Scribbles On The Margins

Winners and Losers this week

2011-07-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

This week 2 articles in my twitter feed caught my attention -
1) India's oldest microfinance firm on the verge of closure
2) Flipkart set to raise $150M from General Atlantic at $1B valuation

The first article is a truly sad reflection of the mess India's microfinance industry is in today because of poor policy, short sighted politicians as well as a lesson in why it is crucial to diverse your risk. Basix, one of India's oldest pioneering microfinance institution, is collapsing under the burden of bad loans after repayments dropped to 10% in Andhra Pradesh with the passage of the new microfinance law in that state.

The second article talks about the stratospheric valuation of Flipkart (India's Amazon). The article highlights that the company currently makes $6 million a month in revenue, but nowhere does it talk about profitability. And from the types of deals I see on Flipkart, I can't imagine their margins being that attractive either.

While I'm happy to see Indian companies getting $1B valuations, it is heart breaking to see a Basix's proven business model fold because of a one time extreme event of bad political risk. Too bad the new RBI microfiance legislation won't be passed in time to rescue Basix.

Back after a break

2011-06-13T06:51:00.000-07:00

We got back from Kuwait yesterday. Kuwait reminded me of all the conveniences I'm now living without. But I'm still happy that I'm back in India. Bangalore has a lot to do with; the weather here is so pleasant (specially after the oppressive 50C desert heat).

Today was a day of errands. Shopping for food and paying off my electricity bill. The Bangalore Electricity Board is right behind my place so I decided to walk over and pay off the bill. It was surprisingly easy. I still had this image of serpentine queues at public utility companies. Thankfully, didn't have to deal with any of that.

The one lingering problem we still have in Bangalore is transport. Haven't got my own car yet, and dealing with brash auto rickshaw drivers who charge your arbitrary amounts is a hassle. It's also impossible to call a cab during peak hours. Need to get a car soon so that we can be independently mobile!

Exploring South India - Part 1 of many more to come

2011-06-01T11:14:00.000-07:00

For our first weekend in Bangalore, we decided to get out of the city and explore South India. We had initially planned on going to Mysore to visit family, but due to scheduling conflicts that had to be postponed. A few google searches later we decided on heading to Hassan, a town along the Bangalore-Mangalore highway. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a reasonable hotel that had rooms for the night, and on a recommendation we changed destinations to Saklehspur, which is 230km from Bangalore (a 5 hour drive). The weekend, like most things in India, had it's ups and downs. Lets start with the ups

The Ups

Sakleshpur is at the foothills of the Sahaydri's (Western Ghats). We stayed at The Hills, a tiny resort, which is nestled amidst coffee plantations with incredible views of tropical green hills enveloped in clouds. While we had to move rooms, because our first room didn't come with an A/C, both rooms we got were clean and pretty luxurious.

The drive to The Hills itself was a bit tedious, the last 30 km was down a windy single lane road, where I had to maneuver around oncoming trucks.

We had plans of checking out the surrounding areas, but instead we chose to just laze around and enjoy the downtime. For the more active, the area had promising treks to explore. We did have to deal with a bunch of boisterous kids along with some very out of place Robert Miles like music during meal times, but on the whole it was very relaxing.

To get to the hills you have to take NH 4 coming out of Bangalore and then switch to NH 48 headed towards Mangalore. NH 48 becomes a 2 lane highway and it winds through beautiful coffee plantations as you get closer to Sakleshpur. It would have been fun to tour one of these coffee plantations (image to the left); something for our next visit.

The Downs
The weekend wasn't without it's share of adventure. 30 mins into the drive to Sakleshpur we got a flat. Thankfully our rental had a spare and after wrestling with the jack I successfully dealt with my very first flat tire.

