Ajmer Beginnings

As usual, my last trip was unplanned. At lunch, Rajendraji (a veteran, tough, authoritarian figure with a wicked sense of humor) approaches me and asks if maybe i'm interested in a field visit. "कब (when)?", "आज (today)", "कितने बजे(what time)?", "पता नहीं, शायद नौ बजे (idunno, maybe 9)","कितने दिन (how many days)?"."Be ready 8:30. I or Shrikantji call you. days? three.[english]"

And of course, in the middle of dinner, my bag packed carefully-- I get the call. Half hour, bus stop, be there or we'll leave without you. As I approach the 10PM bus to Ajmer, I see Rajendraji and walk over to him. In a truly cinematic way, the crowd around him (seemingly random people) turn around and face me in unison. They are a veritable all-star team of field officers and coordinators. They all know me, but of course, being terrible with names I can't remember who's Bhamuji, Bhimaramji, or Natwarsingji. Where am I going? Oh USAID conference on drought mitigation. They're giving a presentation I prepared and presenting a paper I co-authored. Fantastic, I think, I really wish that my packing didn't consist solely of a dirty t-shirt.

We reach Ajmer at 3am, bounce through the streets 6 to a rikshaw, and take in the mildly lit mountainous topography. We reach the really nice Catholic facility, to a bumbling doorman which whom we sign in. "We're in room 16, sir, where's room 16?", "There is no room sixteen", "wha?(then where the hell does this key go?) "



By 8am we're already meeting up for the first morning sessions. Long days, huge meals, short nights. Rajendraji always proundly introduced us by saying that we can all deal with anything cause we're the type to go to the field-- we were invincible. At lunch on the first day, we were all sweating like crazy under an idle fan. When we asked if we could turn on the fan, the other NGOs looked at us, and said: I thought you guys were fieldwallas?-- switching on the fan, the whole dining hall erupted in laughter. The first two days went by in a flurry of discussion, debate, assessment, presentations, group sessions, and private meetings. I learned a lot about drought mitigation strategies from young, technical minded folks, and veteran old minded folks (the kind who even keep their mobiles in Hindi). Finally, when they had a closed door session, Rajendraji wrote on a piece of paper "Go Dargraha, come back 8 for khanna (food)".


Panel discussion/debate (poor guys got grilled alive up there)


Assessment scorecard


Day session assessment of intermediate goals


Night session, reviewing our work late into the night 11:30PM

Thinking I was going on a field visit, I hadn't planned for tourism. It's funny how dependent we become on knowledge. No internet. No guidebook. No English. In all honesty, I knew nothing about Ajmer. So when he said Dargraha, I had no idea what he was getting me into...

To be continued...