The later civilizations based on Islam and Christianity did not worship the Nile. Their monotheistic approach does not include reverence to Nature.

However, the Nile has still been preserved. Today the Nile is among the cleanest of the rivers in Africa and Asia. Very little sewage from the millions that live within a kilometer of the Nile flows into the river. Pollution is minimal and looks more accidental than deliberate. The cruise ships that plow the Nile do not discharge any waste into it. Save the fear of a parasite, the Nile is almost swimmable even at the end of its 5584-kilometer (3470 miles) journey. Not that there is nothing to worry about, the pace of development is putting pressures on the quality and quantity of the waters. Our guide on the Nile started his historical introduction with the observation that they were very worried that the source of the Nile – Lake Victoria – was receding at an alarming rate.

Two observations about today’s Egyptian society need to be mentioned: the presence of potable water across all towns in Egypt and the absence of destitution.

In India, the Ganga is revered – the holiest of holy rivers – even today. Its role in physical nurturing a several thousand-year-old culture is mirrored by its spiritual role in the mythology.

Great civilizations have come up along the its banks, used it for their growth, and even realized the impact they had on the river. The Gangetic plain was the site of the first national park in the world – Ashoka’s edict two and half millennia ago made the Ganges River dolphin (Platanista gangetica) a protected species.

However, today the Ganga is a closer to a sewage stream than a holy river. It is not swimmable even in the high reaches at the foot of the Himalayas. In Indian consciousness, the holy Ganga has been separated from the physical. They revere the spiritual image of Ganga emanating out of Lord Shiva’s hair, tamed. And they urge for the chance of taking a ‘purifying’ bath in it. However, today, the physical Ganga is seen mainly as a resource, a source of water, sand, and fish, and an outlet for all wastes: industrial and biological. The physical Ganga has lost its place in the mythology, its defilement causes no outrage to the vast majority of Indian society. This is true of all the ‘holy’ rivers: the Yamuna, the Brahmaputra, and the Narmada.

To parallel the observations about Egyptian society: a large fraction of the people living on the banks of the Ganga do not have access to safe drinking water, a majority lack access to sanitation facilities, and millions live below poverty: in destitution.

Ecology, deep ecology, and reverential ecology are supposedly progressive in terms our defining our thinking about nature, our feeling for nature, and our actions involving nature. It is thought that if we understand something we are unlikely to destroy it, if we connect with something we are likely to preserve it, if we revere something we are likely to nurture it. The case of the Ganga shows that thinking and feeling and acting can be a divorced threesome. We can revere something but at the same time rape it.

Manushi and Jal Biradari organized a three-day conference to discuss the Ganga and Yamuna Action Plans. Magsaysay Award winner Rajendra Singh led a discussion involving a small but diverse representation of activists, environmentalists, government officials, religious leaders, and academics. Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh participated on the last day. It was clear that many people understood the many acts that defile the river and also impact the communities along the river. Many in the room also understood preventing pollution was more important than cleaning it and that we had to return to revering the physical river.

However, India hurtles towards neoliberal capitalism eying everything as a resource to be exploited. A rise in the number and value of mutual funds betting on the exploitation of natural resources portend a speedier exploitation of the river. It is hard to find a silver lining in this dark stream. Clearly, until our both spiritual and practical thinking changes at a societal level to create action, no power can prevent the Ganga from becoming poisoned and thus poisoning us.

We still have time, we can clean up the Ganga and we can unite its holy spirit to a clean body. We can avoid the Cree prophecy of the wise Native Americans:

Only after the last tree has been cut down,
Only after the last river has been poisoned,
Only after the last fish has been caught,
Only then will we realize that money cannot be eaten.

As we drove toward Sherikoldara, over the bumps in the road and through the dry, brown landscape, I wondered how long the pipe would have to be to bring water to this arid place.  Little did I know that the type of projects WOTR specializes in, require hardly any fancy technology to bring prosperous and lush fields to whole regions. Quite honestly, until Thomas explained it to me that day, I had no clue what “watershed development” really meant, and if you are like me, prepare to be amazed!

First, we pulled over on the side of the road overlooking hillsides covered in long, parallel lines, that Thomas explained to me were stone bunts or rock dams.  From photos I had seen in the office I knew that these trenches had something to do with watershed but then again, I didn’t even know what the word “watershed” really referred to or how it did anything for people needing water in this browning place.  It turns out, the idea behind watershed (think: “shed” as in, to shed tears or, as the dictionary defines it “shed -verb :to emit and let fall”) development and rainwater harvesting is actually quite simple and fascinatingly brilliant!