I didn't realize this was just the beginning. On our way back, a passenger auto rickshaw rear ended our car. Basically destroyed the bumper and damaged the trunk. He hit the car and veered off into the trees at the side of the road. Thankfully no one was hurt in either vehicle. As with all accidents, we quickly attracted a crowd. Since I speak no Kannada, the on lookers helped translate between me and rickshaw driver. I insisted he pay me for the damage, but he just got into his rickshaw and drove off.
Sympathetic bystanders took me and and my wife to the nearest police station. I wasn't all too excited to deal with the police here, but since the car was a rental, I figured I needed to lodge a complaint in case insurance would need it. I'm not sure what I expected, but I didn't think that they wouldn't register my complaint. The cops explained that if I was going to file a complaint I would have to leave the car overnight. There was no way I was going to leave this car 150km away from Bangalore overnight. Why they couldn't just take pictures of my damaged car and let me go escapes me. In the end no complaint was filed. It just wasn't worth it.
The final installment of the weekend comes when we were barely 15 mins away from home. I apparently missed a sign that said no 4 wheelers allowed down this road and I promptly got a ticket for this oversight. Not really much of an oversight, because when I asked the traffic cop about the sign he told me that it was written in Kannada. A little unfair that there were no accompanying signs in English of Hindi.

At the end of the day, India is a little bit unfair. Sometimes that works in your favor, and other times you just have to suck it up.

Considering Airtel for broadband internet service? Think again

2011-05-30T02:16:00.000-07:00

Getting broadband set up at home has been a trial over the past couple of weeks. It feels like a scene out of the Money Pit. 2 more days turns into a week and a half long affair... and the ordeal is still not over.

It was 2 weeks of dealing with technical issues. Every promise to get the service set up was met with another promise of setting up the service the next day. Customer service is extremely unhelpful. All they offer to do is take down my complaint and give me a complaint number. Ask to speak to a manager and you're put on hold until the phone line gets disconnected. To add insult to injury, the last time I tried calling customer support from my cell phone the message I got was "support has been withdrawn for this line, please dial customer support from your land line". Ironic because I was calling about how they hadn't set up the land line yet!

But the cherry on this sundae has to be the fact that we were told the broadband service was "unlimited" when we signed up. Airtel failed to mention the fact that the download speed degrades to 256 kbps after the first 8GB of data. Interesting how they omitted this key piece of information. When you bring up this issue with Airtel, all I get is "but sir, it is unlimited - you can download at 256 kbps as much as you would like".

Perhaps it's common knowledge that there are no unlimited Airtel plans without degradation available for home connections here in Bangalore, but one would hope that something like this would be mentioned on the the brochure that Airtel provided us with. Seems like Bangalore operates on a "buyer beware" paradigm. Lesson learned.

I've come to terms with the fact that their sales staff screwed up and that there are frankly few other options for people like me. So I'm just going to have to suck it up and continue dealing with Airtel. (I'm not willing to just cancel the service and deal with another 2 weeks of no internet). What is the equivalent of a Better Business Bureau here in India? I need more options besides tweeting or blogging about how frustrating this experience has been.

Returning Home

2011-05-24T03:41:00.000-07:00

Scribbles on the Margins has been dormant for the last 2 years; it sort of got left behind in the rush of the last couple of years in grad school. Now that I'm back in India (for good) I'm going to attempt to resuscitate this blog.

I've been in Bangalore for just a few days, basically trying to settle in. The move from NYC was fairly painless, thanks to a very helpful Pakistani cab driver who broke a number of traffic regulations to get me to Newark on time (no more Holland tunnel traffic for me). On the other hand, I think I'll be grateful if cabbies in Bangalore adhered to traffic regulations once in a while.

We're still struggling to get broadband access at home, we've been told it'll get done in the next 2 days. But then again, that's what we were told 10 days ago. So keeping my fingers crossed on that one.

I'll end this post with what my very friendly Pakistani cab driver told me when he found out I was returning home for good. The beauty is lost in the translation to English, but in essence he said that we immigrant desi's are like fresh water fish now - we die when we go back into the salty ocean.

Here's to hoping that I'm not allergic to salt!

Thoughts

2009-08-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

Had this big dinner last night with a bunch of Ruks' friends over and was talking about my "time off" in India.

Last year, I always thought of myself as someone who needed to work 80 hours a week. I needed to always be occupied/productive. Work was life for me, and I liked it.

But Delhi showed me, that was just how I defined myself. I can just as easily be the guy who can work 40 hours a week and enjoy life. Doing something completely different helped me see that I can do anything I want. I don't need to be the person who has to work 80 hours. I can choose to be that, or choose to be someone who never has to see the inside of a cubical again.

Now I have a choice.

Chinese miracle or mirage?

2009-07-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

I recently added Marginal Revolution to my "blogs I follow" list and read a post on "Totally false and ridiculous claims about Chinese bubbles".

