Ownership and Responsibility in India


After reading "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga (which I recommend- perhaps not the best writing in the world, and it could turn out to be far too simplistic a reading on the 'relationships' between the rich and poor in India- but as an introductory expose I thought it rather good), talking recently with my Indian boss and walking through some of the public places in Delhi, I have been thinking about a common thread that runs through all three. Perhaps my boss put it best when he said that in India, and Indian society, there is a lack of ownership or responsibility for doing something.


The most obvious case is public works (that's where the parks come in). Most parks in Delhi were once carefully designed, and have had a fair bit of money invested in them- in structures, in plants, in sidewalks, ponds, lakes, etc. Yet on the weekends (even on the designated weekend 'day'- Sunday) they are all but deserted. Go into these parks and you'll figure out that they're not quite empty- every bench, for example is occupied- normally by one guy, who's lying down on it sleeping. The other creatures that can be found by carefully scrutinising dense foliage and hidden corners will be the couples, who are canoodling somewhere away from the prying eyes of the neighbours who wouldn't be in the park anyway (To give you an idea of the notorious reputation that parks have, one young male aspirant told me that his girlfriend was not even allowed to tell her parents that she would be going to Lodhi Gardens- alone or accompanied- because of the reputation it has). Parks are also distinguished by any lake being completely drained, or having stinking water sitting in the bottom, grass being un-mown or bare, and of course rubbish thrown into any of the above places that are in relatively good natural condition.


I ask myself the natural question here- in a city such as Delhi, hot as it is with concrete and high-rise everywhere (although it is self-touted as "one of the greenest cities in the world"), are these beautiful parks, so lovingly created, left to decay to such a state? Maintaining a park in India must be one of the easiest things to do- you have no shortage of labour, at the very least to pick up the rubbish- but also to do the simple task of gardening, pruning, preparing soil for flowers, maintaining areas of grass, etc.


Too expensive? In almost every neighbourhood surrounding these parks in Delhi, small households pay a helper who is normally available 12 hours a day to clean for them, cook, wash their clothes, water their plants, do the shopping, etc. The average wage (at least in Vasant Kunj) is Rs 2000.- per month. (that's about $40). And *every* household has one, so it's not as if these people are earning on the bottom of the pile. In fact, other workers around the complex who iron clothes or wash cars aspire to these positions. So can't the city afford to pay some gardners Rs 2000 a month? Of course they can, and they probably already do. Here's where the ownership comes in.


Now this is a little bit of second-hand information, but here's how the system apparently works. Someone government employee (probably quite high up) has the job of maintaining Delhi's parks. He receives a certain amount per month to do so (for equipment, wages, etc.). He reports every month that the amount has been spent as per budgeted- this equipment bought, these guys paid, this much rubbish collected, etc. If anyone doubts this, they can ask the independent assessor who checks the park every week, to make sure that people are working, and that the park is clean. He verifies that all is as reported. Of course, all that really takes place is the bare minimum of work, and money changing hands to make sure everything is reported as completed correctly. The employee gets to keep all the money that he hasn't spent keeping the verifying officials and any other loud-mouths quiet. And none of the people in the chain feel as if they are doing anything wrong- why actually do the work and put your neck on the line? You only risk pissing some more people off? It's much more work for me to actually DO something than to simply stay with the status quo- plus I don't get paid any more... In fact I'm more likely to be rewarded for not kicking up a fuss and keeping the whole system intact. It's an inherently perfect system (as long as you don't worry about what the system outputs actually are).


What would be really interesting to see would be someone who was prepared to take on the system- and in this particular case it would be so easy. Just put one guy in charge of Delhi's signature parks, give him a reasonable budget, and let him try and really recreate the glory that they were once built with. Give him some room for improving them, if you want- I don't know why people in Delhi go to parks, but there must be a reason I see more people in Vasant Vatika than Lodhi Gardens (Vasant Vatika is a strip of grass near the suburban blocks where I live, and Lodhi or Lodi Gardens is probably the most famous park in Delhi).

Vasant Vatika

Lodhi Gardens

The idea that changing the current state would/should be so simple got me thinking about the whole idea of lack of ownership of these situations in India (as I said it's a theme that reoccurs in the business environment here as well, and not just with fellow employees, but also in things as crucial to a sense of ownership as customer service in India). How do you change a system where the lack of ownership ultimately results in there being such a huge level of corruption, and huge barriers to doing anything with a true sense of responsibility? It must start from the top- someone has to take some responsibility for actually doing what they agreed to do in the first place (I would say what they wanted to do, but that might take some major restructuring in India ;-). But if you agree to do something, you agree to take responsibility for that thing, right? At least the logic seems to follow for me. So the person responsible, instils that same sense of ownership in all those who work under them. They has the power, and they should have the qualities to do that. If it comes from them, then there is a chance that even if those below are not immediately open to the idea, people can be found that will be. Once the system starts to get that sense of ownership passing down through it, then perhaps things at least might start changing.


