Noble Filth

A couple of news articles and posts caught my attention over the weekend. Without going into the politics of all this and to keep in line with our commitment of keeping Nagpur First and the blog politically agnostic, I would focus just on the content and context of this.

Basically, a furor was raised last week by some in the media and political class over Mr. Jairam Ramesh's off the cuff remark about filth in India. Ramesh said, 'If there was a noble prize for filth, India would get one'

There are multiple ways to look at his comment. One of them of course being, the minister, an IITian by qualification, is being a smarty pant. And that his comment is condescending to Indians. Other way to look at it is, he is just stating the fact. Of course a follow up argument can be made;, so even if he is right, what is he as a minister doing about it? (In fact someone suggested, the youth workers of his party should take up the lead in cleaning India)

But as I said, beyond the politics of all this and the media mumbo jumbo, what can we as citizens do to change a mindset? To bring in some sanity and civic sense?

It's easier said than done and from the email that came last week from one our members that had Mr. Vijay Phanshikar going full cylinders on Nagpuri attitude, you can tell it's a herculan task.

Having said that, can we take some baby steps in that direction though? Can we start small instead of changing everything overnight with one magic wand?

Not to blow my own here, but last visit to Nagpur I tried something, that if nothing else made me feel good. I took my wife out for a morning walk on the West High Court road in Dharampeth. It was around 6:30 am and so there was hardly any traffic or even people on the road. There was though this one guy who was preparing 'Kande Pohe' and 'Tarri' smack in the middle of the road's cross-section. There were around 10 people, mostly young folks, surrounding him, waiting for Pohe to be prepared and consumed.

After the ritual of eating was done, I saw that everyone of the eaters, started throwing their paper plate on the road itself. There was a middle-aged women who was taking a parcel order, and she seemed to be from an educated background, and she too threw her paper right next to the stall.

The idea, apparently was, to throw the waste around and someone will definitely pick it up. In this case, the pohewala himself.

What struck me most was not the act of throwing itself, but how "given" this was? Like it was a norm. A regulation, if you will. No one looked remotely affected by this, including the poor guy who was making pohe and was probably going to collect the waste once he was done.

I told those people, much to the shock of my wife, that they give those waste plates to me. I would collect them and throw it in a trash nearby. One of the young dudes in the group even commented .."arey yeh to munna bhai hai".. I am guessing he was alluding to the movie Lage raho... (a movie, incidently made by a Nagpuri, btw)

Although I did have to endure some under the belt hits, I thought I saw some effect. Half the people did throw their stuff in a plastic bag the pohewala had. Other half of course ignored and went their way.

The point of all this is, that day, I could not change Nagpur or even 10 people, but I did change, I thought a few minds. I am hoping even if ONE of them starts NOT doing this stuff, that's a small win.

The incident left me in a state of minor satisfaction, although my wife did say this.."Don't try to be a neo-Gandhi, will you...?" (Oopsie..)

I know I was not being a Gandhi and I was being a smarty pant, but what the heck; made me feel good momentarily.

So what do you folks think? Do we have some ideas that we can use to start a 'Clean Nagpur, Green Nagpur' campaign? How best we can pass this on? Any champions out there who can take this up?

If you think you have good ideas, please pass it on either via emails or commenting on the post.

-/ACD

**

TGIF

Thank goodness its a Friday. And so how about indulging in some weekend levity?

What do you folks like best about Nagpur? It's greenery, it's laid-back attitude, it's samosas.. or just it's people?

Time to take a vote. Go for it folks. Show your true Nagpuri blood. The vote is on top-left-rail of the blog. You won't miss it.

Orange

So we are going Orange!

The color Orange is relevant to Nagpuris of all hue I guess. We have already made the NagpurFirst.org site Orange. So, keeping in tune with everything, this blog is going Orange too.

Nag River Rejuvenation

As some of you are already aware, Nagpur First has recently taken up an initiative to help restore and rejuvenate Nag River...(It is more of a 'nala' though).

A team of people in Nagpur and another team in Chicago is helping set up some initial ground work to take this effort forward.

We anticipate that this would be a multi-year, multi-dimensional undertaking and Nagpur First would seek dedicated team members to champion this. People with experience and knowledge on this subject are welcome to send in serious and constructive suggestions. Response and Comments on this post will be appreciated.

In view of this effort, Dineshji and I, met with Dr. Prakasam Tata at his residence yesterday in Naperville. Dr. Tata was kind enough to give us some insight in the work he did in the field of water treatment and related areas.

Recently Dr. Tata overlooked a project to salvage a 170-acre lake in his home town of Vizianagaram in AP. He worked in collaboration with US and UN agencies to get success on this project.

Dr. Tata worked at various levels in Research and Technical Management at Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, IL.

MWRC serves an area of 883 square miles (2,290 km2) which covers the City of Chicago and 125 suburban municipalities.
The District operates the largest wastewater treatment plant in the world, the Stickney Water Reclamation Plant in Stickney, Illinois, in addition to six other plants and 23 pumping stations

He is also the President of India Development Coalition of America (IDCA) , an organization, we are looking to seek guidance from on this project as they have some experience in this field. IDCA has worked extensively on Yamuna River rejuvenation in and around Delhi. We are already in touch with key members of this organization.

Mr. Amit Badiyani, on the other end, is co-ordinating efforts to work with key people from Nagpur, the folks who first suggested us the Nag River Rejuvenation project.(More details to follow).

We are indulging in more research and information gathering in coming weeks to have a good handle on this undertaking. We will be posting more Data and technical information as and when more progress is made. As again, your response with any information that can help us will be encouraged.