The concept, as Thomas showed me, is to catch the rainwater where it falls and then control, through these trenches, how fast the water flows down the hill sides and how the soil absorbs the moisture.  When it rains, water speeds down hills leaving no time for the soil to soak up that much moisture and, for it to be used to benefit communities.  In fact, often over the past few years rainfall has decimated crops coming in one week instead of stretched over months and flooding out anything planted.  Through creating rock formations, digging trenches, and  planting sapplings, WOTR attempts to change this pattern by working with communities to completely redevelop their hillsides around their fields and valleys and, “make the water walk.”

These contour lines and simple landscape modifications that seriously require no high-tech or costly appliances slow the water’s run down so instead of speeding down hill with gravity, it sinks slowly into the ground.  Each drop of rain is literally harvested or used like this to reduces runoff and, ultimately, increase the water table.  By ending free grazing and planting saplings, the development encourages natural growth to create vegetative cover and even increase the water holding capacity of the aquifers.

The soil absorbs the moisture, the vegetation cuts out erosion, agriculture flourishes.  Simple as that.  As we wound around the hills to reach the valley, I saw how simply brilliant that method really is.  We emerged from the dusty brown fields to a valley covered in a patchwork quilt of crops and lush green trees similar to what I’m sure the Great Valley from the Land Before Time must have been like!

WOTR’s particular approach has also been so successful because, as Shiwaji, the head of Sherikoldara’s watershed development, explained to me, everyone in his village had to come together and work for months to create the habitat they now benefit so richly from.  Shiwaji told me the whole story about the village’s progress from convincing everyone to develop the land this way, all the way through to the benefits they receive now.  He said that farmers who farm the now plentiful lands will receive 1,000,000 rupees this year for their onion crop!  In a country where the average person earns Rs 36,000 for the whole year (less than $1,000), and drought conditions are making it so hard for farmers to make ends meet that they are actually committing suicide, this number is absolutely phenomenal!

Shiwaji also told me a fantastic story about how, since the approach that WOTR uses requires the whole village to come together uniting the poor and tribal parts of the village with the rich and higher caste members, now a member of the lowest caste, Adavasi, is going to university in Pune and, the whole village even paid for his education!  Shiwaji told me that this young man hopes to finish school and reach the highest government office working for communities to come together over caste barriers.  Amazing.

It was truly incredible to hear all of the success this village, in a flourishing valley and surrounded by thousands of acres of hillsides covered in man-made trenches, is enjoying.  As the sunset over the hillside, I imagined what it would be like, after years of drought, to wake up in the morning after spending months and months digging around in the dirt on hillsides to see the sun pouring over the great valley that I worked with my neighbours to create.  Of course, my imagination could never compare to the reality that the families bagging their onion crop were experiencing, but looking around, it was tangible how watershed development had transformed these people’s lives.  The valley seemed to smile as the sun was setting on it and I was beaming after learning that something so technologically simple could have such vast impacts in every realm of life for a whole community.

I learned so much and was incredibly inspired both from meeting the women and families in Panoli and seeing such excellent innovation and land usage to create new opportunities in people’s lives.  As in my day spent with the hydrogeologists and talking to Joe Madiath, my knowledge base of water and development was expanded tenfold through this field trip and, as dorky as it may sound, I love water and sanitation  Now off to see some toilets in Mumbai!!

Our first destination of the day was Panoli, a village of 1,200 people in Mahrashtra, India where WOTR helped facilitate a drinking water project with BPF funds.  On the way there, we picked up a passenger, Tukaram, who grew up in this village and recently moved to the city to work for an NGO that implements water projects in other villages.  Thomas and Tukaram gave me some background on the area where we were heading and we drove along the (newly-paved!) highway into the countryside.  An hour or so later, we turned down a dirt road to a big body of water on our right and just down the hill on the left, the well and pump house.  Thomas pointed out the area where the trench was dug that connected the village, located four kilometers from the well, to the water.  Thomas explained to me how there used to be a project here, but the pipe that brought the water from the well to the village was leaky so it took over nine hours to fill the tank in town and was basically useless for the people.  Then, with the BPR funds, the women organized their village to build a new pipeline and install a faster pump.  Even when he said, “the women organized their village,” I didn’t totally know what that involvement meant until we got to Panoli.

After arriving in the village and meeting a group of high school girls eager to practice their English, we walked up to the school where several taps had been installed in the school yard.  Three kids came up to the taps to demonstrate drinking out of them and lead us through a neat little garden that was fed with waste water.  At the entrance to the garden, a little stage was set up in front of the school where all of the students were practicing for a Republic Day Performance for the next day.

After a few excellent performances, some of the village members led us to a little room where village governance matters are taken care of and I met the head of the village – a WOMAN!  I was so very excited to see a woman occupying the Sarpanch seat at the table because it showed how truly powerful and active women have become in the village.  From something as simple and basic as drinking water, Mrs. Anita Gaikwad and a group of other women united their village for this cause and gained respect and confidence as women!