It refers to an article on China's Bubble. A few quotes -

Finally, China can force government-owned corporate entities to borrow and spend, and spend quickly itself. This isn't some slow-moving, touchy-feely democracy. If the Chinese government decides to build a highway, it simply draws a straight line on the map...

...But don't confuse fast growth with sustainable growth. Much of China's growth over the past decade has come from lending to the United States. The country suffers from real overcapacity. And now growth comes from borrowing -- and hundreds of billion-dollar decisions made on the fly don't inspire a lot of confidence. For example, a nearly completed, 13-story building in Shanghai collapsed in June due to the poor quality of its construction.

This growth will result in a huge pile of bad debt -- as forced lending is bad lending. The list of negative consequences is very long, but the bottom line is simple: There is no miracle in the Chinese miracle growth, and China will pay a price. The only question is when and how much.

What do you guys think? I really like the Lucent illustration in the article.

Something else that this article sparked. There is this consistent "price of democracy" that India pays and the reason we lag our bigger neighbor. Is that really accurate? Why is democracy treated as a governor on the Indian engine? How did Western Europe flourish under democracy leaving Eastern Europe behind in the dust?

Last hurrah

2009-07-20T04:13:00.000-07:00

The official end of my sabbatical was a road trip back home. Delhi to Bombay, through the Rajasthan desert, the salt plains of Dandi and finally wending my way over the Sahyadri's finally to make it to the traffic snarls of Bombay. All of this in my mother's trusy Wagon R and no A/C (crazy but true).

I've done my fair share of road trips in the U.S, and never associated road trips with India. The romantic Indian railways has always superseded other modes of transport. But the dhaba's and chaiwallah's along NH-8 have changed my mind. Although at the first dhaba I think Andy, Mrig and Nathan can attest to how road food phobic I was. Changed by the end of the trip though.

Most people do the trip in 2 days (1500 km), but we decided on a pace of 3 days. First day we traveled half the distance to spend the night in Udaipur since we preferred spending our time on the beaches on the western coast. We stopped at Chittorgarh on the way - fantastic Rajasthan fort that most tourists skip cause it's a bit out of the way.

We left Udaipur early morning (5 or 6 am) to beat the Indian summer and made it to Gujarat fairly quickly. The landscape changes from barren to green without realizing as you get nearer to the coasts. But as we approached Dandi, where we intended to sell our English travelers for their weight in salt, things started getting dry and barren again. Once you hit the marshes, salt pelts you in the face. Kind of expected some kind of Gandhi memorial but it was just open brackish land. It's just clay mud once you reach the sea. I thought I could walk through it, but I sank up to my knees on stepping in. Nathan thought I was going to sink. Pulling my leg out my flip flops got lost in the mud and soon I was upto my elbows and knees in clay trying to retrieve them. Not a pretty sight - and unfortunately no pics either.

That night we ended up in Umbharat (pronounced ubharat), a small beach outisde Surat, at the Modi resort. With no other hotels in the area, except the "Dolphin water park" that rented out rooms by the hour and had a caretaker who walked with a cane and looked like he would kill us and sell our meat to the local McDonalds, we opted for staying at Modi over Andy's objections of not wanting to support a "Modi" establishment. Getting to the point though - don't go to Umbharat, not worth it.

We had hoped to spend some time on the beach the next morning, but since it was fairly shitty we left early and continued along the Gujarat coast till we reached Daman. Now all beaches north of Bombay are fairly rocky and not the quality beaches you will come across in Goa. But Daman has it's own charm. Jampore beach has quality shacks on the beach that will bring you coconut water & cheap Kingfisher right there on the beach. No hassles over liquor permits or drinking in public. A sliver of paradise squeezed between Gujarat and Maharashtra. I hear it's counterpart Diu is much more charming with it's Portuguese flair and beautiful, but Daman with it's hotel Chinatown was great.

Next day we reached Bombay by 4 or 5. The car stank by the time we reached home. Amazing ability of the human body to adapt to anything.

Credits -
Mrig - This trip was your brainchild. And regardless of all the sniping - you didn't kill us while driving on the highway.
Andy - I think secretly Mrig and I enjoyed the drama of convincing you to come along with us on this trip. And if it wasn't for you, I would have insisted on spending 2 grand a night on hotels and missed out on some of the best parts of the journey.
Nathan - You lived up to your word of drinking non stop on this trip. Well done.

