motors, pump, sewage, shortage, supply, theory of change, water 3 Comments
Improving the PWX Application Process
After experiencing one round of the application review process, I have some suggestions on improving it. To keep these dialogues concise and to the point I tend to believe that the key solution lays in the project proposal and applications. These may have to be presented by adopted concise and comprehensive standard format, containing specific [...]
Egypt’s Nile v India’s Ganga: Practicality and Reverence