And now that I am back

I was woken up from my afternoon siesta by the 3rd phone call from Airtel today. Like before, they wanted to know if my net connection is working fine. Yes, it is. I tell them, trying not to sound irritated. How do I ever convey to them the frustration and inconvenience they had caused me by not fixing a fixable problem. It couldn't have been a major problem. How else did it get fixed in a few hours since Rahul got in touch with the higher-ups in Airtel? It's sad that one has to use "influence" to get things done in this country. Had Rahul not contacted the people he did, perhaps I would have had to wait for yet another month before any action would have been taken. Anyway, I'm glad I'm online once more and am able to communicate.

While I was unable to upload any blog entries, I did keep writing, though not regularly. I've uploaded the "journal entries" and you can read them if you have the time and patience. But I thought I'd also fill you in on what's happening on the project right now.

This picture was taken a month ago... before I started doing my yoga. You'll be happy to know that my paunch has considerably reduced... or at least I think so! I can do the "halasana" (plough). I wouldn't be able to do that with a paunch that big! Would I?

Nothing much really. We have school. It now starts at 7:30 and finishes at 11:00. We only have two teachers -- Khagen and me. Khagen teaches all subjects in nursery and Hindi and Maths in classes 1,2 and 3. I teach English, Science and Social Studies in classes 2,3 and 4. In fact I teach all subjects in class 4. There's a workable routine in place and everything is working smoothly.

Khagen is doing all the cooking these days besides teaching. In fact, he's in charge of the kitchen while Suman takes care of the trees, the vegetable patch and all the other stuff that needs to be done around the project. He seems happy in his new role. Khagen too seems quite happy with his new responsibilities. The project is very quiet and very peaceful.

Bhola comes every morning for a few hours. He takes care of "shram daan" classes -- in other words helps the kids clean up the campus etc. He then goes away. If there's any outside work to be done, he does it. There are no village visits these days as all the villagers are busy with farm work and tired in the evening. I don't believe this is entirely true. But will find out soon.

Bansi, as you have probably figured, is no longer with us. He quit end of last month and I haven't seen him or heard from him since. He too is probably busy with work on his farm -- one of the reasons why he quit. I'm sad to see him go and do miss him at times. But I think it's about time he took care of his "family responsibilities". He has a lot of land and an aged mother and both need looking after.

The project is not doing very well financially. We do get a few stray contributions, but it's not enough. There are no volunteers coming either. Sharad's and Manas' regular contribution towards salaries is taking care of that part. But the project has other expenses -- food, phone, petrol, soap and shampoo for kids etc. I'm managing as best as I can with whatever I have. And tightening the belt as much as I can. I guess we'll ride out the recession and hope for better times so that people become more generous.

I'm still doing my yoga and meditation and so I'm feeling good both physically and mentally. The weather, however, is not very nice. It's quite hot and humid most of the time and hence very enervating. I had to skip yoga on a couple of occasions simply because the humidity was too oppressive. I do all this (yoga, etc) in the evenings and I'm incommunicado between 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. That does not mean I'm very communicative in the mornings either! By the time I finish my walk and meditation in the morning, it's time for breakfast. Once breakfast is over, I hardly get any time to change before school starts. Once school is over, I do have a few moments till lunch. After lunch, I have a siesta till 3:00 p.m. I do a bit of reading and writing before I start my practise. Today's been an exception. Since I was woken up from my siesta by the Airtel guy, I decided to write this blog entry instead of trying to get back to sleep.