Successful pilot

2009-06-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

5 months later, we've conducted a successful pilot in Mathura. We've built the skeleton framework for data to flow from the server, to the cell phone, collect delivery information and then upload back to the server. The delivery executives love the new process (rated it a 4 out of 5), data entry time is essentially 0, and all the retailers we work with are impressed with the new "computer" that creates on the spot receipts.

The pilot was conducted in 2 field tests, and perhaps the most fun part of this experience. Going around rural India in the back of an auto in the middle of the Indian summer has given me a whole new appreciation for modern air conditioning. I'm at a loss for words to describe how searingly hot it is. Normally you'd expect that in a moving vehicle the breeze would cool you down. Not here, because the "Loo" blowing in from the Indian desert seems to singe your skin. I went through 5 liters of water in 6 hours. For anyone who thinks that working in rural India will be a "fun" experience - you really have no idea until you get here.

But if you can look past all of this, then it really is quite an experience. For me though, it was good to split my work between urban India (Delhi) and rural India (Mathura). I'm not cut out for village life :)

The entire Drishtee experience was great. The social enterprise experiment is still young and I think at the end of the day money is still one of the strongest motivator's here (which is a good thing). There is a lot of growing up that still remains. Management practices are weak, no structured decision making framework and I can go on and on and on. But the fact remains that they are out there on the ground working to make a difference. I won't look at this as a glass half empty. It's half full. And in this case the glass is more like a giant water tank that's leaking.

I'll end with a few pictures I took while I was out in the field conducting the pilot.

Space

2009-05-25T01:41:00.000-07:00

Since the pilot's in Mathura, I've had numerous opportunities to travel there by train. Usually, it's in AC class, where I spend a comfortable 2+ hrs to Mathura. But with my luck I've had the "fortune" of traveling by general class a couple of times.

When I learnt I had to go in general class - I was not happy (and apprehensive). The general compartment is crowded and you get an up close and personal aromatic reminder that you're in a country of a billion people, running on an infrastructure built in the 1940's.

Both times I was lucky enough to get a seat. I sit down and claim my space. The next 2 hrs are then an Indian lesson in "Space - A Communal Concept". Here I was claiming my space, and everyone around me was making space. Seating for 3 people? Lets seat 5 people. Kids making noise and elbowing you constantly? While I glared at the brat next to me so that he'd settle down, everyone else's response was - it's okay, kids will be kids. Chalta hai. And then this very same brat opens a packet of chips and offers them to me - the crotchety guy who has the window seat. When I was 8 I didn't share anything, unless forced to. I was sort of awed by the generosity of my fellow passengers. There was a humbling equality to the experience.

I can't help but contrast this to my fellow drivers on Delhi's roads. Such an overwhelming culture of "me". Cutting people off, taking a right turn when you're in the left most lane, driving in 2 lanes, because you don't want anyone else to get ahead and cut you off, double parking and triple parking so that you've effectively blocked traffic, honking just because you can. We all zoom around in our AC cars, sealed in our eggs just thinking about ourselves and oblivious to everything else. And I sheepishly admit, I am one of those selfish drivers.

But here in my train to Mathura, I have no egg to seal myself in. There are no veneers. This is a close contact sport. And as we zoom through the Indian countryside we jostle together in unison.

This notion of communal space is a very Indian concept. Lets hope I apply this lesson the next time I get behind the wheel.

Thoughts - 2009 lok sabha elections

2009-05-20T05:44:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, the Indian electorate returned the UPA back to parliament with a thumping majority. My roommates can attest to the fact, that I sat gleefully glued to the TV for the better part of Saturday absorbing every bit of political punditry there was to offer.

