Between my application and acceptance of the William J. Clinton Fellowship for Service in India I have so much matter in my head to develop blog posts. A grilling interview procedure with the AIF (American India Foundation) staff or my dilemma’s’ about letting go of a job I loved to do, I can ramble endlessly.

I controlled myself and decided to share something special – my ‘aha moment’ during our much celebrated orientation week (my co-fellow Ned here explains why celebrated). I will only say, the fact that I will be sharing the next 10 months with an amazing set of 32 people bound by a common feeling of profound sensitivity; did to me what the orientation week was supposed to do.

Or may I say it did more?

I soon realised that while most of my co-fellows came in with interesting experiences related to development work in India and other foreign countries; my first week at AIF was lets say my first week to make sense of everything I will be doing going forward. As I tried to grasp new terms and gather my thoughts around interesting questions being shot at our speakers, I must admit; I almost found myself lost in a pool of w’o’nder and w’a’nder!

Thankfully, the ‘almost’ dissolved as quickly as it appeared, with the AIF site visit that was scheduled as part of our orientation week. I saw my name under the AYV batch list which was all great if only I had any clue what ‘AYV’ was! Luckily, fellow to the rescue Tanvi  patiently explained:

1) AYV is Adobe Youth Voices with one center located at Nithari area of Uttar Pradesh

2) They work with kids to empower them with creative communication skills, helping them express and address social concerns more effectively

Interesting.

When we reached the center, a short film produced by kids on gender inequality was screened for us. I doubt, I will do justice to how I felt with few adjectives. Simply put – the sheer brilliance of thought and work behind that film, stumped me. It was then arranged for us eight fellows to pair up and work with four different group of kids to produce any type of creative messaging on a social issue we choose as a team. I was paired to work with Ashwin who suggested to do something on heroes and their impact on kids.

I checked with one of the kids – “So who is your hero?”

The reply – “I am my own hero and if I need inspiration I find it within myself”

More brainstorming…

We finally decided to work on a poster (to save time) and send out a simple message – ‘Save the Girl Child’. However, simple is never easy and creating poster is not time-saving! To set things rolling, Ashwin came up with the brilliant idea to reflect women succeeding in all sectors, only if the girl child is allowed to live. The kids came up with a beautiful slogan that rhymed perfectly in Hindi:

“Kanya hai kal ki awaaz, Isko khone na do aaj” roughly translated to “A girl child is the voice of tomorrow, Do not let it get lost today”

Now to encourage equal participation, we asked the kids to sketch four instances envisioning women in roles perceived only for men. We got one professor teaching boys, one who had bought a house and car of her own, one police officer (changed to an army officer) beating up a terrorist and one doctor who was treating cancer.

It was during this exercise, I got acquainted with Roopa who sketched a beautiful doctor and after good five minutes managed to write the word ‘CANER’ on the top. I asked her to add the ‘c’ and write a slogan in Hindi while erase the now corrected ‘CANCER’, much to Roopa’s disappointment at my insensitivity.

Why I say insensitivity?

Well, when Roopa started writing the slogan, I realised she struggled to spell even the easiest word ‘mein‘, the ‘I’ of Hindi. I asked about her age, assuming she will say 12. But to my surprise she said 16 and I asked again asked an insensitive question “Then, how can you not even spell ‘mein‘?” She simply replied, “I only started studying few months ago. I was a domestic help before and you can also see my movie where I have told my story to understand.”

That two-minute conversation instilled in me many guiding principles, mentioned often but maybe not enough. As I start work Assam in the area of skill development and employment of domestic workers,a state I am culturally and socially alien to and a service sector much ignored, I am glad I am not as lost as I could have been. I don’t know my project yet but I know what I am going to do. I will unlearn few habits taught by the fast-track life I led and learn to:

1) Not easily Assume; 2) Listen first, Understand second and Question third; 3) Practice Empathy but with Patience and 4) Respect things I take for granted, for example the ability to form words.

Wrapping up the site visit story, I must say we were delighted with what we had produced in an hour. I noticed Roopa chose not to erase her word ‘CANCER’ I had assumed would look abrupt on the top.

I am glad she didn’t. I still have a big smile in my head when I think about it.