2004: If a Child gets a bell

If a Child gets a bell,

(Past Forward – II)

If a Child gets a bell, it will keep on irrethemically noising it and it also enjoys such sound. Like a bell, we also given with time and we also noising it in the name of some activities. Whether it is pleasing or not, the prime question is how many of us are enjoying it? When we are working for common cause, such question values more.

Reflection process will help us to graduate in to next levels. When thinking about graduation, I feel it is also essential to have some extent of delearning and a sense of openness to observe and react in the self-graduation process.

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served Tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

Periodically (Say, retreat like event) I’m trying to reason out the self with such tools. Probably I think, it helps like a break in a vehicle, it regulates every thing in me and making me to be in stream of comfort.

Before going in to the details, I just want to quote the words from the book of My experiment with truth, written by Mr. M K Gandhi, “If anything that I Write in these Pages Should strike the reader as being touched with pride, then he must take it that there is something wrong with my quest, and that my glimpses are no more than a mirage. Let hundreds like me perish, but let truth prevail. Let us not reduce the standards of truth even by a hair’s breath for judging erring mortals like myself” I’m also forwarding the same massage for my report too.

1. Mun Kathai Surukkam

I’m Janakiraman, native of Triuttani (Near Chennai), presently executing experimental project on working with panchayats in Batlagundu block.

§ About family

My father is a Banker, mother is homemaker and younger brother is Law Graduate. They are the Oxygen to my life. Till now they have given complete freedom and holds great trust on me. Obviously it regulates me to be more responsible.

§ About Academics 

After finishing my Pharmacy graduation, I had my PG in Public administration. Then I went through Program in Development Management at Tata – Dhan Academy (TDA). In my academic journey, I can say that the TDA life made significant change in to me. It impacted my way of observing / perceiving the society.

§ Why I’m in DHAN?

I should not say it is only because of serving to the poor I’m here. The prime reason is its professionalism and the culture with which the space for learning rooted well. My interest in Public Services also played major role to find me here.

§ This is me

I have very common interest areas. The menus of my characters are: I’m addicted with reading books & listening music, little bit lazy, shy, calm, weak in English, celebrating nature, being with friends, non - sportive, loving to visit Siva temples, attempting Kavitahi and keeping sense of nonsense.

2. Looking back the year, 2004

After winning several archery contests, the young and rather boastful champion challenged a Zen master who was renowned for his skill as an archer.

The young man demonstrated remarkable technical proficiency when he hit a distant bull's eye on his first try, and then split that arrow with his second shot.

"There," he said to the old man, "see if you can match that!" Undisturbed, the master did not draw his bow, but rather motioned for the young archer to follow him up the mountain.

Curious about the old fellow's intentions, the champion followed him high into the mountain until they reached a deep chasm spanned by a rather flimsy and shaky log. Calmly stepping out onto the middle of the unsteady and certainly perilous bridge, the old master picked a far away tree as a target, drew his bow, and fired a clean, direct hit.

"Now it is your turn," he said as he gracefully stepped back onto the safe ground. Staring with terror into the seemingly bottomless and beckoning abyss, the young man could not force himself to step out onto the log, no less shoot at a target.

"You have much skill with your bow," the master said, sensing his challenger's predicament, "but you have little skill with the mind that lets loose the shot."

I know, theoretical knowledge is not enough and those are not the ends to serve the purpose. We can’t learn swimming in correspondence course. Ultimately, the real talent is being able to apply our skills in unstructured real time situation - without fear, hesitation, or doubt.

Always, the mind can work with us, or against us. So, there also has to be a balance between mind and body to keep the mind open and curious to face real time situations. Aiming and trying to practice such balance could be the perfect Saathana 

In the year 2004, I’m experienced with different real time situations to perform multi disciplinary roles. The space provided by the organization helped me to check my skills with real time situations and translating it in to experience.

§ Reengineering work - The Prime role

My business is very simple. It is just mutating the genes of democratic system to incorporate ethical democratic ingredients. In brief such reengineering work seems simple & just 11 word work. But devil will be sitting in details.