Things I liked
Congress crosses the 200 mark - This is clearly one of the biggest macro surprises of this election. No political horse trading for support! No salacious coalition building exercises!
No one, not even the Congress, expected to do this well. Not sure what that says about the Congress, but I was ecstatic to see the Congress win at the cost of the Left, BSP, SP, RJD, and BJP. What a rout for the regional parties! I am not convinced, like some people, that this is the end of regional politics (more on that later). Singh, the quiet statesman has proven that in this era of coalition politics someone of his temperament and quiet resolve is what we need at the helm.
Left is decimated - The Left's citadel in Kerala and West Bengal has been breached. It's ironic, that this is because of pursuing capitalist policies for bringing development back to the state. To be free from the clutches of the communists is a blessing.
Congress in UP - It was when the Congress faded out in it's erstwhile power bastion of Uttar Pradesh, did the regional parties rise to prominence. And with the Mandal report, you had people voting on caste and religious lines, further strengthening regional politics at the expense of national interests (Nitish Kumar openly bartering his support for anyone who gives special status to Bihar is a case in point). The UP Congress' resurgence supposedly signifies the end of caste in politics. I think it's mainly to do with Rahul Gandhi. He criss-crossed the state, doing 200 plus rallies in a month. He is the game changer in UP.
Rahul Gandhi - The hidden strategist comes to the fore. It was his decision to go it alone in the Hindi heartland. It was his decision to bring in gen next Congress candidates. It was his star power that translated into votes. I was hoping he would stick to working on organizational Congress issues and stay out of the cabinet, and he has done just that. What a commendable move. He has done a fantastic job rebuilding the Congress organization from the ground up (as results have shown), but clearly the job is not done and he isn't going to leave it unfinished. As for running the Govt. there are many more qualified people who are good at that, and he seems to understand that and letting them do what they are good at. Politically, he too is "renouncing" the spotlight like his mother. And we all know how deep a chord that strikes with the Indian voter. The seasoned BJP strategists got it wrong, and the "aquariums fish" gets it right.
Maya's myth busted - The "dalit ki beti" is licking her wounds and now giving unconditional support to the UPA. Her PM ambitions have been shattered, and I only hope that all the grandiose statues she has built of herself around Lucknow and UP will fall next.
Nitish Kumar - Nitish Kumar is the poster child of busting the anti incumbency myth. Good governance in Bihar (and friends of mine who work in development can attest that Bihar government is changing measurably) has resulted in a thumping victory for the JD(U), the only NDA partner who is sitting pretty today. Though there is an alternative school of thought. JD(U) got 39% of the vote share, Lalu took home 25% and the Congress got another 10%. So if the Congress and RJD had fought the elections together, they would have had 35% of the vote share, potentially resulting in many more seats. But in a first past the gate system, vote share does not necessarily translate into seats.
Sanyal lost - The much hyped independent candidate from Bombay, Meera Sanyal, lost. I have respect for Meera Sanyal, but I am still glad she lost. She is clearly very accomplished, but is not the kind of change making leader we need. She lost me when she stated that she was on sabbatical and planned on going back to work if she lost. Honest and practical no doubt. But really, if you truly are inspired to have an impact and work for your city and country are you going to give up if you don't make it on your first try? Is that the kind of go getter attitude that brought Sanyal all that professional success? I doubt it. At a minimum though she has raised awareness, and if that was her goal, then I think she did a good job.
Modi on the backfoot - Finally you get to see Modi play defensive. He did well in his home state of Gujarat (people of Gujarat what does this say about you?). The star BJP campaigner. Each state, except his home state, he campaigned for the NDA the NDA did poorly. He didn't campaign in Bihar, and look at those results. He was expected to sweep Gujarat, and instead he brought in 1% less in vote share. Lets see what happens now that the Supreme court has reopened the riot cases.

Things I disliked
Bombay's voting share - A measly 43%. All those candle light vigils, for what? It makes me sick. This is your future we're talking about. Don't you dare complain tomorrow how the government you have sucks.
MNS plays spoil sport to Sena's dreams - The "Marathi maanos" campaign worked. They came 2nd in all seats in Bombay. I'm not sure what my reaction should be. How many people that I interact with in Bombay want me out of "their" city? The only consolation is seeing Thackeray meow in the corner of how hurt he is at this betrayal. MNS proves that regionalism is not dead.
Criminals in parliament - Today we have 153 new "tainted" MP's. BJP leads with 43 (19 have serious charges), Congress follows at 41 (12 have serious charges).
Mohammed Azharuddin - He won the Moradabad seat. This is the man who betrayed his country on the international cricket pitch. I'm not even a big fan of cricket, so why do I care of this particular crime more than some of the others that MPs face? Because this was a huge scandal, and cricket is a religion to many people in this country. Inspite of this, they voted him in. Why? Moradabad has a 70% Muslim population. To all those people who say that there is no longer voting along caste and religious lines, take note.
Varun Gandhi - won a resounding victory (margin of 200,000 plus). Even though it sickens me, his brand of politics pulls in the votes.
Pollsters get it wrong again - This is not so much as a dislike but more of a WTF. 2 elections in a row, they have gotten it incredibly wrong. CNN-IBN came closest by predicting 215 seats for the UPA. What is so complicated about the Indian electorate that makes them so hard to read? Or do we just have poor statisticians?

