Eating is an agricultural act - Wendell Berry

Monday, March 05, 2007

pre-cursor to 'mi lord'

one stretch of street community we work with was issued a 48 hour clear-out notice on feb 28th.
on mar 1st, the BMC (bombay municipal corporation) held a public lottery to issue the tenants their new houses in a location which is 20+ kms from their current location.

the issue was timing. since it was so close to the end of the academic year, we felt that it would make sense to defer till mid april.
the key to this was that every resident was keen on relocating and no one wanted to continue their miserable lives on the streets.

so we spent 28th feb evening to night in garnering the support through a signature campaign. it was really a special effort with the team from work bonding with the locals. a lot of our older children too were instrumental in collecting these signatures.

so here i was, like a general at the battle scene, rallying the troops. making calls, assigning roles, wedging out the stubborn, handling the money, motivating folks, playing out multiple scenarios in my mind, walking up and down surveying.
that is exactly how i felt. massive ego feeling. guess the moment was so huge and so new, that it is predictable. just a little bit ashamed.
made me also feel about how eager people are for leadership.

click here to see news report.

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