And I'll be able to sit in a nice clean, shady, green area of a park in Delhi and enjoy it with the rest of an India that feels like they own a little part of having created it.

Nainital, Sattal, Uttarakhand

I guess I should apologise for not writing for a while- what can I say- work has been pretty hectic, and I just haven't been able to sit down and convince myself that I have seen, experienced or thought about anything recently that's worth an hour sitting in front of the PC, when I could be doing something more useful like watching Simpsons back-episiodes on Veetle ;-)

But now I have done something that compels me to write, not least of all because I myself enjoy reading travel blogs, especially to places that can be hit and miss tourist experiences. This one rates as a hit for me, but probably because I have been deprived of these sorts of experiences since I arrived in India.

Nainital, Sattal, Bhimtal etc. are one of the three main "hill station" getaways for Delhites, primarily because they are cool places situated in verdent green mountains, and also because they're only a half-day trip from Delhi itself. Half-day if you have the right transport that is.

A friend of mine who is also working here in Delhi recently told me that she knows heaps of ex-pats that go travel somewhere (out of Delhi) every weekend they can- which usually involves a 12-hour overnight bus or train trip to somewhere, two days of frantic sightseeing/adventuring/etc. and then rushing back on an overnighter to start work on Monday. She couldn't understand how they could do it- and almost every weekend. Well, after seeing some of the places that you could see by taking one of these weekends, I am starting to understand why.

Nainital was a good introduction to the difference that the hill stations are from what you're used to seeing around Delhi. You start climbing at the outpouring of a big river, coming from the mountains, and are immediately in a rain-forest environment, and in our case, also surrounded by clouds. You climb from probably 200 to 1900m, which also gives you an idea of what you're in for. My arrival at Nainital was a little underwhelming- we were let out at a non-descript spot on the road somewhere, from which I could see exactly 5 metres in front of me.

It was, of course, also raining- so the first thing I did was buy an umbrella from a guy near what turned out to be the bus station, thereby making it my second purchase of an umbrella in a week. (As it turned out the purchase ended up having a bonus thrown in, as I got the guy to look after my bag for a couple of hours while I walked around the lake. I loooove India, man!)

Nainital shows off a little of its mixture of cultures, there were quite a few butchers around, although everybody still spoke Hindi, and every now and again a girl would walk past wearing a kurta that I, with my limited knowledge of world fashion and ingrained Western perceptions could only term 'oriental', and I am guessing that the design came from a little further North, either Tibet or perhaps China. Certainly this 'hill station' felt like a mix of people from different hills (it didn't matter that these hills happen to be the highest in the world).

When the mist eventually began to clear after an hour, I found myself in Naina Devi Temple, which apparently is where the goddess Sati's eye fell to earth (I actually thought the lake itself was meant to resemble the green of the goddess' eye as well). Anyway, without waking lyrical, these Hindi temples really touch my spiritual buttons. The place feels so serene, nestled amongst the green surrounding hills, and looking directly out over the lake. I like the open plan of them as well, the temples all face toward the lake, so as you move from one God to the next, you can't help but turn and look out in the same direction that they are looking. It's a little strange I guess, that one of the prime spots in these places, and easily the best kept, is in a holy temple, where people go to spend probably the least amount of their time. Then it's off to a cement bench surrounded by rubbish, or to a damp hotel room where you hope that you've paid enough to be able to see some of the lake.

I spent a good couple of hours walking around the lake, and was only a little dissappointed that I didn't get to heap up a trail to the top of the mountains surrounding it. The weather didn't look that great each time I got near one of the trail heads though, so in one of those "no way of knowing which choice might have been better", I headed off to Sattal after a negotiation on a 'taxi' price with my friendly umbrella salesman/left luggage guy.
Sattal certainly felt like the right choice when I got there. A smaller lake, but with a lot less people, and practically no hotels (only my tourist rest house, as the government lodges are called, and the 'country inn', which looked a lot fancier. There were some YMCA tents there as well, but they looked pretty, erm, 'damp'). Damp would also be the way to describe my room at the rest house, it really wasn't pleasant, and you would have expected better for Rs1150 in India. But again, considering the other choices (which were at least twice as much) I guess you take what you can get.

I had a nice walk around the lake in the afternoon- and got acquainted some of the birds that I would be seeing in the next few days. There was also a large hunting bird who flew down to the water's edge a couple of times to try and grab something, but I didn't identify either the bird itself or it's prey.

Late afternoon reflections in Sattal Lake

The next day I decided to take advantage of what tracks there were close to the lake, but without too much expectation- I was told that there was a walk to a waterfall nearby, and set off after breakfast around 9:30am.  It was about 10 minutes into that walk, when suddenly I stopped hearing the other people breakfasting and boating around the lake, that I knew I was in the exact place that I wanted to be, right at that moment. The only noise was the babble of nearby birds, the weirdest woodpecker I have ever seen was perched on a tree in front of me, and light rain was making this perfect design on the body of water below me. I was completely immersed in a natural setting that felt like it hadn't been significantly changed in millennia. Ahhhhhh- this is getting away from it all for me.

