You can also read through other peoples blogs where they are publishing their experiences directly from the train. For example:

• Hope and justice in an unfair world
• Ideas galore - The Hindu
• Tata Jagriti yatra: Be the change, you want to see - Voice of India
• The new face of social enterprise in India (part 1)
• TJY at Kanyakumari
• THE STORMING IS DONE, THE NORMING BEGINS
• Tata Jagriti Yatra ~ A strange Journey to discover Myself… Brief Moments
• Megha Mandavia account of Tata Jagriti Yatra

There’s a great new video you can watch showing photo stills of moments from the yatra to the backing tune of the yatra anthem. Here it is:

The following is a audio only youtube video by an organisation called Cape Fairwell made in the village of Tilonia in Rajasthan. The main presenter is called Vicky Long.

An interview with Jude Kelly, the Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre in London who traveled on with the yatra for the second time in 2009:

An amusing dramatisation / ad, made by Yatri’s on the train for the Dubbawala organisation. Worth a watch:

Raj Krishnamurthy is one of the organisers of the yatra. This is a short video of him addressing the entire family of the Tata Jagriti Yatra journey:

Kaustav

I hope you enjoy the interview and would love to get your feed back via comments on this post. Hit the play button below or download the MP3 file to your system for portable listening on your favourite MP3 device.

I’m going to try and summarise events from the last few days in one blog entry to save some time. Enjoy!

Day 7

Ramaswami Elango is a social entrepreneur with passion and flare. To say that he is an amazing speaker is to do him some serious injustice. Elango has worked with many national committees on rural development, was recently awarded “Ashoka Fellowship” and has been invited by the UK and USA government to study local governance. The village of Kuthambakkam is in Tamil Nadu (India), with a population of 5000. A few years ago, the village was fraught with poverty, inflicted with violence against lower castes (dalit) and women, had 35% of its population involved in illicit liquor brewing and lacked infrastructure. Today, the village is transformed, has good basic infrastructure in place, and the villagers are now busy building an environment-friendly local economy based on a cooperative model, producing their basic necessities (like food and clothing) within their own village.

Our journey to Elango’s model village in Chennai was challenging. Although located close to a national highway, access in to the village was via a network of narrow village road. Navigating through these in nine large Volve buses was hairy and severely dangerous. We all got quite shock on the bus which I was traveling in when the bus in front of us snagged a live overhead electric cable and ripped it clean off. The cable ended up draped across the left wing mirror of my bus and hung there precariously directly over the exit door of the bus. After much worrying, and urgent requests for all yatri’s to remain seated and not go anywhere near the cable, a local villager managed to get word through to the electricity sub-station controller who must have turned the power off and we eventually managed to nudge the cable away with a large stick. With the commotion over, we proceeded in to Kuthambakkam where we all alighted from our buses and gathered in the village panchayat to listen to perhaps one of the most passionate, animated and totally amazing role models we have met so far on the yatra. Elango came across very much as the peoples man, someone who lived with his village and worked with people around him. He understood the day to day hardships and challenges of rural villagers in India. His zeal to lift villagers out of abject poverty and attain a basic sense of dignity and pride in their home and village struck a chord in the heart of all yatri’s that was so strong that during the Q&A session following his talk, Elango was barraged with a never ending stream of questions from the yatri’s. We were all very fortunate to get a personal tour of Elango’s village where he showed us how local men and women, all highly skilled and trained , were busy producing essential items of hardware to keep their villege going. Items such as gas burner elements, piping and all manner of other metal work. The word sheds were all extremely well equipped with machinery to grind, file and bend metals and wood. All in all, it was a very impressive set up.