Before the women took initiative to fix the drinking water problem in their community, there actually was a well, pump, and pipeline that, in theory, brought water to Panoli.  All of these devices were installed over ten years ago and even at that point, the pump didn’t have enough horsepower to pump enough water, fast enough to supply the village with water for the day.  Because of the faulty devices, women still had to walk to get water, especially during power cuts and summer months and, over time, the pipeline started to leak so that any water that was being delivered was arriving more slowly than ever.

These women then rallied their communities to raise their portion of the funds and begin working with WOTR.  After this initial stage, all of the village members worked for a whole year to dig the trench with the new pipeline so that they could improve their society.  I was so impressed by these powerful and inspirational women doing such great things for their community and they were so proud to tell me about all of their accomplishments.

Then, with Thomas translating, I told them about the Youth Board and how young people in the US were working to raise the funds for drinking water projects and I think they were equally as impressed.  One man stood up to say how amazed he was by this because he always thought the donor funds came from business people but, hearing that kids in schools are working so hard for the cause was really inspirational as well.  It was a really motivational meeting to see great work being done and people really acting on needs for their community!  I loved the pride and eagerness emanating from the village and I was really blown away by the unity and confidence that Anita and the other women on the water board in Panoli had achieved.  When I left, I was practically flying I felt so inspired by the good work being done by organizations like WOTR, the awesome Youth Board students, and the wonderful women and families of Panoli!

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 where you have to look in the side lanes). One photo journal of men peeing around the capital city of Delhi shows the rich diversity of sightings.

I remember when my childhood neighbour painted his wall, he decided to paint some images of Indian dieties, to prevent the wall from getting dirty from pee, paan spit, and posters.

A photo by T. Trompeter in 1991, below, shows a Bangalore where there were ‘facilities’ for men to pee – the wall was tiled! Maybe this doesn’t exist now, but it clearly has not been missed.

The sight of a woman and a daughter standing next to a motor cycle at the edge of the road, waiting for the man (wearing a helmet and facing the wall) to complete his business sparked a thought: Do Indian women pee? It struck me that i have never seen a woman relieving herself near the road. Men get to relieve their biological urge anywhere there is a wall. In the absence of public sanitation facilities in Indian cities, one should expect to see signs of women relieving themselves. Even if it’s just the blocking of the actual act from passing eyes, the evidence should be there. Yes, it is most embarrassing and an affront to dignity but sometimes you got to go. Or don’t you?

The only conclusion i can make is that Indian women don’t pee. Well, at least, they can go through the entire day without visiting a loo.

A friend spent a week in a village in Gujarat and told me how she and the women would get up at five in the morning and all the women would go as a group to answer Nature’s call in the dark. The elder women would form an outer circle to protect from prying eyes. And then nothing for the rest of the day. A Korean-American friend visited another (commercial) town in Gujarat and while the two males in the group enjoyed relieving themselves whenever and wherever, she had to go an entire day without bladder relief. I live in a nice gated community in Bangalore and while there is a facility for security guards, for other staff (gardeners, sweepers, …) there is none. It’s not that they can’t go into the security shed, but it’s highly unlikely that women workers will. So, a full day’s work demanded, with lunch break, but no sanitation facility. This essay was sparked by another friend who after visiting me told me that she wanted to use the bathroom before she left, “Not because I need to go, but because I don’t know when next I will be able to go”.

Yes, women, have it tough. Urban facilities are rare, and good facilities are rarer. Sulabh, the household name in public sanitation, has found its name copied everywhere, with little aspiration towards the standards that they hold dear.

A study by Arghyam titled, Ashwas, highlighted the dismal sanitation situation in rural Karnataka, just outside India’s Silicon Valley with its most globally successful and most marketed IT class. In this state, 78% of the rural population does not have access to sanitation and often the village maps show the open defecation places dangerously close to the water sources.

What is most damming is the statistics used in the water sector to show progress. The Nirmal Gram Puraskar is a prize given to a village where open defecation is history, all households have access to toilets and, they are all used. In addition, all schools should have toilet facilities. The awards are used in government statistics and by institutions (such as the World Bank and the UN) to show progress. The Ashwas report shows that of the 14 surveyed winners of the Nirmal Gram Puraskar in Karnataka, not one was worthy of the prize a year following the award; they had all regressed to some level of open defecation. Both these awards and the sustainability of projects are huge discussion issues, and should serve a warning about reading too much into prizes and progress metrics being touted.

In this nation of a billion we are rushing towards ensuring a mobile phone for all and a TV too. The GDP grows in that rush and we consider ourselves advancing.