That feeling was compounded as I headed up a mountain track that gave me almost at 180-degree view of the valley and villages below.

All this with no effort, practically no climbing, just some luck and following a couple of tricky paths. Then AFTER that (yep, I was in full hippy mode obviously) I sat down on some rock for about half an hour and looked at some of the micro stuff going on around me. Some weird grasshopper that didn't want his photo taken, an ant who looked like he knew where he wanted to go, but kept running into the ends of leaves so he couldn't get there, this orange hat fungi, suspended on the end of the thinnest black stem...

(No, I didn't eat it, although after reading this you may wonder...) Man, as I said I was just in the right place at that moment- things were good for me that morning.

Then I wandered back to the waterfall for a while- it was also pretty peaceful- completely deserted and nothing but the gentle rush of water to listen to. Of course it had the requisite lots of plastic water-bottles and tobacco pouches spread around it, but I managed to keep them out of frame...

As it started to rain the time was getting right to head back, and when it really came down I wasn't even bothered, such was the mood that this little break in what seemed like just the right place had put me in. Lunch was my chance to try some Kahri (that's curry to you non Indian-English speakers), which was a very yellow sauce in which two balls of boiled gram flour had been dipped. It was (as the cliche goes) as appetizing as it sounds.

After the rain once again timed itself perfectly to allow me to avoid it, I climbed the mountain behind the rest house to the local mandir (temple) which was pretty much straight up a couple of hundred metres or so. What greeted me at the top though, was fairly different from the one in Nainital.

First of all, the location was absolutely spectacular. They had really built the temple itself right on the highest point of that particular mountain, and had views at least over three sides into the valleys or lakes below. They had also done their best to promote the growth of the forest on top of the mountain, which somehow still managed to look natural, despite them having built a temple, living quarters, etc. up there. The old Majaraj didn't look in the best of health, he had on a lot of old jumpers and socks, despite the fact that I was sweating so much from the humidity, but I guess they have little protection from the elements up there. He seemed like a down-to-earth guy though, and everyone was keen to know if I had come to bunk down in the Ashram for the night ;-)

They served me a chai and some cold potatoes on a leaf of dubious sanitary standards, but how do you refuse food offered by the gods? Well, I guess the answer is you eat the minimum possible and try and keep them in conversation while doing so... I got to see some of the creatures that inhabited the Mandir as well (including more of the weird wood-peckers, and a monkey that didn't wanted a piece of me..

(apparently you don't want to mess with the Indian Monkeys- staring directly at them is taken as a sign of aggression, and they will attack you. This particular one was the kind of monkey that 'was just looking for trouble'- first time he peered over the edge of the temple roof and saw me he just kept starting, waiting for me to make eye contact. So I had to keep this crazy monkey in view, without actually looking at him- so I started slightly to the left while keeping him in the corner of my eye. So then he moves over to the left, and I had to start looking right, while keeping him in the corner of my eye. I was just waiting for him to jump on my head...)

So anyway, it was time to head back down the mountain, which on the way I saw some kind of mammal- I only saw it in a flash at first (and had no idea what it was), and so I pushed a little bit towards where I last saw the thing move. Problem was, I didn't know if it was a puma or what, so I didn't push too far into the bush. Then I heard what sounded like the guard dog from the Mandir up above me, barking. It was a weird bark though- only one time, and at very regular intervals (This was a weird dog though, so fair enough). After about 6 barks though- whatever was in the bush shot off at amazing speed (considering you could still barely see it) through the undergrowth, letting out this single 'woof' at the same intervals. Then the dogs down at the lake started going at it, but in 5 seconds it was 200 meters away. Unbelievably fast. I asked the guys down at the lodge what it could have been and they immediately replied 'tiger'(!) I explained to them that I'm pretty sure I know at least what colour a tiger is, so their next guess was a deer- which made sense based on it's size, but I then said- what about the noise- it was making a single bark "like a dog". Still they said deer, and as of course they had no books or anything, the description had to do. Enter the wonderful world of the internet and there just happens to be a couple of great pictures of a "barking deer" taken at Sattal. So, in all it's glory:

The Uttaranchal Barking Deer

Then came my last night at the lake, where I actually had some clear skies to watch a little night mist roll onto the lake.

The only task left for me was to take an appropriately novelty paddle boat out for the maximum 50 minutes on my last morning (finally seeing up close some of the local Kingfishers), and trekking up the mountain through the huge amount of prime land that belongs the Christian Ashram, and onto Bhimtal to take the bus back to the train station at Kathgodam.

Looking down from the road through the Ashram onto another Lake (not Sattal)