Day 8

Bangalore certainly lives up to two of it’s reputations very well. Firstly, it really is India finest example of high tech development. The city if developed and strung with hundreds of ultra modern and vast techno and business parks hosting major world class India and International business all primarily in the high tech space. The second reputation that definitely do ring true with the grid-locked traffic. The atmosphere in Bangalore has got to be one of the most eye wateringly polluted environments I have ever been in. The traffic jams are so extensive that it would be faster walking, if it wasn’t for the fact that pedestrian walk ways are practically unheard of in India and negociating your way through Bangalore traffic by footed, weaving in and out on the side of  a side-walk-less road is really taking your life in to your own hands! It was, however, encouraging to see major progress taking place on the Bangalore metro which has yet to open but much of the construction work appears to be at a fairly advanced stage, and boy, if there’s a city anywhere in India that desperately needs a better public transport system, it has got to be Bangalore.

The Yatri’s were treated to a talk by three role models Harish Hande, S. Rajagopalan and Madhura Chatrapathy. Each came on stage one at a time to give their talk. Harish Hande co-founded SELCO INDIA, a social venture to promote sustainable technologies in rural India. With its headquarters in Bangalore, SELCO has 25 branches in Karnataka and Gujarat. Today, SELCO has installed solar lighting systems in over 85,000 households in the rural areas of these states.

Established in May 1993 at Bangalore by Dr. S. Rajagopalan, TIDE (Technology Informatics Design Endeavour) is devoted to promoting sustainable development through technological interventions. It identifies economically rewarding, environment friendly technologies invented in India’s research institutions, and develops them into successful enterprises. TIDE focuses on those technologies which are suitable for the rural environment, address energy issues and build rural entrepreneurs. Amongst the many technologies promoted by TIDE are energy efficient stoves. These have been developed for various informal industry sectors like Ayurvedic medicine preparation, rubber band making, areca boiling, textile processing, sericulture etc.

The third speaker is Madhura Chatrapathy who represents a women focused angle in entrepreneurship. Madhura, as she would like to be called, wears two caps - as a Social Entrepreneur and a Business Entrepreneur. She is a food technologist by training with Post Graduate Diplomas in Marketing & Advertising and Journalism to her credit, both with distinction. As a businessperson she set up her business of a de-hydration plant in 1981 with know-how from CFTRI for Tamarind Powder. After two years of struggle she diversified into a range of de-hydrated food ingredients that today meet international standards and caters to international markets like North America, Europe, Australia and Japan and also domestic market that includes multinationals. Today, Food Associates Bangalore, is a leading customized food ingredients producer and a sourcing agent for a range of ingredients for its very discerning customers. FAB’s B2B operations mean - processing against order, no inventory pile up and no major problems with marketing. As a Social Entrepreneur, she has initiated and built up many institutions including Association of Food Scientists & Technologists (AFST), Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Karnataka (AWAKE) of which she was the Founder President and also Asian Centre for Entrepreneurial Initiatives (ASCENT).

It was clear from the reactions of the women contingent who were packed out in the hall to hear Madhura speak that she was a inspitation to all who listened to her and respresented a strong female role model for all other women to look up to - especially those with aspirations to become entrepreneurs and make it big in a business world that is still largely male dominated.

Day 9

Hyderabad is home to the Nandi Foundation. a not-for-profit organization, may soon find an entry into the Guinness Book of World Records for setting up the world’s largest kitchen. Spread over two acres with a built up area of 14,000 sq ft, this biggest central kitchen located at Uppal in Hyderabad caters mid-day meal to 880 schools in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, benefitting 150,000 children on all school days.

Naandi Foundation, formed in 1998, was conceived by the former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and was set up as a public charitable trust. When the Andhra Pradesh Government began a mid-day meal scheme to reach 7,500,000 poor children in 70,000 schools across the state, it chose Naandi and entrusted it with the gigantic task of preparing and distributing the food.

Naandi’s operations are expanding to Madhya Pradesh & Delhi very soon. Leena Joseph was honored with the Manava Seva Dharma Samvardhani Award for excellence in social service in March this year at the Guru Nanak Bhavan in Bangalore.

We actually have a member of the TJY organising team who actually works for Nandi and so we’ll be posting some more information on this amazing foundation soon.