Customers not beneficiaries

2009-05-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

Was in Mathura yesterday and was talking to a bio medical engineer who gave me the 411 on the Honeywell pilot we're running there. It's not going well.

Basically Honeywell has come up with a small diagnostic machine that can be used by semi trained rural women to conduct simple diagnostics like blood pressure, and other health indicators. While the device works fine and relatively easy to operate, people in rural India don't really want to use the service. So we run clinics, but have no patients because villagers don't want to learn they are unhealthy, they want to be cured if they are sick. And obviously a diagnostic machine can't cure them of high blood pressure and you can't have semi trained villagers running the kiosk prescribe medicine.

I was sort of frustrated on hearing this - the age old prevention is better than cure debate. It totally made sense from the villagers perspective - why find out if you're sick, better to go to a temple or mosque and buy an amulet that can cure you instead. But from a social impact perspective, it regular checkups and prevention is so much more effective.

But how does a social enterprise like Drishtee attack this problem?

I then came across this on Monitors website.

"The most common mistake among unsuccessful market-based solutions is to confuse what low-income customers or suppliers ostensibly need with what they actually want. Many enterprises have pushed offerings into the market only to see them fail. People
living at the base of the economic pyramid should be seen as customers and not beneficiaries; they will spend money, or switch livelihoods, or invest valuable time, only if they calculate the transaction will be worth their while."

The answer (whether I like it or not) is simple. Drishtee doesn't attack this problem. If this is not what people at the bottom of the pyramid want, then as a profit seeking enterprise we shouldn't be offering this. Now if Drishtee had deep pockets and wasn't a nascent start-up, by all means - run a re-education campaign on the benefits of prevention. But till then, leave the re-education to the public sector and non profits, or to the big corporations like Honeywell.

On a side note, Monitor has done India focused research on market based solutions for the bottom of the pyramid market. You can read their report here. They are also running a conference next week in Delhi. If you're interested, you can register on their site.

Rajasthan whirlwind

2009-05-11T22:59:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks, I haven't done a good enough job updating this blog. A lot has happened. Went to Rajasthan for a weekend, checked out the Bahai temple, went to Bombay this weekend, crazy Indian elections, and my mini pilot starts tomorrow in Mathura (excited about the latter). I'll start with the Rajasthan trip and then (maybe) fill you guys in about the rest in later posts.

My friend Yaron was in town and we decided to go see some of Rajasthan. It was a bit of a blur; lots of traveling - sitting and sleeping in buses, some sight seeing, and a ton of terrible food. I don't think I had a single good meal while in Rajasthan. I take that back, on the way back to Delhi the bus stops at "Midway". I had a decent omelet there. The worst food was in Pushkar.

Rajasthan is a tourist trap. I don't mean it to sound so negative, but everywhere people either wanted to sell me something or take me to a hotel of their choice. And in the searing desert heat - you tend to get a tad irritable :). Going in the summer was not the smartest decision, but it was a great trip. Sorta slummed it a bit - taking local transport at one stage. Here is a pic of one of the buses we almost took to Pushkar.

Very real and gritty Indian weekend. And did I mention it was hot?

The market place outside the dargah in Ajmer has probably been the same for the last 100 years. This small boy in the market decided to adopt me, and everywhere I went he just tagged along trying to sell me something. Tenacious kid. The shrine wasn't all that impressive, but still worth checking out if you're in the neighborhood. I am also guaranteed a spot in heaven - I had to kiss this "door to heaven" and a guy beat me with peacock feathers. Weird and to you pervs out there, there was nothing sexual about it.

Pushkar on the other hand was this small sleepy hamlet, but comes to life during the camel festival and whenever the sun's ferocity diminishes in the winter months. It sas the only Brahma temple in the world, and likely is in the top 5 destinations for Israeli's during their gap year (Hebrew signs everywhere). Has a few small cafe's in the market where you can order stuff that you probably wouldn't even get in Amsterdam (probably what makes it so popular for Israeli's in the first place). If you're in Pushkar, def check out Cafe Pink Floyd - here is the view from the top of the Cafe.

