The Job.

Right now at work, it is noisy, windy and hot. Without AC, we have three fans going and two air coolers, that is, when the electricity is not out which happens for at least 2 hours a day. Ram (one of the Indian guys who work here) is currently wearing my green Old Navy flip flops around the office. I am sitting on the floor with my shoes off on a rug/mat with a “sitting desk.” (All of the desks were occupied today so I don’t get a chair.) It really doesn’t bother me except my feet fall asleep every 30 minutes. The sound in the air? Hindi, with a hint of English here and there. Now they are bringing around sweets (so sugary it gives you a headache) for one of the guys who is celebrating his 5th wedding anniversary. I lied, its cake. I am now holding it in one hand while typing. Plates and forks? Absolutely not. Still wearing my flip flops.

Working here has opened my eyes to the world of Indians. To start, we (when I say we I am referring to the 3 other international interns I work with) have about a 1 hour commute to work every day. One hour there, one hour back. I thought this was bad, riding a bus for 45 minutes, but two of the girls who work here ride a bus for 2 hours to get here. Seema leaves at 7 AM, after teaching a class at her home from 6-7, for a three hour bus ride here from her village. Talk about a commute!

The funny thing is that I don’t even work in Delhi either – and Delhi is a state here! I work in UP, aka Uttar Pradesh, which is the next state over. Outside of my office you can see the construction of a huge mall (named Angel Mega Mall of all horrific names). Then when you look straight ahead you usually see anywhere around 6 to 15 cows just hanging out in the heat. Then to the right there is a slum. Not a huge slum, but a slum none the less. I still wonder if the people will be kicked out of their homes once the mall opens… or maybe just told to relocate.

Now I should probably explain the foundation. Its official name is the Public Cause Research Foundation (PCRF). It is a recently opened branch of Parivartan, which is a larger NGO that works on spreading information about RTI. RTI stands for Right to Information, which was a national act passed in India in 2005. This act is actually quite impressive. As a measure that was intelligently designed by a group of bright lawyers, the act allows any Indian citizen to obtain information about well, anything. Say for instance the government is paving a road by your house. You can fill out the application and ask questions like, “How thick is the road supposed to be? Can I have a sample of the road material? Who is responsible for the road construction?” Then, the Public Information Commissioners (PIOs) are required to provide that citizen the information within a maximum of 30 days or they will personally be fined and part of their paycheck will go to the information-less citizen. Needless to say, the threat has been working.

India is full of corruption. I knew this coming here but I really had no idea how FULL OF CORRUPTION this country is. If you want your passport, you have to pay a bribe or you will never get it. Simple as that. So many government employees use their power to get more and more money. Back to the road example, a citizen may request this info because a road plan will say the road needs to be 6 cm thick, for example. Then, the builders or govt employee will negotiate to have the road be only 3 cm thick, and the government employee or officer will walk away with the unused money. Simple as that. Luckily, with RTI, citizens have been scaring these government officers into actually being accountable. Imagine that.

So PCRF, my branch of the NGO, is to plan the RTI Awards ceremony. This was the idea of one of the most famous RTI activists in India, Arvind, who is currently working in the other room. It is a foundation because he is funding the entire awards project from the money he won from an award. I also think a Bollywood star is contributing some as well. So we are going through every commissioner and appeal report that is related to RTI. Every one. I believe I heard the number 45,000 last week. It is insane. So we are evaluating every PIO to see in how many cases they supply information and in how many they deny information to the citizens. Then they will all be evaluated and winners will be chosen. There are awards for the two best Commissioners, two best PIO’s and one for the Best Citizen. This is where I come in.

After first sifting through the PIO reports for around the first 2 weeks, I now am being harnessed for my superior English skills – horray! So I am taking nominations sent in by citizens, either nominating themselves or another citizen, and I am writing their stories related to RTI. Then these stories are published in newspapers all around the country, translated into any of the 27 languages spoken here. I was shown one of my stories in a Hindi paper just yesterday (although there is no way for me to know it is mine because I cannot read Hindi). But Ill believe them for now.

As for the people and dynamic of the foundation, a lot of it has been very eye-opening. Ill begin with lunch, probably the most interesting piece to share. When we eat lunch (somewhere around 2 PM everyday) we eat all together. There are no cubicles to eat in and certainly no cafeteria. People do not pair off into their friend groups. It’s a big lunch fest together. The best part is, everyone eats off of everyone else’s plate. Now if anyone knows me, they know that I love to eat other people’s food. Indians take it to a whole new level. There is no “hey, can I try a bite?” you just eat it off their plate. Sometimes I think some people don’t bring or buy a lunch at all and just other people’s food. Once, Hannah (the girl from Poland I work with) bought two Samozas in the morning to eat for lunch (they are like a bigger friend potato dumpling). Bad description I know but you can all google it. So she brought two and we were sitting down to eat. She was eating one, and I had a bite or two of her second one, just small bites though. Then one of the guys who works here who was sitting to the left of me (Hannah was to my right) picked up the Samoza and took a bite. This was normal that he was eating her food without asking of course. But then he kept eating it and then finished the entire thing. I just stared at him shocked in my head. He ate half her lunch in 4 bites! So for those of you who would have punched him then and there, I think you can understand how eating here is VERY different.

As for the rest of the people, everyone is very nice. Everyone jokes about how Amit (one Indian guy) loves Dennis (the intern from Hong Kong). They LOVE gay jokes here. Appropriate ones of course.

Then we also have a guy, Mehtab, whose entire job is to make tea. He gets lunch as well, but mostly just tea. So he makes everyone a baby cup of chai in the morning and in the afternoon. Chai here is Indian tea with lots of milk and LOTS of sugar. That’s why I think we only drink a small tea-cup’s worth at a time. In general, labor is just so cheap here though that having a cook and people cleaning your home or even a driver is normal. One more thing about working too is that although us interns do not need to work Saturdays, everyone else works Saturdays here. The entire office. And that doesn’t mean you get overtime. Sometimes they do Sundays as well if the boss thinks we need to get more done. Indians are hard workers, that is for sure.

That pretty much sums up work. Speaking of work, I should get back to work. Update coming soon on my most recent trip to Ajmar and Pushkar, though!