A start has been made and we hope to see Nag river transformed into a truly 'living river' in a few years.

As we gather more momentum on this, here's some fun stuff, members of Nagpur First blog readers can try. We would like you to suggest us a Name for this initiative.

Few pointers

1] The name should be short and relevant to the cause.

2] Negative connotations like Andolan and Bachao should be avoided

3] You can use either of the three languages (English,Hindi,Marathi) to come up, but sticking to the core essence

4] It should be constructive and positive in it's tone.


Some suggestions have alread been made, including..

START FISHING IN RIVER NAG

'Nag Nadi Utthapan Abhiyan'

NEAT - Nag river Accomplishment using Environmental Technologies

Nag River Development Project

Once we zero down to popular ones, we'll put an online vote too!

So readers, let your creative juices work full time or just pick the one you like best..


-A.C.Deshpande

Words and Action

In some sense we have been lucky to see India transform in many ways in recent times.

My father always used to tell me how, to get his first scooter he had to wait for a few years after booking it. To own a Bajaj Scooter, during those days, you had to pay a premium if you wanted to bypass the regular line of consumers. A classic case of low supply high demand. (Same was the case with telephones)

We have come a long way from having to slant the Bajaj Scooter in one direction and kick start it in early morning hours after several attempts. (The joke goes - 'that is why Bajaj did not venture into Airplanes. Who was going to slant them?'). In today's India we can simply show up into a showroom and come out with any vehicle we have the capacity to purchase.

But that's the material change. What about the mindset? Has that come along too? Thankfully yes, at least to some extent. We have moved on from the tight permit-licence-quota-raj time period to a new exuberant and confident India, being driven by a youthful and spirited generation. The overall optimism of New India is contagious to say the least.

Hopefully this optimism and positive energy manifests itself into something remarkable and fruitful for India. We may already be noticing signs of it in various aspects of the society.

Reminds me of an essay I read sometime back by Rediff.com's Amberish Diwanji. In that essay, Diwanji says

[..]India's worsening economic situation hit a nadir when the first Gulf War broke out in early 1991 and oil prices went through the roof. To the utter horror and shame of Indians, the Government of India had to fly India's gold reserves to the Bank of England as a deposit to ensure that India did not default on its international payments
Most Indian women wear a mangalsutra (a chain with some gold and a small pendant of gold or stone), and which is never removed unless the woman is widowed. It thus symbolises the health and wealth of the house. Sending Indian gold to Britain (the country that millions hold responsible for impoverishing India) was, clearly, deeply humiliating and unacceptable[..]

Clearly necessity is the mother of all inventions. India, just about 20 years back had to take a call. Should we or should we not open up? How far can old-school economy sustain us? How should we re-invent ourselves?

Almost 20 years down the line, we are all here and results are there to see. This is not to say that India has magically transformed and there are no more issues any more. Of course we have issues facing us left, right and center. Of course there are great number of people still not able to make ends meet. Of course 42% of our children are still mal-nourished. Problems galore.

The changes of early 90s was not one single magic bullet that would change everything. But it did set up a series of transformational changes that when taken in context will help us understand the New Emerging India. History probably can only be appreciated in hindsight.

As a Nagpuri phrase suggests- "gyan batna" is simple. But you got to wet your feet and take the plunge. Sitting on fence and talking is cheap. It comes at no cost. What counts is words followed by action.

Nagpur First will hope to leave it's foot prints on the new , positive, emerging India. It hopes to follow the words with action that has tangible results. It's not going to be easy. But challenges can be fun too..

Even as I type this, there has been some momentum on the Nag River Rejuvenation Project. It's still early days and more details will follow in subsequent posts. But there has been a start ...

An Idea

One of the most inspirational quotes of contemporary history has been ".. ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country."

These are JFK's timeless words as we all know. And these words inspired an entire generation of folks to join a movement; much similar to what we witnessed almost 45 years later when a "message of change" resonated with a vast majority of people across the US and the world.

Why did these messages click? What was in it, that made it work?

We think it was the moment itself. The timing, if you will. "An idea whose time has come, works" as they say. An idea is something that in most cases sparks with a conversation. And it grows into a bigger flame as more contributions are made.

Something similar happened to Nagpur First. It started as a simple conversation between two hard-core Nagpuris and now as you can see it's truly on it's way to becoming a much bigger movement.

But the work has only just begun. It's still nascent in it's form and shape with some baby steps taken. We need to nourish this small sapling and make it grow into a tall, handsome, robust,shady and green tree. As green as our dear Nagpur.

Nagpuris have a lot of passion and a lot of fire inside our belly. Now we need to channelize this fire into something constructive. Something bigger and greater than its own self. How each of us approaches is not relevant at this stage. We need to keep the big picture in mind. The picture being that of a 'Nagpur - A Global city by 2020'.

This blog and it's editorial team firmly believe, that this is a realistic goal and that if we all engage in a positive and constructive way, we can make it. We can Do It.

The Nagpur First blog will be our attempt to express and articulate various efforts and needs to achieve this goal. We will be looking for volunteers who can champion and lead causes close to their hearts. Something that will benefit Nagpur as a whole.

After all, we firmly believe that Nagpur deserves it's place under the sun and on the Global Map. And we shall overcome everything to get it there.

A sincere thanks from Team - Nagpur First to all who have joined and contributed to this mission so far. We hope to continue attracting more and more talent as we move ahead.

So Ladies and Gentleman, fasten your seat belts. We are about to embark upon a truly fruitful journey, that which will make our city, our Nagpur, a Global destination of reckoning by 2020.

- Nagpur First Editorial Team.