We didn't really spend all that much time seeing Jaipur. Checked out the city palace and the Hawa Mahal. City palace - worth it, skip the Hawa Mahal.

Overall, this was more of a get out of Delhi weekend than lets check out Rajasthan. Which just means I'll have to come back and really see Rajasthan another time.

The view from within

2009-05-03T23:58:00.000-07:00

I have a month left here at Drishtee, and the supply chain project is around 2 weeks behind schedule. A number of technical challenges and capacity issues that I won't get into. I know it will get done (after I've left), and in the end we will end up in a much better strategic position and I think they should probably patent this delivery model before it is released. But this post is not just about my project.

It's been a mixed experience, and I'm leaving with a taste of disappointment. I think my biggest issue is the lack of any metrics to measure the social impact of the work we're doing. What is the impact on wages for students who go through our education kiosks? Have the health entrepreneurs measurably changed the health environment in their villages? So many well intentioned efforts lead to minimal impact. It's really hard for me to just take things at face value.

The impressive thing Drishtee has achieved is a real on-the-ground rural network of micro entrepreneurs. But this network is so incredibly stressed and almost every other week I hear of a new scheme to be implemented on this network. Really - people are working 14 hr days, 7 days a week and you want them to run a new project on this network?! The district offices are struggling. We don't have enough people and it is always a challenge to recruit good talent. on the other hand, if we partner with a firm (say Honeywell) to pilot a new project on our rural network, it brings in fresh capital. So the attraction of new business development is real. But at what costs? Again - a lack of metrics makes this post just a gut evaluation.

But shouldn't an enterprise that has been around for 7 years have a good cash flow*? Do we really need to be pursuing new business development ideas? What should the equilibrium be? In this regard, I am disappointed with the brand name investors that Drishtee has brought into the family. How come Acumen is not asking these hard questions? Would Drishtee be unsustainable without the "donor" investment capital? Unless investors don't force good management practices, there will never be any meaningful change.

So I am leaving with more questions that answers on social entrepreneurship. I thought of it as a powerful new idea to tackle pervasive problems through a genuine marriage of private sector innovation and social benefit organizations. But I realize now that you need more than just a powerful idea to succeed. Rebuilding communities in rural India is an inspiring mission. We won't supply tobacco products on our supply chain because of the harmful social impact even though it is the most profitable and fastest moving product in rural India. But at the same time I don't really know if the tools we provide our franchisee's actually contribute towards "rebuilding rural communities" either. The education entrepreneur could just be making an honest living, but the students he services could be no better off after taking the Drishtee English courses or computer courses. If we are not measuring our impact relative to our mission, is it really our mission anymore?

There is one thing that I definitively know - social entrepreneurship is an immature field that needs to grow up quickly.

*I've never perused the financials so can't speak to the sustainability question.

Crying shame

2009-04-30T22:48:00.000-07:00

Full disclosure - I have never voted in my life. Before I was eligible to vote I left India, and have never been in Bombay during any election cycle. Since India does not have proxy voting, I have never had the opportunity to exercise this fundamental right and obligation. This time around I was hoping I might have a chance but, in my defense, I would have had to skip work and fly down in the middle of the week to vote.

So who am I to throw stones? Nevertheless - I am still pissed. Less than a year ago the streets were overflowing with throngs of people demanding change and better governance. What a farce! Turn out was the lowest in 4 elections - a paltry 43%. One of the lowest turnouts across the nation!

I don't get the Bombay electorate. After one of the worst terrorist attacks in the history of the nation, people came out in force against the poor governance and the weak response. Bombay is no more secure today than it was in November. But when they actually had the chance to do something about it...wait for it...drum roll...THEY STAYED HOME! If a terror siege can't shake people out of complacency, what will?

The theories for voter apathy is the heat and people going away for the long weekend. What a crock. This after I saw some of the most intensive celebrity endorsed get out the vote campaigns. I am embarrassed for my city.

I really would like to see the voting stats. If anyone comes across a breakdown of the voting trends in Bombay, please post a link here. And if you know of any organizations that are lobbying the government to implement proxy voting, I want to know about them too.

Water

2009-04-27T03:45:00.000-07:00

My time back here in India has been an interestingly humbling experience. While I am more confident, I am definitely less arrogant. It's a lot like growing up, with a number of illusions being supplanted with reality.

