Am I in a bubble?

Every once in a while, confusion sets in... and when it does, it tends to be everything at once. This leads me to believe that confusion is more about a state of mind than it is in relation to specific things... Though I may be off the mark here... In any case, a little bit of introspection always goes down well in these situations!

So, perhaps, it is time to review a few things:

1. Why did I come to India? What was I thinking before I came? What was my world view? What was my idea of change? What inspired me? How? Why?
2. What did I actually end up doing? What have I learned? How have I and my ideas changed over the course of the five years that I have spent here?
3. What do I feel right now? What is calling me? Am I in a bubble? Where do I need to be?

Now, none of these are small questions. But I will have a go all the same.

1. Why did I come to India? What was I thinking before I came? What was my world view? What was my idea of change? What inspired me? How? Why?

I came to India after finishing my BSc in Environmental Policy with Economics. I had also completed several years of cultivating an anarchist, anti-system philosophy with radical green fringes. The City of London was the Heart of Evil and the whole transnational, capitalist elite that it represented was a part of a global network out to dominate the world and take humans away from the true path of liberation and freedom by putting them in little boxes where they live futile lives to earn the $$s so they can pay the bills and muddle about in little meaningless circles without ever knowing the Truth. People, instead, were caught up in self-centred, individualistic lives based on material gratification - and in the meanwhile, swathes were living meaningless lives, like robots. Linked to that, the last 50 years or so during which 'Development' arose as a fabricated story of the West/North (post-colonial powers) to exploit people and take their wealth, had undermined the rich cultures and sustainable livelihoods of people from the world over.

Hmmm... So there were a lot of people in the Rest (as opposed to West) of the world who had been oppressed, marginalised, exploited, disenfranchised, broken. My idea of my work probably had two main components: (a) seeking ecological restoration of the world; (b) bringing about radical transformation of societies to achieve this - keeping in mind the issues of power relations and social justice. I remember at the time thinking that in order to achieve the former, work would have to be done on the latter. I had this idea that if the people of countries like India could be sensitised to the ecological problems and socio-economic injustice that was making their lives worse; if they could be organised to raise their voice and get their issues onto the agenda, then there may be some scope for pressuring the rest of the world to modify its own behaviour. But there was a lot that I also knew I didn't know...

At the same time, i was particularly inspired by the ideas of direct, participatory, deliberative - maybe even ecological - democracy; of sustainable communities linked to their natural resource base, engaging in dialogue in order to make decisions and working things out. People taking control of their lives and enabling the full potential of human flowering to take place in a simple, natural and joyful way.

Equipped with these ideas and also lack thereof, I decided that I needed to go to India. There were many reasons for this, encompassing: food, philosophy, culture, abundance of NGOs, relatively safe and democratic, having lots of oppressed people, my family having been there before I was born. The idea was: go to India, find an NGO, spend some time working there, get a sense of what the work is, what development is, how does change happen, learn a good deal, and then make a plan about what to do next.

2. What did I actually end up doing? What have I learned? How have I and my ideas changed over the course of the five years that I have spent here?

Well, I came to India immediately after finishing my degree - perhaps a little prematurely. I came with a bunch of my good friends, my ex-girlfriend and a reasonably unclear agenda. Although I had planned to come later and on my own, the enthusiasm of all my friends about going together swept me up and I headed of a good deal earlier - without a clear plan and without enough money to last very long...

My initial travels took me to Kashmere, where I was completely absorbed in the beauty of nature and the complexity of my own self. Lazy days, soaking up sunshine on Dal and Niggin Lakes and experiencing the bizarre atmosphere of a place filled with soldiers, death, fear, hope, loss and such tragic beauty... Trekking up to Sonna Marg and Gangabal, jumping naked into a glacial lake, catching fish, seeing marmots, sitting on goat skins with bearded, turbaned men in a little tent (to shelter from the rain) and eating boiled eggs... it was a very powerful experience. The travelling continued down to Dharmshalla and then into Rajasthan until one by one my friends had all gone... leaving me to fend for myself. It wasn't long before I hit Udaipur.

I got stuck in Udapiur, in the late monsoon season. The lake and the sunsets over it blew my mind daily. The other travellers were great company - so many good conversations. I made several excursions to Eklingji and Ranakpur. I wrote letters that I never sent explaining how I felt. And then, one day, I asked my rickshaw driver friend, Jameel, if he knew of a place where I could volunteer - and he said Seva Mandir. So I said take me there... and he did.