Day 10

Bhubhaneshwar. I’m going to update this part of the blog tomorrow at it’s very late here. Here’s a little teaser. We all got chucked off our train at 2.30am and had to sleep on the platform. We also traveled almost ten hour by bus which wiped most of us out pretty badly.

Day 11

Jamshedpur/Tata Nagar. I’ll update this tomorrow when I have some more time.

Aravind Eye Care Hospital is an ophthalmological hospital with several locations in India. It was founded by Dr.Govindappa Venkataswamy. The hospital is named after Sri Aurobindo, one of the 20th century’s most revered spiritual leaders.

Aravind is more than an eye hospital. It is a social organisation committed to the goal of elimination of needless blindness through comprehensive eye care services. It is also an international training centre for ophthalmic professionals and trainees who come from within India and around the world. It is an institute for research that contributes to the development of eye care and to train health-related and managerial personnel in the development and implementation of efficient and sustainable eye care programmes. Aravind also is a manufacturer of world class ophthalmic products available at affordable costs.

We were joined in the hospital auditorium by joint director Dr. Ravindran and by video conference from their Madurai branch by joint director Dr. Arvind. Dr. Ravindran gave us a rousing talk about the history, ethos and outreach of the hospital. His talk resonated a lot with the gathered yatri’s and resulted in a standing ovation towards the end. One of the most amazing things that stood out for me about the hospital was its utilisation of the most advanced forms of technology. Their hospital network is interlinked by a multi-mega bit wireless network that has a 75Km range. The hospital provides mobile medical units. Fully self contained optical diagnostics units that can travel in to the darkest depths rural India and bring advanced, world class optical treatment and diagnosis to millions of people who would otherwise not have access to such treatment and care.  The buses can transmit video and photos back to a main hospital and within minutes receive an in depth expert analysis. They are also equipped with equipment to carry out minor eye surgery.  The hospital is free to extremely poor people and treatment is heavily subsidised for all those who can afford to pay, making the Arvind Eyecare Hospital one of the most socially accessible and medically advanced hospitals in India today.

We all gathered at the memorial and took in the scene across the vast expanse of water, a place where two seas and an ocean meet. Five minutes of quiet contemplation was had within the meditation room to the rhythmic chant of  “ohm” followed by a visit to the memorial itself, an imposing yet delicately designed structure housing a life size bronze statue of Swami Vevekinanda.

The day concluded with a beach front media event hosted by CNBC TV18, during which a panel discussion was heald and a Q&A session was conducted to allow the audience to ask questions about the topics raised during the show. The recording was made with only one re-take sequence and ended on schedule. We do not have confirmed dates of when the show will be aired, but I believe it will be on during early January whilst the yatra is still running. It will be broadcast on CNBC TV18 in India which is also available are an online streaming channel via the CNBC TV18 web site.  Our second media debate will be held at Chennai.  The venue for the event was a picturesque beach front within the grounds of the Vivekanada Centre in Kaniyakumari. We noticed a couple of trees on-site were baring freshly ripe tamarind seed pods which tasted superb. We picked up a few of the pods which had fallen on the ground.

With the media event over, dinner served, we retreated back to the train for our next destination, Puducherry where we would visit the revolutionary and technologically advanced Aravind Eye Hospital which has helped millions of rural, poor and remotely located people receive life saving eye treatment at little or no cost.

The Trivandrum Techno Park is located up on a hill. As the bus entered the grounds, we were greeted with scenes of ultra modern buildings and house-hold names such at ITC and Tata Consultancy Group, amongst many others. The most striking aspect of the Techno Park was how spotlessly clean it was. This really did jump out at me as I walked around the grounds and observed the superb facilities dotted around the techno park. Unlike vast swathes of India that is often littered and dirty, the Trivandrum Techno Park did not have a single item of plastic, paper or any other man made trash visible on the ground anywhere.  What a refreshing and impressive change to the world just outside its gates.

