New Delhi: Beyond tourism

Doug, Niraj (cook), Vivak (cook's assistant)
All one needs to visit New Delhi

When we travel to South Asia, we are happy when we can detour to New Delhi to visit Snehal and her family. We enjoy their company and we learn so much. This time was no different.

We flew from Paro to Kolkata arriving at 9:30 a.m. We debated if we could make a 11:45 a.m. flight to New Delhi. We had to clear immigration, retrieve our baggage, go from the international terminal to the domestic terminal, check in, and go through security. The IndiGo fare was too good for us not to take the risk. We cleared security, bought lunch, and still had an hour before boarding. Who would have believed this was Kolkata?

IndiGo check in (Air Asia travelers weep with envy)

A detour to show what I meant by Air Asia reference

Snehal took us to SOIL School for Inspired Leadership, where she is a faculty member. SOIL "aims to build competent, compassionate and inspiring leaders." The mood was somber. Two days before a riot occurred at a Suzuki factory, the general manager was murdered, and others employees were severely injured.. Several faculty members had been consulting with management, including the murdered manager, and labor to resolve tensions at the factory. The faculty consultants, whose values reflect SOIL's goals, were Indians with senior management experience and rooted in the nation's culture.Labor-management violence is not uncommon and may be blamed on economic disparity's. In a conversation at SOIL caste was also mentioned as a possible contributing issue. 

Conversation with a few SOIL faculty

The faculty members were still processing the general manager's murder and the conditions of injured workers. I hope that someday they can step back, review the consultation meetings, reflect on what they learned about consulting, and write their observations. The story of the consultation at Suzuki and their reflections is a story worth telling.

In the afternoon we went to the Rural Development Programme, a project of the Navjyoti Foundation. There Saina R. Bharachi told us the story of Navjvoti's founding and development. Kiran Bedi, India's first woman police officer, started out by opening detox centers for drug addicts at police stations under her jurisdiction. As the detox program was implement the need for other programs to combat poverty and empower India's poor became apparent, The number and type of projects grew, including a community college. With a google search you can learn more about the Navjvoti. What you may not learn is that: it uses data to study its impact and take actions to improve its effectiveness, it empowers women to use their voice to influence local governance; it engages volunteers in a country that does not have a reputation for volunteerism. Volunteers are drawn in by Dr. Beid's reputation, those served by Navjyoti, and others inspired by the foundation's work.If we lived in India we would volunteer in a heartbeat.

Court yard - bricks are made from mud
(attractive, but not long lived)

Garden - we drank juice made from its organic lemons

Library

Model created by program participants -
challenges to the well-being of women persist

Another - laws made, broken, adjudicated

After a full day we went to dinner at the nearby 56 Ristorante Italiano. The service was attentive - they even adjusted my fruit drink to make it less sweet. Before we left we were given an evaluation form - and in our favorite Indian tradition, the waiter took it and read it and shared it with the other waiters. 

Tilting glasses for the boys' drinks

The next morning we we headed to Central Market for shopping. Shopping with Snehal is a treat - she has an eye for what looks good and is reasonably priced. Since the market's stalls don't open until 11 we started at FabIndia. It was our first and last stop. I went through stacks of tops - some I rejected immediately, others were "maybe," and others definite "yes.". As my pile of "yeses" grew reassigning the "maybes" was easy. I went in intending to buy three tops and walked out with seven. Doug added to his wardrobe as well.  Now before we go to India we check out the locations of Apollo for drugs and FabIndia for clothes.

Shopping in Central Market

A final note on Central Market. We picked up momos from a stand - sadly they weren't even close to the Bhutanese version,