Link to the pictures of the first week

http://picasaweb.google.com/pratap.ashutosh

Updates!!!

So its been a while since I have updated the blog.Days have flown by so quickly and I have been living life to the hilt.The fact that I am in distinguished company of achievers from different sectors of development is a feeling that makes me specifically glad.

By the way the challenge seems a bit steep now ,some hours look just waste and some look so exciting. I am sure I gotta find out a way to address this.

At the Akshaya Patra foundation.

At the Akshaya Patra foundation.

A night to remember

from left megha,preeti,me,Jayshree,Naveen,Sharan,Shahina,Thriveni,Kanchana

Visit to Sandbox areas

Well finally I have reached Hubli after long drawn discussions,handovers,takeovers and Knowledge transfers at office.Feels good that at last I have managed to standup for my convictions,take a firm decison and stick with it,and be on service here.
The train journey too wasn’t snappy,it did test my patience,I had to wait for my connecting train for more than 8 hours.ahhh it was difficult somehow i managed it and then Hubli seem never to arrive but atlast i got to this sleepy town of Hubli.
Today was the first morning in Hubli and i reached the STEP building(A beautiful acronymn (Science and technology entrepreneurship Park) to inform in person about my arrival then thereafter… I packed up to see the Sandbox area.Dharwad is 16 kilometres from Hubli and well connected by bus as well as train.I took a bus to the place.The roads reminded me of kerala where normally cities and villages are not starkly different as they are in North India. Hubli has a beautiful lake called the Unkal lake and i see,i will spend a lot of my evenings there in the coming months.
Belgaum is 76 kilometres from Dharwad and an excellent NH-4 connects it to Dharwad.I had first heard of Belgaum when Sushma Swaraj decided to thwart attempts of a foreigner(read Sonia Gandhi) from being elected to the parliament..unsurprisingly India still loves the parivar and Sonia carries the legacy.
There are a lot of things trivia that I managed to observe.The policemans here wear a hat so different from those in North India.It looks straight out of U.K.Well Groundnuts are common and yes the soil here is red.Travel makes it evident that what we studied in class 8 Geography of Deccan Plateaus and all are correct :)As in all places local food is great and any place i go I seem to love the food there,what’s wrong have my taste buds still not developed ?
My first gut feel tells me that whatever statistics may dictate people has a better sense of Public sanitisation,stations look cleaner,roads look better and population looks to be in better control than other places(one being Uttar Pradesh where I belong to).
We have a Kannada class tomorrow at 8:30 am and i am keen to pick up the language..bhasa nahi sikha toh kya sikha.i did get a thin book to guide me through too.
I am excited to be at this place ,I know more than learning in closed halls ,real learning lies in visiting the places around,and in implementing all that we have in our minds.
Most of the fellows have not arrived,it will be great to know them and learn from their experiences.
I have lots a plans for tomorrow …best served to be posted once its all done.

Why am I chucking everything and moving to Non Profit

1.If not me,then who ,any case why not me??, rather than commenting it makes sense to dirty my hands
2.I wish to break the “middle class thinking”,else India would just have bikes->cars->houses ,offcourse spouse and kid”s”.
3.I have ideas and am ready to try them out.
4.No risk no gain,only pain, again and again.
5.Above all I have dreams of a better world.

About the Fellowship

The Fellowship is an interactive, applied learning experience that aims to foster a generation of successful social entrepreneurs. Participants will learn about existing best practices and engage with local innovators to develop a working knowledge of leading social change models.
The program will then leverage this theoretical framework to help each participant design their proposed activity. Fellows will be expected to implement their innovations with partner institutions in the Sandbox in a “social innovation lab” environment. Though the Fellowship will be demanding, it will also be a comprehensive education, invaluable to a Fellow’s future ventures