We arrived at the Techno Park at around 8.30am and settled down in their outdoor open air audirorium. An impressively large venue, capable of holding at-least ten times more people than our yatra group. All the yatri’s settled down quicly in eager anticipation to see two very distinguished speakers.  Whilst waiting for our guests, a thought crossed my mind that the surroundings of the Tehcno Park added to the excitement. Participants were clearly impressed by their immediate surroundings and the chatter could be heard amongst the participants about the big name companies and the impressive architecture that was available within the Techno Park. Lets not mince words here, even I was impressed, and I’m used to working in big technology parks back at home in the UK and on my occasional trips out to the USA. I think for me the beauty of nature, palm trees, plush vegetation and impressive modern builders all seamlessly co-existing in a way that almost felt natural was the most impressive aspect of the outward physical beauty of the location.

Up on stage we greeted G. Vijayaraghavan who is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Technopark in Trivandrum. Technopark is India’s first technology park and among the three largest IT parks in India today. He was accompanied on stage by P. Jayakumar from Toonz Animation,  an animation company which has diverse interests in production and distribution of live action feature films, digital and gaming content, licensing and merchandising and media related education.  Mr. Vijayaraghavan took us through an engaging history of the techno park and spelt out a number of the challenges and issues he faced during the early days when he was attempting to acquire the land to build the techno park to the corruption and issues he faced after the techno park was built. He gave some very inspirational tutoring and encouragement to the yatri’s to be follow the path of truth, honesty and hard work without having to stoop to the level of bribery and trickery to get business done. This drew much applause from the young audience. Mr. Vijayaraghavan later returned to the stage after the Toomz presentation to give a one hour talk to the audience about entrepreneurship. This was a particularly educational talk, giving concrete and tangible advise to the gathered yatris. Topics such as how find the right talent, how not to build debt, how to treat your customers and how to not be afraid of failure was all spoken about with some great real world examples that helped to bring the message to the youth in an accessible manner.

Next stop Kovalum Zero Waste NGO, Kovalam Beach. Here we attended a talk about waste management by an NGO called Thanal. I was quite excited to note that one of our African contingent stood up to ask a question! Superb! I suspect the session was a little too lengthy judging by the flagging spirits of those in the audience and the dropping heads. Having said that, we did get a clutch of good questions towards the end an an opportunity to sample some of the local handy craft made by women who work at the NGO and make collectible items made out of recycles waste items such as paper and coconut shells.

We all headed back to the train station for dinner, then entered train at 12.30am to hit the sack. It was a long and thoroughly engaging day.

Mr Padre proved to be an eloquent and thought provoking speaker, immediately engaging with the participants. I was fortunate enough to be able to squeeze in at the back of one of the classroom coaches and listen in to the afternoon session which took place. Topics were wide and varied but one which stood out for me was on the subject of water harvesting and resource management. It was clear that the participants were fully engaged with Mr. Padre’s talk as a tremendous amount of energy was thought was evident during the Q&A session. Today the two coach set up worked very well with questions being fielded from both sides and relayed via plasma screen between coaches so that everyone could see and hear each other, thanks in great part to one of our facilitators who made it a point to rush the mic over to the participants in the second carriage.  Following his morning session with the participants, we decided to give him a tour of the train and the whole set up. Lunch followed at the station we stopped at and the afternoon session with Shree Padre actually took place on the platform under the welcome cool shade of the platform roof.  Whilst the a large group formed in front of Shree Padre, smaller clusters of participants who had previously attended the morning session formed small groups to discuss in detail the mornings discussions and form their own opinions about the issues raised. I took an opportunity to walk around all these sessions, taken photographs and listening in to the - at times - raging debates, questions, answers and reports being exchanged between members of the various groups. At no point did any of the debates fall out with each other, which was heartened to see but a number of groups certainly did have some some robust and well thought out arguments. All in all, a very inspiring afternoon session of group discussions.

It was time now to head off to Kerala, our next stop Trivandrum where we woud visit the Trivandrum Technopark.