However, can we consider ourselves advanced if we don’t provide private, accessible, and hygienic sanitation facilities for all?  Jawaharlal Nehru’s statement has been forgotten: “The day everyone of us gets a toilet to use, I shall know that our country has reached the pinnacle of progress“. Maybe we should consider another metric for progress based on Nehru’s vision – the number of public water and toilet facilities. Maybe we should consider ourselves having advanced to the next stage only when there is safe drinking water and access to private and hygienic sanitation facilities for all – especially women. Then we will know that we have arrived, not by economic statistics, but by sight or lack of seeing anyone peeing in public, by smell or lack of smell when we pass through slums and villages, and by stories or lack of anecdotes of women having to hold it.

Yes, Indian women do pee, and they should be allowed to do so whenever they want, with dignity and privacy.

When I’m not drinking tea, I am poking around the PWX site, exploring the different features, thinking of ways to make things easier or more understandable, and sorting out what Gram Vikas already has uploaded to the site and what else needs to be. Much of my time has been devoted to talking to different people in the office trying to locate records on different computers or actual hard copies of information for various projects on the site. I’ve been focusing on getting my hands on some interviews, videos, and photos to try to bring the sites alive and show the life of villages with or without water and sanitation. Collecting all of this information has proven a bit tricky since it isn’t always centrally located or accessible, and so my goal is to use PWX to add another element of organization and a fuller picture of projects for a non-profit that has really done some amazing work and has a lot to showcase to the world.
In addition to updating the Gram Vikas projects on the site and the welcome interruptions of chai, I spent a few days working on a water award application for Gram Vikas. Again throughout the project I learned more and more about this organization’s practices and other WASH systems for rural development, but I was also introduced to a British/Indian form of English quite unlike my native American English. For an English major with a mother who is a professional proofreader, this was quite a task! Words like “whomsoever” and “alongwith” seemed as foreign to me as the little chili peppers I picked out of my meals. Naturally I had to edit for British spellings throughout as well – in American English we write, “feces” while in British English the same word is spelled “faeces.” There are little sayings too that still confuse me: “fill up an application,” “go to office,” and “I’ve been in my home,” – those tricky prepositions always switching with different forms of the confusing English language! Many other parts from grammatical intricacies to crores and commas were different as well so in addition to picking up bits of Oriya, I’m really happy to have discovered this new form of English.

Besides punctuation and pronunciation differences, there are many office customs here that differ from the American offices I’ve worked in. There are, of course, the 10am and 4pm daily chai breaks which I have already explained my new love for, but other office practices are taking some getting used to for me. For instance, as an American woman shaking hands is always a little confusing for me, sometimes in certain offices we wear shoes and sometimes it is customary to leave them by the door, and here people always take lunch breaks whereas back home lunch usually meant shoving something down in front of your computer screen – these are just some of the quirky little differences in the day-to-day functions of an office in a new place. Then there are the power outages that remind me again that I am indeed out here in a village! They happen several times throughout the work day, and now I’m so used to them that when the power flicks off I just keep working away until the internet cuts out and then I read for a minute until it all comes flashing back on and we can start the whole process again!
Everyone stops for an hour lunch break at one and the work day is officially over at 5:45. In the evenings I have often continued working just trying to finish up these projects but sometimes I play cards with new friends or read until dinner which happens at 8:30 in the evening. Since we usually eat at 6 or 7 back in America, this late night meal is definitely a transition too! All of the curries and dals and pakoras have been delicious at the mess and all of the staff I have met through Gram Vikas have been so welcoming and wonderful! Only a few weeks left in my new home, but I have really enjoyed the learning experience – about water, but also about culture.

Two such new friends, Marijn and Roelof, are hydrogeologists staying here for about two weeks to train people in the villages to test water quality. From the Netherlands, Marijn and Roelof have taught me so many things, one of which is a culinary tip from their hometown: how to turn every Indian dish into something sweet by adding jam or sugar! Besides amusing the dining hall with our strange creations, they invited another intern and me to go on an explorer mission with them last Sunday!

They explained to us the adventure they were planning: GoogleMaps shows the earth in this part of Orissa as being darker in a western part and lighter in an eastern part, pretty much separated by a distinct line that they imagined was a different kind of rock or deposit from a river or the ocean. Armed with a large print out of the area, a jeep and driver from GV, and a GPS system we were going to figure out why. They tried to play it off as though it sounded boring, but I thought they were essentially proposing an exploration mission that would rival that of Christopher Columbus!

So with excitement in the air and our explorer’s gear in hand, we climbed into the Qualis around ten in the morning ready for a day of real, live exploring! The four of us and our driver, Babolo took up all of the seats in the jeep so it was a little crammed especially as we wound around the dogs and people in the streets. Mixed with lots of trying to explain to our driver where we wanted to go, Marijn explained to me so much about water projects and systems of all kinds, the science and engineering about how water actually arrives to most of the taps, and ground water. I was ecstatic all day long! I have been working around water- fundraising with BPR and now here, for a few years, but something about seeing the projects and hearing about the processes from my new Dutch friends really illuminated the world of water to me.