The present Panchayat system resembles just like the above picture. The community is struggling to pull the Development Vehicle with Square wheels. It is so unnatural (at least in this point of time) to make an ideal society, which is corrupted for the past 1000 yrs (from the entry of middle Asian community in India) When the whole world going towards individualism, the villages also changing their colors, no more it has, as shown in Tamil films with vellandhi character (Open / Positive / Adaptive or some thing like that).  Selfishness is becoming as part of our culture (after all, the repeated habit of majority community named, culture). But as development organization, we are keep on stressing for communal sociality with the principles of mutuality and trying to build institutions with alternative value framework, which the common community feels irrelevant.

But such challenges make our work more interesting / meaningful and keeping us to have strategic social marketing skills and to develop instruments to make desirable change in the system.  

With respect to my work, our team is assuming that, Functional groups (Village level Homogeneous groups) were the trump card to kick the democratic transitional process. We promoted such groups and about 30% of the groups were actively working the Panchayat system.  We also have an idea that, not to introduce Micro finance component in it, assuming that it might divert the main focus and it is not necessary when our location is saturated with kalanjiam program. The devil we have to face is how to keep the functional group vibrancy in higher level. Being in a group for common cause, the benefits to individuals get marginalized. It results in loose excitement among them.

In this year we demonstrated People owned Micro planning in our working panchayats. The experience is highly enriching and it helped us to evaluate the community dynamics, their idea of development and their priorities. Being it is first experience it took huge time to document it and bring out the micro plan document.

We also conducted capacity building programs for Panchayat representatives & people functionaries (PF) it is worth full investment but the concern factor is the turnover and IPI (Intra - Performance Inequalities) of PF.

Under Drought Mitigation Project we ware planed to give Rs. 50000 as revolving fund to a Village Panchayat via District collector (to ensure accountability) and they can use it for any necessary activities and latter they can reimburse it in revolving fund a / c. the idea seems simple and easy to implement. But it created its own O² (Operational Obstacles) first it took enough time for us to find the way of doing it. Then when it was given to District administration, due to the speed of Government machine it also consumed time. Single simple event took almost eight months to serve its purpose.

For the past four months I took additional responsibility to look after Panchayat project at Kadamalai block. Such responsibility built my confidence and while comparing these two contexts (Kadamalai and Batlagundu) my idea on PRI getting more clarity.

In this year I was associated with People academy both as Faculty and trainer. I always enjoy teaching / training. I feel more comfortable with that job. In this year I took a course to People Functionaries on PRI & Development, I also took some sessions in Leadership & ToT. Those are quit interesting moments to check my ability in transformation of knowledge.       

As Tata – Dhan Academy Alumni member, I involved in releasing of Academicus Journal from our alumni association. It is memorable incident working as editorial board team member. As we all are amateur journalist, the interest and support given by Prof. Ranjith Guptha and Mr. Kumar (Ex. Officio faculty facilitator) in this regard, really kept us in the line of touch. We made severe mistakes in the first attempt due to lack of time, we didn’t have wider consultation. Being it is the first time, we took those as learning. And we are interested to position the journal in higher standard in the development media. We hope that, the coming days will guide us.

There is a distinct difference in between what is good for the common and what is preferred by the community. By synchronizing in any point the above said two aspects, we can synergies our outputs. Such synchronization needs some common phenomena to follow. From my past experience, I found that, there are three principles evolved as thumb rules in this regard (at least with respect to me).

§   Keeping open Mind – in all aspects 

There was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such bad luck," they said sympathetically. "May be," the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed. "May be," replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. "May be," answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. "May be," said the farmer.

Yes, being in experimental project such attitude pronounces more meaning.

§   Conscious on natural growth

A martial arts student went to his teacher and said earnestly, "I am devoted to studying your martial system. How long will it take me to master it."

The teacher's reply was casual, "Ten years."

Impatiently, the student answered, "But I want to master it faster than that. I will work very hard. I will practice everyday, ten or more hours a day if I have to. How long will it take then?"

The teacher thought for a moment,
"20 years."

In most cases when I’m forcing to incorporate some aspects both in the field and in my local team it reacts with no meaning. So now I learnt every thing has its own way of natural growth. The only thing we can do is, facilitating it, consciously observing and reacting with the flow of those things.  