As I type, the days events are slowly returning to me. Two interactive discussions took place on day two, primarily to accomodate all the yatri’s on-board the train who otherwise would not be able to physically all fit in to two train carriages in one go. The morning discussion session was missed by myself as I was busy photographing life on board the train and interviewing yatri’s and facilitators. How I wish I could show you some of those snaps but the data connection is simply proving to be too slow. The afternoon session was one I did attend. There was intense chat and debate going on about the Lijjat Papad company that we heard about on the opening day at IIT Bombay. The pro’s and con’s of an all women organisation was debated and insights we made on Lijjat Papad’s model of women empowerment, transformation and their entrepreneurial and social spirit. One interesting observation I made during this session, as I was sitting next to one of our Kenyan African yatri’s was that in her own country she knew of a similar women’s co-operative, but it had failed primarily due to political intervention within Kenya. I really do hope that as the days roll on, our African contingent can build up the courage to raise their hand and ask some questions. One of the most heartening comments I heard today was that by coming on this jounrey of discovery, one of the Kenyan candidates was inspired enough to wonder if a journey like Tata Jagriti Yatra could be arranged by herself back in her own home country of Kenya and hopefully inspire a generation of entrepreneurs who believe in enterprise lead development. How wonderful! Day two and we’re already having an impact on our international members.

Day two seems to be getting foggy in my mind already. What with all the rushing about, photographing, interviewing, session attending and general train vigialance, I think the level of tiredness is telling me to call it a day and write up day three early in the morning. One thing is clear from day two’s experience is that the youth on board the train and not a laid back crowd. They do have opinions, they are switched on and most of all they are receptive to new ideas and discussing possibilities. I’m looking forward to speaking to many of the participants on day three to see if they would consider modifying their own lifesyle, belieafs and way of living to include some of the learnings they are making from the role model interactions. Day three of Tata Jagriti Yatra will defintiely prove to be interesting, as we will be meeting Shree Padre who works in the area of natural resource management. I’m sure his alternative methods and insightful advice will bring about much needed mind shifts and attitude changes amongst the yatri’s. I am particularly intererested to know how the yatri’s change their outlook on the usage and wastage of one of the most precious resources on our planet - water.  Only time will tell. Roll on day three!

Kaustav

The Jagriti Yatra train has finally rolled out of Mumbai, almost precisely on time. The run up to the flagging off was electric. In the morning everyone, yatri’s and facilitators, TV press and print journo’s converged on the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. We all got to meet one another and form our cohorts and groups. It was quiet surprising how most people knew who I was, even though they had never met me before. the yatri’s tell me that they have been living the yatra dream during the build up via the yatra blog, website, chat forum, facebook group, orkut group and other channels such as Twitter. What better proof that the viral nature of the social web is working and our case it Is working REALLY well.

The afternoon kicked off with Jyoti Naik - MD of Lijjat Papad addressing us in her mother tongue, Marathi. We learned about one of Indian’s most successful all women co-operatives. Their primary business is to make the Indian snack known in the west as the papadum. They employ over 40,000 employees and all the major decision makers in the whole organisation as women. The men who work there are all on advisory committees. Their products sell the world over and we learned how and why their business model has been such an amazing success. The Q&A session was a little challenging as the English and Hindi spoken questions had to be translated to Ms Naik in Marathi and then her answer was translated back to the audience in English.

The evening session was held at the Rabindranatyum Mandir in a very central region of Mumbai called Prabhadevi. Due to earlier programming re-organisations, I was not sure whole our second role model of the day was going to be. Imagine my amazement when Mr. Manish Tiwari - the man behind the Dabawala’s came onstage with his classic and signature Dabawala white slacks, jacket and hat on. He immediately captivated the entire audience with his stunning and mezmirising style of talking. He exuded so much energy, with his lightening fast talking, upbeat tone of voice and broad chesire cat grin. In the space of twenty minutes he got the audience roaring with cheers, laughing and totally bought in to his philosophy, way of life and way of conducted business. I managed to make a full audio recording of his talk and hope to link it in as and when internet connections allow. At the end of his talk, Mr. Tiwari got an almighty standing ovasion and just ended the role model visits of the day just perfectly - leaving everyone on a major high. I was personally blown awy by this mans media saavy, and sheer brilliance.