Throughout the morning, we stopped at a few sites where holes had been dug in the ground for random purposes and surveyed the soil. Marijn and Rudolph showed us how and why certain parts of the earth were red and others gray. We took pictures of the rocks and my specific job was to make GPS readings at each site so we could make a more accurate map to compare with the google image. Everywhere we went a crowd of confused Indians huddled around us really baffled as to why four foreigners were maneuvering around piles of poop to pick up dirt and take pictures of holes!

We stopped at one of the GV village water towers and in addition to surveying the area, picked up about four new members to our team who were to help us navigate the tricky roads in that part of the region. So, for the next hour or so, nine of us crammed into the jeep and looked for differences in water sources and rock and earth colors. Most of the time we were going a different direction than we had planned because of road blocks and communication barriers but the adventure didn’t disappoint in showing us great new things like long-tailed, kangaroo-like monkeys and all kinds of mountainous and rocky terrain from rock quarries to brackish water bodies. It was wild and fun and fascinating!

After some photos and marking a few more points we returned to drop off the extra people at their car. The villagers were waiting for us with sodas and tons of kids crowding around the jeep looking at us. Even though our communication with the kids was limited to, “How are you,” and “What’s your name,” they were thrilled to hear us try to speak to them. Most of the 20 minutes we sat with them was just us smiling really big at the kids and them returning the gesture! It was such a fun morning!

The next few hours continued with much of the same, convincing our driver to take us down certain roads to spots we thought would lead us to a point on the map, making some notes and pictures, and then continuing on. From the highway our driver turned down a tiny narrow street totally covered in foliage which eventually led us to a huge lake. It was amazing that he could ever know that that tiny road from the busy highway could lead to the lake!

There we took a water quality reading. It was tricky to find a part of the lake where someone wasn’t bathing or doing laundry to be able to take a sample, but eventually we found a fenced in area that would be as clean as it would get. We tested the PH as well as the levels of carbonate hardness, nitride, and iron among other things and learned which pollutants may cause some of the levels to be higher- again I was learning just how important the link is between water and sanitation, but this time with chemical numbers to back this up!

Our last stop was Golpapur. In the spring Golpapur is known for giant sea turtles mating and laying eggs on the shores of the Bay of Bengal. Here we ate at a delicious Indian restaurant. We had my favorite, Paneer Butter Masala and another mushroom dish with hot, puffy naan. I also tasted the best sweet/salty lime soda! After a late lunch and a walk along the beach, we drove the hour-long return back to campus. The day was filled with exciting adventures and sightseeing. I felt like a sponge soaking up all of the knowledge my new friends could teach me and I was exhausted as I returned to my room. In perfect Indian style, my wonderful neighbor heard my return and knocked at the door with a steaming cup of chai. Oh, how I love India!

I first worked with the Blue Planet Run Youth Board for two years working with incredibly creative and motivated young people to raise awareness among their peers of the world’s drinking water crisis. The experience was wonderful, and when I graduated and wanted to spend a year traveling and volunteering, I contacted Rajesh – head of the BPR water network, Peer Water Exchange, to see if he knew of anything. And boy, did he! Now I’m knee-deep in PWX and loving every single second of it!

I’ll first hail back to my BPR days though (even just a year ago). One of the many activities we created to raise awareness was a viral video where I, along with another youth board coordinator, explained the statistics on a video for other youth – 1.1 billion people, women walking hours, blah, blah, blah. And not that the statistics aren’t important – they are incredibly astonishing and worthwhile, but my point is that while I knew the statistics forward and back, I know now that I did not know the problem until I got to Gram Vikas.

I arrived to the sunny haven that is the main office campus of Gram Vikas in little Mohuda Village, Orissa after a grueling 20-some-hour train journey. Butterflies pranced in the palm tree-shaded path as I carried my backpack to my new room in the beautifully crafted intern guesthouse.

On the way here, I had no idea what the area would be like. In fact, in my ignorance, I was pretty much expecting dry, uninhabitable lands with unbearable conditions. Orissa is, after all, one of the poorest states in India where less than 4% of the population has access to piped drinking water. To make matters worse, I had been reading in the paper leading up to my visit to Gram Vikas that farmers across the state where killing themselves because of the terrible drought conditions slamming the lands. Walking in this lush enclave was not at all what I had imagined. Again, I knew the stats about the area, but I was blown away by the mountainous region covered in green trees and jungle fauna.

