First field visit experience

It was an awesome day till evening.... Got to see an brilliant example of social institution.. an absolute desi one. We traveled two hours from Bhilwara to reach Kareda to attend a village federation meeting that was held at Khakadadaa village. We reached there around 3 pm.

The moment we reached there, the scene was awesome. Around 50-60 people were sitting on Hathai in a disciplined order, conducting a meeting from 12 o' clock, still keeping the equal enthusiasm and contribution. The member committee included every male member of the villages that formed a federation. It is constituted from within 7 villages and holds on every Teras. We had a quick short intro session, since they were seeing me for the first time. Our field associate briefed them over my current project and writing of grazing land development manual.

It was a regular monthly meeting conducted by the village level institution that had evolved from within the community a decade ago. They mobilized themselves to protect their rights from the encroaches over forest and are keeping this strength even today. Though they have expanded very well the scope of their functioning area by now. The regularity and credibility of this institution has brought it a judicious stature. The assemblies are almost like a village sunwai The decisions taken in the federation meeting are agreed, abiding and undersigned by all the stakeholders. Failing to meet these decisions could lead to the social boycott or penalty. Unlike the Panch system, these meetings are of round table nature.. members irrespective of their age, occupation, village and caste and class can raise and discuss any issue. Nobody is allowed to dominate or overtake other neither individually nor collectively. The final decision has be to taken by the community as a whole.

Though the membership is free; its compulsory too.. the members failing to attend the meeting are liable to pay a penalty of Rs. 100/- per meet. All the documents viz. decisions taken, attendance register, the committees formed (the assembly may ask a panel to be formulated in case of any issue to be dealt in detail) are mentained in a proper fashion. Amazingly the Sarpanch of this village is very young, about 28yrs old and he is given all the due authorities and responsibilities too. The village community collectively share the burden of the labour who spend his/her working hours in village community service. for instance, a day before the meeting, a villager had volunteered to assist a govt. official who were on inspection. Hence the federation took a decision to compensate for his loss of wage for a day by contributing all sorts of donation (monitory or in kind) from every household.

The most important aspect that I found missing was the women's contribution... They do not participate in the meet as they don't sit on the 'Hathai' in public. Hence their absence brings a significant flow in the decision making process.

With all this picture when we were about to start back, a very senior person almost in 70's rushed to us. He stopped us and started talking to me. I was unable to understand what he was trying to tell.... He suddenly bowed down to me while tears in eyes. I stood confused and shocked. And I went stunned when the field associate explained me the plea of the old man. He was saying, "please send us your work.. cutting vegetation is causing a great loss.. to the community, to mother earth. You are doing a great work for us.. please send us your book"

With an assurance that the book would be sent across all the 9166 Panchayats of Rajasthan we left the place. It was a romantic drive back... fresh, cold breeze from the window of the car, hot sweet bhutta in hand and soft music to ear... but I was sitting stunned as I couldn't wash off the old man's face from my eyes.... The sense of his dependency for their personal development, the dependency for the livelihood.. dependency to retain their environment (which unfortunately human received free of cost)....

My FIRO-B test memories

here's something very interesting...

most of my MIT friends would be able to recollect Dr. Menezes had conducted a FIRO test in the class. Before I proceed let me give a quick introduction what a FIRO-B is?

Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation (FIRO) is a theory of interpersonal relations, introduced by William Schutz in 1958. This theory mainly explains the interpersonal underworld of a small group. The Theory is based on the belief that when people get together in a group, there are three main interpersonal needs they are looking to obtain - affection/openness, control and inclusion. Schutz developed a measuring instrument that contains six scales of nine-item questions that he called FIRO-B. This technique was created to measure or control how group members feel when it comes to inclusion, control, and affection/openness or to be able to get feedback from people in a group. (Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_Interpersonal_Relations_Orientation)

Now, moving ahead from the theory part. In the SOG class say in 2006 or so, Dr. Menezes had conducted this test. Yesterday I got to see those papers laying in my drawer. So pretty to memories how different we were in the past.. I guess most of the time, we would always find oneself better in past than present. So this test paper was revealing my personality at that point of time, which I count to be the most beautiful and innocent time of my life. I'm not quite sure if the test results are perennial, rather I suppose its not since when I was going through the questionnaire now, I discovered quite different answers than previous. I will not write the high low ranking it brought to test but the interpretation of the same. Certainly the interpretation today, finds to be very funny, its at times good to know some characteristics I had and funny to observe some traits.