§   Knowing how to KISS

When we are working with community, we tend to incorporate our intellectual knowledge in our work and making the aspects more complex, which a common man can’t own it. 

Two men were arguing about a flag flapping in the wind. "It's the wind that is really moving," stated the first one.

"No, it is the flag that is moving," contended the second.

A Zen master, who happened to be walking by, overheard the debate and interrupted them. "Neither the flag nor the wind is moving," he said, "It is MIND that moves."

The Zen master is using 'move' in the sense of 'contemplate.' The flag and wind do not think about moving they simply do as the patterns of nature dictate, but it is our mind, that contemplates. The mind is the center of every thing. The reason outing nature of our mind, could be the cursing element with which we all bound.

This year we demonstrated Panchayat level participatory Development document preparation (multi year micro plan) in all working Panchayats. In that micro plan we incorporated several techno – managerial tools to analysis the system and interpret the real community need but the community felt good about it but they did not felt the sense of ownership. It is a matter of choosing to,

Go with what the local people knows or pinching at high standards with our identity even if the community doesn’t aware what is going on. I feel both are not right. Like Buddha, We need to find a middle way in between these two options. A proper educative process has to be followed to transform the ideas in to the local soil.

It needs fundamental basic sense in our approach. In Japan there is a phrase called, Shoshin, which means ‘beginner's mind’ it's hard to keep our mind and practice pure in its fundamental sense. The goal of practice is always to keep my beginner's mind. Both in personal life and in professional practice, being in Shoshin makes more meaning.

It also important that to know how to KISS (Keeping It Simple and Smart) of our system. By which the understanding and building on the subject becomes more easy.   

The above said three principles are the talisman for me to check my efforts and process to make its significance.

3. Impressions:

Daily countless incidents were happening in our life. Every aspect will radiate some sort of impression in to us. Some are memorable and lasting forever. While rewinding my mind I’m also blessed with several such impressions.

·    I think that was April 2004, External review member came for Panchayat Project review to my location. Along with him Mr. R. Seeni and Mr. Singarayar also came. I need to present project status report to them. I prepared an 11^th hour report and shared it. After the event, R Seeni commented to me, “Did you forget the report writing skill learnt in academy? How can you produce such report with hard readability / elegance?” (I’m not able to express with the exact words, but it spells the meaning) the comment with the blend of concern really disturbed me. I felt my mistake. After that incident, I took conviction to pinch high levels in my out puts to my possible extents.

   

·    The next event is happened recently. When Mr. Selvakumar (my FRC accountant) said that in the last year accounts audit he got two audit comments from my bills. It is purely of my carelessness, I felt very bad about me. This event regulated me to be more cautious and take care in micro things.

·    I should say about my program leader. (Mr. Singarayar) He is my mender. His collaborative style of leadership is really builds open and free working environment and with that it makes me to pinch higher. His involvement and interest to learn new thing also quite good to follow. We had several discussions mostly on community behavior and rural dynamics. Every discussion provided a great sense of understanding the society. In communication aspects, he reminds me Ke. Rajanarayanan, an Eminent Tamil writer / literate from nellai region writer of famous Gopalla purathu makkal novel. He speaks from experience and communicates all complex theory in people language. It is his greatness to learn.

·    In Theni region, I’m amazed to observe the perfusing efforts of Mr. Karuppusamy. His systematic view and approach really triggers my way of doing. May be, their will be difference of opinion on omni – systemization and output centered process. But the interesting point is that, the efforts put for such operations really clapping one. In these days, I’m having several occasional discussions with him. Every discussion matters worth to me. 

·    Same with Mr. Kadhar (MD, VKV) His down to earth approach, experience and involvement in the work, challenges me to improve myself to match any sort of situations. I feel much comfortable to working with him.

·    I was observing Mr. Ramachandran closely (he is my room mate too) he is a perfect work leader. He is pakka in his work. He never gets tired / denies doing his work with optimal perfection. Such lasting energy rejuvenates me. 

·    From my associates (espy, Ponnambalam and Ananthakrishnan) with their practical / day-to-day experience, I learnt a lot. They are confirming my idea that, Self-motivated teams never need any thing except challenges.