Since then, I have visited five projects in the area and researched pretty much every single one of the 701 water and sanitation projects initiated by Gram Vikas and the great Joe Madiath. In many parts, conditions are indeed terrible, but what I have learned from Joe – both through the books about him and his wonderful patience in explaining everything to me – is that the statistics about water that I have so fervently memorized and preached for all these years are very important, but still, only half the problem or less. Why is the water unsafe and unclean? Because people poop in it, bathe in it, and wash in it. Because flies land on feces, which sticks to their feet, which then contaminates the food they land on. Because animals loiter around the water sources pooping at will and carrying feces on their hooves and mouths as they drink from the well. Sitting in Joe’s office while he spelled it out for me was one of those “duh” moments. The numbers are meaningless without understanding the meat behind the issue. And in this case, it took me coming all the way here to begin to really grasp the water crisis.

Since then, I have delved into everything WatSan (one of the many acronyms I’ve learned for water and sanitation). My official business here is to help Gram Vikas get all of their projects organized onto PWX, but in that process, I have helped with a few other things around the office and in every ounce of my free time, soaked up all of the knowledge I can on water and sanitation – no pun intended! More on my adventures in water to follow!

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 to work as my wife was working and so i used the time to let my mind drift and figure out a way to solve the world’s most important and urgent problems.

On my day off my wife gave me a list of errands that included doing laundry, picking up some medicine and exchanging a set of picture frames. Eager to maximize my free time, i planned out my day to complete all the tasks in the shortest possible time:

7:00    Wake up

7:15    Make son’s lunch

7:30    Get son ready

8:30    Drop son off at school

9:00    Put laundry in washing machine at Laundromat

9:15    Drop off prescription

9:30    Transfer laundry to dryer

9:40    Exchange picture frames

10:00   Pick up prescription

10:10   Pick up laundry

10:30   Home free

A good example of efficiency – defined as the minimizing the amount of time utilized for a task or a set of tasks. Efficiency is a subject that has been hammered into me during my education (both engineering and management) and throughout my corporate years: “Doing something in the shortest possible time is being optimal and when you have to accomplish several activities, minimizing total elapsed time yields a global optimal solution.”

However, my life does not always go according to plan. The morning saw some confused frantic activity and when i dropped off my son, rather late, i found that i did not have the prescription or the frames. The day went like a comedy of errors. This is the sequence of events as they actually occurred:

7:30    Wake up

7:45 Get son ready and make lunch

8:00-9:00 Father-son bonding via arguments and reconciliation

9:20    Leave to drop son off at school (forget prescription, frames)

9:45    Put laundry in washing machine at Laundromat

10:30   Transfer laundry to dryer

11:20   Go home, drop off laundry

11:45   Take prescription (but forget frames) and place order at pharmacy

12:05   Go home, have lunch

1:40    Pick up medicines

2:00    Go to exchange frames

3:00    Home, somewhat free – almost time to pick up son

Definitely sub-optimal – a model of inefficiency. Not only did i not do any activities in parallel but also each activity took much longer than it should have. The day could be labeled a failure because I missed executing my plan. On paper, a lot of wasted time. However, instead of being a frustrating day it turned out to be one of the most interesting and rewarding days in my life.

The details of my activities during my tasks and in-between them will reveal the source of my happiness. After putting my laundry into the washing machine, i could not run to the pharmacy since i did not have my prescription. Instead i walked across the road to the lake. I sat in the sun and decided to do some stretches. It turned out that a Qigong group practiced there at 10. They welcomed me into their practice giving me a very pleasant demonstration of their art. Learning about Qigong was not on my long list of things to do, but i was very happy to get a short introduction.

While eating lunch i tuned into alternative radio and was lucky to hear Vandana Shiva, talking about the effects of terminator seeds on poor farmers in India. When i finally reached the art shop ready to exchange picture frames, i ran into Alex, whom i had not seen since graduate school. In 1993 he had spent a year in India as a Oxfam fellow understanding and documenting the true effects of the Lathur earthquake relief process championed by the government and World Bank. We caught up with each other and I found out that he had finished his masters, writing a thesis on the homeless in San Francisco and that he was planning on observing the relief efforts following the 2001 Gujarat earthquake. We made plans to have dinner together and have remained in touch ever since. If i had arrived at the art shop on my original schedule, i would have not crossed paths with Alex.

This essay on my inefficiency is probably not what i want my bosses to see – it is about taking time to smell the roses. Actually more than that, it is about waiting for the fragrance of roses that are not visible to drift in and then taking time to seek them out.

The second idea i want to discuss – (dis)organization – requires a bit of explanation, best done through an example: my filing system for books and papers. I have (more or less) placed all articles and cuttings in different piles, which are placed in various folders. However, none of my folders are labeled. So when i need to find something, i have to first go through several folders, examining their contents to determine which folder is likely to contain what i am looking for. Then go through more stuff to finally find the article inside the folder. My organization is clearly regarded as disorganization by people around me, not to mention other adjectives such as messy. So i have settled on the word (dis)organization. This (dis)organization probably adds to my inefficiency, but being forced to go through some completely unrelated material often provides untold benefits.