So here it goes:

It said, "You have very strong will," I very much agree to it, but believe that this must have come through the innocence I had that time.. I was really innocent [at least I used to receive such compliments those days ;) ] ). It further said, "You are not dependent on others and gives an impression of a long ranger (no doubt everyone is a passionate optimist in teenage). "You are extremely curious and sensual and living a clear headed modern life" (this is also very funny.. again either it links to my innocence.. and that I have learnt quite some lessons from life in last 2-3 yrs and find my self more confused or complexed now. So my life is either running reverse or I am indeed learning things now........ as they say, you grow mature not when you talk big stuff but understand small things, so that phase has began in my life when I could understand the complexity of world. And its the time i have started building up the population of thoughts, leaving me into more confusion.... )

Well coming back to FIRO-B.. Further it says, " At first glance you place yourself on a pedestal or difficult to get along"... I agree to this point. Unfortunately it still exists in my character. I receive extreme feedbacks from people of what they have anticipated of me after the first meet. A group of my camp-mates during grad days said, they thought I must be a khadus character girl but eventually their perception changed... The later part of the reading may enlighten this. "but once others talk to you, they know you are easy going and when relationship develops they realize, you are affable" few people commented they found me very friendly in first meet itself... (I still receive these comments ;D

And wow here's come the real cool one.. I simply love it.. though I don't receive any such feedback these days, but it was a popular compliment I would get that time and its, "You have androgynous charms which makes you popular among with all genders". "but you don't like your weak side to be seen. You might look cool on the surface, but beneath it all, you are really passionate"....... honestly I am not really sure what this one means.

Last but i believe most important is, "only people who know you true-self can maintain a long lasting relationship with you"....... in a way, its good that in future I will not be surrounded by crowd (if i can use word selfish too), but its bad seeing my aims to be a leader...At least in Indian politics, a leader is suppose to be well recognized and praised by masses... if making people aware of my true-self is the only criterion to ensure they will support me in all good and bad times then I need to be friends with every individual. In that case, its almost impossible to make every citizen (considering Indian population) my supporter........... Oh God what a mess!!! it has put my political career in doubt....

Social protection Vs Economic Growth

In the course recently I came across this topic wherein we were taught that the government expenditure which she spent over social (monitory) protection for elderly and senior citizens actually takes away a huge chunk of disposable income from government and hindrances the economic growth.

The later is justified as the disposable income which government is suppose to invest further so as to generate loops of income in employing young generation or present workforce is actually diverted to a non earning and physically non productive population of the country.

In Indian context the above argument holds true as well as not significant. It holds not significant in the sense that in western countries (I'm mentioning western scenario since this thought was proposed by a professor from west), the medical expenses for elderly/ senior citizens are borne by government. This expenditure amount is apart from the payment government would make to ex-employees in form of pensions. This dual expenditure mount taller as the advances in medical science allows a person to live a longer life than anticipated (pardon me if the word sounds rude; but the meaning explicitly remains the same). This situation causes the burden on government to feed a non productive population and I'm sure the problem persist in the present context when the government (essentially from west) is unable to cater the proper renumeration for present set of employees or productive population due to stroke of recession.

Talking in Indian context, the problem have a different face altogether. The Indian government apart form public health services (though it makes up to a substantial part of government expenditure) does not formally spent on senior citizens. Indian systems I'm not very sure how well maintains a separate budget for senior citizens. But standing in today's age when we are observing Human Development Index more than figures of GDP, it bound to invest more upon improving health services. This development could pop up two facet change. 1. life expectancy would increase and 2. may avail free services (based on the policies then applied) to elderly people.

In both the cases, we are actually heading towards what problem is being presently faced by the west. I, by any mean do not subscribe to the thought that government shall not intervene in subsidizing health services to senior citizens. But the concern is over how a country like India would cope up with the dilemma of what to prioritize; investment vs. services. Let me disclaim in the first place that I'm discussing a scenario which would calenderly arrive say 10-15yrs down the line, when Indian economy would have gone matured enough to take care of civic amenities in a more responsible manner.

Said that its a portrayal of a decade or so in future, my prime concern is, India who is called the youngest democracy in the world today, would produce a generation of senior citizens (adhering to the definition a senior citizen = 60yrs+) in the following years. Would exert a high pressure on government treasury.

I hearty wish that our economy should grow in a manner that government would willing take up the health care services as public amenities accessible to citizens free of cost. It shall also enhance more social protection measures by initiating micro-policies encouraging investments in insurance, providing lucrative incentives to insurance company to provide medical/financial support to lower/weaker economic section. But while doing all that we have to do a quantitative analysis of the expenditure that government make over productive Vs non-productive population, which I'm afraid may overtake the former by next decade. This issue needs to tackle by developing a model of funding health services in such a manner that the machinery goes autonomous i.e. its processes and functioning itself would generate revenue to the system and it will stay independent from the government subsidies and mature enough even to support elderly and vulnerable sections of society.

Today's Class

Today I attended a workshop on "Dilemmas in Interpersonal relationships". And I realized for the first since being in a relationship, we haven't followed many rituals that needs to be followed generally in a typical formation of the relationship. and those rituals were, having fights, having frequent fights and having fights every now and then. This fighting scene ends with a process of re-evaluation and reconciliation.

Wow! this workshop was a goody set of knowledge I received on how to recover through disturbed relationships. I hope this on, I would be able to council more effectively to all my heart-broken friends (I wish I could call them patients too) and for myself, god forbidden but if ever i fall in such situation.

Also I consider it to be the piece of information which would help me during writing my book "prescription for broken hearts"