After some formalities I was accepted and assigned the task of helping the organisation prepare impact indicators. ? ? ? No-one, including myself, seemed to really know what this ought to involve... Gradually things became clearer - the result of a lot of muddling through. The main part of my first three years can be summarised thus: finding out about all the different work the organisation does by talking to people, thinking about indicators, talking about indicators, developing indicators, revising indicators, developing tools to collect data, testing these tools, training people to collect the data, getting the data collected, developing data entry modules, getting the data entered, cleaning the data, analysing the data, preparing reports based on the data, presenting the data back to people.

On the side, I spent a lot of time reading about evaluation, organisational learning, participation and participatory approaches/methods (including PRA, PLA, Open Space, AoH, Appreciative Inquiry, etc.), community development and complexity theory - and I was continuously trying to implement what I was learning in my work. I also wrote various reports - annual, progress, donor, proposals, and so on... Then, three years later (wait a minute... did you say THREE?), I couldn't work with my new boss and asked to be transferred somewhere else... So I ended up in Delwara, a small town 30 kms outside of Udaipur where Seva Mandir was working on integrated community development, focusing on responsible citizenship and local self-governance....

I was there for a year and a half - and I still am in a number of ways. I learned a great deal here that I still haven't managed to put into words. After this I was asked to help the organisation put together its 6th Comprehensive Plan which has involved facilitating dialogue across the organisation on issues of strategy, culture and structure (though mainly the former two). This has been my icing on the cake and this is kind of where I am at today. Almost 5 years have elapsed since I came to India. I never had any idea that I would stay in one place for so long.

So how have I and my ideas changed? The hardest question! I suppose that I have learned a huge amount about all the things that I have worked on, read and written about: evaluation, learning, facilitation, community dynamics (and what holds people together), organisations, empowerment, how change happens in an organisational and community context, complexity. I think I have also learned a great deal about myself... though I am not completely sure what. I have definitely evolved as a person - become more balanced, capable, in control of myself - maybe even wise... In many ways, though, I know that I still have a long, long way to go!
i have also developed a whole host of interests that I knew nothing about before coming - like facilitation, like complexity theory, like story-telling, like organisational change... I have become able to articulate one of the things that I would like to see myself doing in the coming years: working on organisational change processes as a means to attaining larger scale positive social change. None of the above does justice to what I have learned...

But I am still a green, spiritual, anarchist at heart. And I am still concerned with radically transforming power structures in the world, attaining ecological balance, claiming social justice and creating a world where humans live in harmony with each other and nature and where the full potential of all people can flourish. So in that regard, I think I have just gone deeper, not really sideways.

3. What do I feel right now? What is calling me? Am I in a bubble? Where do I need to be?
Another tough question. My decision to go and study - which I continue to question intensely from time to time - seems to signal something about how I feel... and it seems that I have to try and decipher my actions in order to really understand what is going on. The application (after 5 years of just thinking about it) is a sign that something deep within me (something beyond my simple, conscious chattering) wanted to go from here - for at least a while - and probably, eventually, for a longer time. My choice of course, one that lets me spend another year here though, shows that I really am not quite ready to just leave this place.

I have unfinished business here in Seva Mandir, in Udaipur. And there is a need for continuity - not just in terms of the work that I do but also in terms of my own personal learning trajectory: there are ideas that I am struggling with, trying to make sense of and trying to put into practice... and the place where I am now seems as fertile ground to work on as anything else... A list of some of the things that I would like to work on here can be found at: learn2act4change.

The items in that list seem to be what is calling me... But am I really hearing the greater call or am I in a bubble... is this just the local call? Am I really doing justice to what I am and what I believe in? Am I really doing justice to my ecological and environmental concerns? Have I found a way of weaving these dimensions in to the work that I do or have I somehow lost touch with these things by getting all caught up in other dimensions of the work? Is the scale at which I am working significant enough to really address the concerns - is it too big? is it too small? How is what I'm doing tying in to what's going on in the world? Is this work in Delwara - soon to expand to other peri-urban settlements - actually meaningful in the face of the bigger changes that our world is under-going...

I suppose I don't have the answers. I suppose that my decision to enroll in the Participation Power and Social change course, somewhere deep inside me, is an attempt to try and connect to people and knowledge that will help me make sense of all these things. Maybe it will let me look at my bubble from the outside, get a sense of perspective on things, understand how what I am doing and have been doing up to now fits in to the bigger scheme of things, the multitude of efforts for change going on at all scales and in all places... and then, perhaps, I will be able to make a more informed decision about what really matters... to me... for the world... and, therefore what I should do in the coming years.