Before i go into the benefits of (dis)organization i want to share a quote by Isabel Allende:
“Success and failure don’t exist. They’re inventions of the gringos. We simply live a little each day, the best we can. It’s like a trip without a destination; it’s the journey that’s important.”
While looking for this quote in my stack of papers i found an interesting article on Australia’s mining industry and smiled as i read several cartoons from the New Yorker, one of which was relevant to my bank that had just got bought over for the second time in a year. The
cartoon showed a bank lobby with a bunch of people dressed in suits entering the door with the caption: “Don’t anyone move, this is a takeover.” I dropped off the cartoon at the bank and everyone gathered around and had a hearty laugh. I like my (dis)organization, because if i had everything perfectly organized, i would find what i wanted, but not be richer for it. Of course i have to accept that at times i will be frustrated or unnecessarily delayed.

So if i was efficient and organized, would life be different? Yes, it might be less frustrating. It might provide me ‘more’ time, which might go into watching TV or hopefully completing the stack of books next to my bed. I might even feel more in control of my life.

I realize that slowing down and doing only one thing at a time are alien ideas in today’s lifestyle that is focused on being more efficient and productive, but something about spending some time rambling appeals to me. In addition, i also like the idea of giving up control: letting external events guide me, inform me. This is especially good since i cannot think of all the possibilities, i wait for things to hit me, i wait for events to happen. More often than not, nice things have happened. Serendipity has a welcome place in my life and i am glad to make room for it.

Today, in India brands abound and the rich are using more energy to dry clothes.
For example, most using washing machines, use higher speeds in spin cycles using to dry clothes. And some have dryers in this tropical country!

Though, i am happy that hanging clothes out to dry is still acceptable in all parts of India.

Originally, published in HaasWeek, the newspaper of the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley in 1996.

Airing Clean Laundry

Last weekend i decided to reduce my contribution to global warming by hanging out some towels to dry on my balcony. A few minutes later, i heard my landlady standing downstairs on the pavement, loudly complaining about how awful it looked. Later in the evening i got a lecture about how my laundry made the apartment look like a ghetto.

A ghetto? Yes, there was an element of saving money by avoiding the dryer in the basement and an element of saving time not waiting for the dryer. But i was far more concerned with reducing my energy usage — energy generated by coal and nuclear power plants somewhere out of sight. I also did not want to generate carbon dioxide by burning natural gas in the dryer for an hour. And i wanted to maximize use of the pure, non-polluting sunlight that arrives in abundance on my balcony in the morning.

I understand that it’s in our nature to display our class, our wealth, our status. I have no problem with a person flaunting his Rolex over my Casio. There are no bad side effects generated by that marketing success. However, when a gas-guzzling Land Rover is touted over a Civic on city streets, that bothers me. The Civic consumes far fewer resources to manufacture: less land is dug up to mine the raw materials, fewer chemicals are used during fabrication, and fewer toxins are released during finishing. Finally, during usage, much less fuel is consumed and a lot less exhaust is generated. It bothers me that most of the status symbols we use are not good for us and are even worse for our children. Our energy consumption and car driving are sending 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon to the atmosphere every year. And that number is increasing exponentially as gas-guzzlers are becoming popular in China and India.

Can we do better? Native Americans used feathers and hides to display status. In Morocco it is a privilege to go barefoot indoors and enjoy the luxury of feeling the carpet or marble.

In our material society why can¹t we consider it high class to have the most efficient, most non-polluting goods? To pollute less, we just have to consume (actually one can think of it as “waste” instead of “consume”) less. Use the dryer less, use the car less, use less paper, and turn off the lights. But if we do make status symbols out of consuming less, how can we ensure that only the deserving get the status symbol? It’s one thing to price a Mercedes so that only a few can afford it. But if walking (as opposed to driving) to work became a status symbol, how could we stop the non-privileged from acquiring this status symbol? This is a productive challenge to be taken up by MBAs (and all designers) interested in avoiding warming up the earth and endangering the human species.

If the rich hung out their clean laundry in front of their house to boldly show how they reduced their contribution to global change, it would be easy for the real “ghettos” to also look rich. And, while it might take a genius to recognize the real status symbol from the fake, all of our children could happily walk by breathing cooler cleaner air.

We face a water crisis that is not showing any signs of reducing, and a climate change threat, and an economic crisis, among others. Lets not just solve these piece-meal, lets strive to create a system where such crises are less likely to occur, where preventing problems is as least as important, if not far more important, than solving them.
Otherwise, we will be fighting fires and our attention will be on the biggest or latest fire.
And those who want attention will be setting fires.

Originally, published in HaasWeek, the newspaper of the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley in 1997.

The hostage drama in Peru started this thought that will meander and
diverge before coming to rest without a climax. So, gentle reader, please
approach this essay with patience.