·    It always joyful to share our expressions with like-minded people. Fortunately I got good friends circle with in DHAN who has same attitude of mine. Most of them are Alumni of TDA. Apart from them Raja manigandan (BVK), Vijay Kumar (KPVK), Kannan & Thangapandi (People Academy) were having same level of literary taste (In Tamil lit) the moments sharing with them are great refreshment. 

·    In 2004, I got opportunity to participate in three training programs (on Panchayat raj, Bio –Sand filter and Mutuality - all the three were a kind of Triple T (Training To Trainers) Training) it built good content knowledge and the methodology they followed is very interesting to me to enhance my way of Knowledge transfer as trainer.   

·    The next person, about him, there is nothing new to say from my side. But I really wonder about our E D how or where he gets the time to do every thing. Whenever I had discussion with him, I’m getting positive energy and my attitudes pinches in higher levels to perform. He provides various dimensions for a single component and he frames out what to we choose & what is our niche in it. It activates me to think beyond and aiming for excellence. Both as my teacher in academy and as E D, he is the person who impacted me heavily.

·    In this year some media agents also created waves in to me. I read “freedom struggle” by Bibin Chandra third time, it disturbed me about two nights. “Pitthan” written by Abdul Rahman and “Kalladi” an article written by Sujatha also forced different dimensions of thinking on society. I have impressed by “The last samurai” (English) and “Iyerkkai” (Tamil) movies.

4. Patterns in Personal life:

Bachelor life has its own freedom with constrains. I forced to learn cooking (Thanks to Ramachandran, my room mate & my master in cooking) now I’m able to cook some food items with minimum eatable taste (visit once to our room).

Knowing new skills always builds more confidence. Bachelor life thought me cash flow management skill too, being there is no one to question on cash utilization, I confused to manage money in early days. Apart from the money given to my family, most of the months, about 40% of my salary went to unknown expenditures. But now I regulated it, the cash governance is under my control.

Now except washing the cloths all other bachelor life aspects are interesting to enjoy. At the same time I should accept that some times I’m experiencing emotional disturbance because of missing my family members. 

§   Emotional Quake:

By March 2004 my mother got operated in her backbone and it was really panic. It is full of my younger brother and father’s greatness that, they have taken care of every thing. Being I am 500 Km away and also taken some responsibilities in my project, my support is very meager in that situation. My mother is expecting my presence. Some times, I feel guilty about me that I’m not serious about my family. I think I’m not matured enough to balance such sort of emotional quake situations.       

5. Conclusion (But not the End)

Every person has some good thing, for me to learn and follow. “…Entharo Maahanu Baavalu; Anthariku Vanthanamu…” (Dear Colleagues of AP, is it right pronunciation? If not, please forgive me) I always try to observe and incorporate those good aspects in to me. But most of the times I’m failing in it. It may be because of my lack of integrity. Even then, I’m always keeping the trials.

In this year my conviction towards Zen Philosophy got concretized. I should not say I’m practicing the principles of Zen, but I feel the principles are regulating my way of Think PaD (Thinking, Planning and Doing). How the things should go are decided already, only our part is to play and enjoying it. Flowing with the principle,“…Aven arulale aven thaal vanangi…” (From Thrivaasagam, its approximate meaning is, because of his grace, admiring his greatness)

Once a Student went to a Zen master and he asked to teach about art of living.

The master smiled and called him to PLAY Chess.

The game started and in one moment the Zen master supposed to win in the very next move. But master made an idiotic move, by which the game got turned.

And in one moment student got chance to give perfect check to master and the student won the game.

With winning pleasure he faced the master.

And Master replied, “You bullshit, I asked you to Play the Game– not to win or lose” Student smiled and got the meaning for what he came.

I never try to win the game. Playing it and being part of the game it self is great thing. Because, development is not a destination to reach, but a journey to continue. Like Jonathan Livingston Seagull,

Life means flying; flying it self is life,

Flying.., flying & keep on flying…

(…Thodarum)

Note:  An opinion, before putting full stop:

Why can’t we discuss about common things regularly in virtual media? Let this event be the starting point, jkram02@rediffmail.com is my e – mail ID, Expecting your reflections / thoughts, which can help to me to improve and energize our spirit.