Fcous then shifted to the main yatra as we all boarding the buses and headed towards Mumbai Central rail station. Before we headed there we had to make one last stop at yatra central, our office, to pick up boxes, laptop computers and all manner of things critical to the smooth running of the yatra. All packed and done, with car heavily loaded and ready to burst we took the short trip down to the rail station.

At Mumbai Central the atmosphere was electric. Hundreds of yatri’s, with the bags were being issued I’d cards, to be work by all through the whole yatra. Cargo was being rushed on, crates of water, food, supplies. Rail transport guards were boarding and ensuring the yatri’s all got on in time. Last minute fairwells and photos were being snapped and broad beaming smiles and excitement were the order of the evening.

Suddenly, with bags all onboard, that tell tale jolt came. THE TRAIN WAS ROLLING! Just a few minutes past 11pm, Tata Jagriti Yatra was truly under way. We were at the beginning of what will surely be an oddessy, an epic journey of discover and a moment we’ll all remember for the rest of our lives. The morning will start at 7am, and so as 2.30am clicks around, I sign off at the end of the first day of Tata Jagriti Yatra. YARO CHALO!

Kaustav

The first of the yatra begins shortly with a 8.30am trip out to a part of Mumbai called Prabhdevi, where our African contingent are staying. We’ll be picking them up by taxi and taking all eight of them to the yatri orientation workshop up in IIT Mumbai which is loated in Powai, a good two hour road trip up in the northern outskirts of greater Mumbai. The orientation session will be similar to the facilitator work shop from yesterday but geared totally towards the yatri’s. They’ll get to meet each other, all 350 of them, for the first time. Many have been travelling down to Mumbai from all over India in large groups, having previously met up a few days back at “Tatat Jagriti Yatra meeting ups” in their own towns and cities. It’ll be interesting to see what cliques and groups have already formed and subsequently how we’ll manage that.

Yatri’s will begin to pour in to IIT Mumbai for registration at around 9am to 12pm and from around 13:00 we’ll start off the yatri orientation workshop which will end towards 2pm. Following this, the yatri’s will get to meet some stellar business and social entrepreneurs - namely Manish Tripathi and Jyoti Naik who will give a talk about their startups and organisations.  At 15:30 we all set off for the flagging off ceremony in Mumbai Central station. Gauri Sharma Tripathi, a well known Indian classical dancer from the South Bank Centre in London, where she is an artist in residence, will be performing a dance to kick off the proceedings at the train station followed by presentations and short speeches by various reps from Tata and then engines will fire up and the train will start to head out of Mumbai, initially north and then to branch out to the east and curve back down south, heading towards our second stop, Thiruvananthapuram, formerly known as Trivandrum.

As I sit here typing this blog entry, the full magnitude of the yatra has yet to sink in. I’ve been involved with this whole project right from day one. Although I’ve been involved with the minutia of all the planning, strategizing and build-up, I don’t think I will know what has hit me until I get on the train and start to see the landscape of India flow past. The yatra is going to be a unique experience for me and for everyone else who attends it. Each of us will take back our own learnings and we’ll also form our own opinions of what have to be done to improve the lives of millions of people who are still living below the poverty line. Above all, I hope ths yatra teaches us all about the importance of close collaboration; the ability to be able to bring together bright young minds and not fight each other based on ego or how more qualified we are compared to the next person; but instead learn to leverage the wisdom of the crowd, the power that lies within true group collaboration and work towards a common and unified future.

We’ll have laptops and datacards on the train, but I cannot guarentee that our connection will be constant or even fast enough to be able to blog, however, I urge you all the check back on this blog and at the official yatri blog throughout the full duration of the yatra, 24th Dec 2008 to 11th Jan 2009. We’ll endeavour to update this blog and also upload photos to our flickr group and youtube pages.