The Mrta revolutionaries who took over the Japanese embassy in Peru
may have been forced into terrorist action within a system that gave them
no other choice. Since i don’t know much about the Mrta and their history,
let me talk about things that i do know a little about.

When i grew up in Bombay, there were regular protests. Most of the protests
were hunger strikes. I remember seeing students in tents camped outside
the university fasting to get their opinions heard by the chancellors.
Textile unions would have sit-ins. In villages, people would organize and
lead a group to the nearest government office and squat outside to get
funding for a school or hospital. The authorities would generally ignore
these non-violent protesters for a day or two and then invite them in and
negotiate with them.

But things have changed a bit and its hard to figure out exactly why.
Maybe the authorities got too busy. Maybe there were too many protests.
But people started using more attention-grabbing means to lodge their demands.
Maybe its easier to crowd a person and rough them up. Maybe its easier
to use an explosion to announce yourself. Maybe its easier to kidnap a
person to get their undivided attention. From the authorities’ point of
view, maybe it is easier to respond to a person holding a gun than someone
sitting outside the lawn starving themselves. And maybe the issues are
getting so polarized that its hard to find commonality. Or is it that the
new negotiation tactics have caused the polarization?

So there has been a trend to use a new set of tactics to get points
across, those that are the most provocative, most immediate. These involve
very little self-sacrifice (in the short-term) and the use of the media,
of threats, and of violence. These acts appear to be manifesting themselves
in a big way in the land of Gandhi. Major industrialists and union leaders
have been shot during the day. It would be a novelty now for someone to
go on hunger strike.

Lets look at the alternatives that people have when they wish to protest
against the system. For example, for millennia, the Gwich’in Native Americans
have lived on the land south of the coastal plain straddling the border
between northeast Alaska and northwest Canada. The Gwich’in are known as
"Caribou People" because their way of life is so closely tied
to the Porcupine River caribou herd, which migrates there every spring.
Gwich’in traditions, language, and stories all relate to the caribou. The
Gwich’in want to maintain their traditional lifestyle and support wilderness
protection of the area designated as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
the last protected piece of the Arctic coastline. As a tribal leader says,
"Protecting the Arctic Refuge is how we will survive. Our people never
went to the birthplace of the caribou because it is a sacred place, not
to be disturbed."

On the other side, the oil industry is pushing hard to accelerate drilling
operations in Alaska. Not content with having access to millions of ocean
acres surrounding Alaska, it also wants the coastal plain of the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge.

The coastal plain is the biological heart of the refuge because it is
the calving ground of the Porcupine River caribou herd. Scientists consider
drilling operations a threat to the caribou. The coastal plain is also
nesting habitat for millions of migratory birds in the summer and for polar
bears in winter. Cold and windswept, the Arctic Refuge is hardly the "wasteland"
the oil industry makes it out to be.

The oil companies and their Congressional friends had included in the
1996 budget bill about $1.4 billion in revenues from selling leases to
drill in the Arctic Refuge. This is only a fraction of the more than $50
billion the federal government annually gives to the oil, gas, and coal
industries in subsidies and tax advantages. Alaska’s Governor Tony Knowles,
and the oil industry have much more access to the media to aid their campaign
to open the Arctic Refuge. While discounting the Gwich’in people’s concern
for their way of life, the politicians and oil companies are able to convince
us that our way of life depends on drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Yes,
if (and its a big IF) we learn about the Gwich’in, we sympathize with them
and we want the Gwich’in to choose their lifestyle, but as long as there
is no threat to prices at our pump when we drive up in our 4-wheel drives.

For the Gwich’in, if development goes forward it will be their children
who bear the burden. But what resources do they have to face the oil companies
and the government with? What can they offer to appease those who seek
higher profits? If they manage to keep their way of life, the economy does
not benefit. Yes, a few organizations such as Greenpeace have taken up
their cause and individuals are donating money, some fraction of which
will be able to aid them. But it is a trickle compared to the resources
of the other side.

With a media that needs sponsorship and an indifferent audience thousands
of miles away, what form of protest can the Gwich’in undertake to get to
the table with the people in power? And more important what can they do
to boost their negotiation position? Can Gandhi’s methods be applied here
or do they have to resort to violence?

Does this have any relevance to us at Haas and to the business world?
Yes, gentle reader, the end of my thought process is near. We would like
to prevent problems before they occur or to negotiate our way out of a
situation. But for that we need to spend time understanding the situation
and the other side, to empathize with their position, to walk in their
shoes. But do we have the time and energy to negotiate, to diffuse situations
before they erupt? In our fast-paced lives with no time to do laundry,
we cannot even pay attention to the proverbial squeaky wheel. We now only
respond to the wheel on fire. So it looks like our lives are ripe for some
violent terrorist-type attention grabbers. Will we change so that we can
reach out and seek the Gwich’in in our lives? Or will we continue until
we are forced to confront them?