As the summer heat surges past 105 degrees (this is just the beginning), it's natural for water to be uppermost in my mind. But you never really think that water will ever be a problem. Till the taps started to run dry in the afternoon here at Drishtee. I put it off as a plumbing issue. Then the next day I see this elaborate contraption digging right in front of the office building.

Apparently Noida (where my office is located) has acute water issues, and everyone has private bore wells on their property to supplement the municipal water supply. I can imagine houses having to do this, but corporate office buildings!? And it is illegal to have a bore well. And here we are digging in broad daylight. As if this was not alarming enough - the building already has a bore well, but the water levels have dropped so they are digging another 40 feet to access to ground water supplies. Ultimate example of citizens doing what they must - a libertarians paradise. Gives some perspective to why India is so chaotic.

I did a few google searches on water scarcity in India, here is what I found.
* Most fresh water supplies come from inter state rivers, setting up the stage for big water disputes down the line.
* Ground water has been over exploited since 1997-98
* There are promising rain water harvesting solutions
* Things you can do

If you have any suggestions on water conservation I'd love to hear about them.

Mayawati: India's Obama?

2009-04-21T03:59:00.000-07:00

Newsweek has an interesting article describing Mayawati as the "anti-Obama". From a certain perspective she is a threat to the established order very much like Obama and comes from the long oppressed section of India and is the quintessential "outsider". I'm still unsure what to make of it, let me know what you think of it.

For starters though I seriously doubt that Mayawati will become PM. So all this comparison to Obama is extremely premature. Personally, I would *NOT* want to see her as PM, and would definitely change my mind on returning to India if she came to power. I have a number of rational reasons I could spout for this position (enunciated in the article), but I wonder if it's just the "established order" in me that's reacting to this remote possibility.

Nevertheless though, she is the poster child for affirmative action and a fascinating example of Indian democracy in action.

The unexpected

2009-04-14T07:19:00.000-07:00

I come back from the States to an unexpected incident.

Delhi is back to being sunny and warm, and things are familiar again. The first morning back, my house mate Andy greets me with my car keys and the following tale -

Our landlord had informed Andy a few weeks back that she was interested in selling the flat and that people would be by to look at the apartment. The weekend before I returned, a man shows up at our place on Saturday to look at the place. Andy has asked our landlord to give us a heads up before someone came over, but hadn't heard anything from our landlord about this guy coming over. The guy knew the landlords as well as Andy's name and looks fairly legit, so Andy lets the guy in and gives him the tour.

All of us are anxious about what a future landlord will do with the place and this guy tells Andy that he'd be happy to continue renting it to him. All through the tour the guys talking on his cell phone and he seems to like the place. Andy's just glad that a potential new landlord won't be kicking him out. He wants his wife and brother-in-law to see the place as well and Andy says it's okay for him to wait here for his wife to come over. He sits him down in front of the TV, gets him water, makes him comfortable etc. At this point guys phone, that he's been talking on the entire time, runs out of juice and borrows Andy's phone to call his wife. Andy returns to his room to continue working at his desk. What follows is the sound of the main door closing. Andy comes out to find our potential future landlord has left with his cell phone! This is Andy's first weekend in the house alone (I'm in the States and Mrig's in South Africa), and he gets burgled. With us out, he doesn't know what else could have been taken from our rooms. He tries calling his phone but the bugger has turned his phone off. Next he calls Airtel and they give him the last number dialed from his phone. Apparently this dude called someone else in our neighborhood about a car that the guy was selling. With his phone turned off, Andys got no way of finding the guy.

But wait - it gets better. Now I've never dealt with Indian cops directly because we all know how useless and frustrating the experience can be. It's impossible to get them to even lodge a case let alone hear you out. Andy calls the cops. And 5 cops show up to investigate a stolen cell phone! First 2 come, and while he's trying to communicate with them, there's a knock on the door and 1 more joins, then 5 mins later another knock, and after that again another knock, and we end up with 5 cops in our living room. Now this is a fairly complicated story and Andy's non-existant Hindi isn't going to help him much in this situation. He suggests the policemen talk to his friend on the phone who can translate. The landline being in his bedroom, all 5 cops follow him into the bedroom. So Andy gets to spend Sat afternoon with 5 uniformed men in his bedroom :)

Since then he's been called in to photo ID people. They've shown him 2 pics, one was clearly not the guy and the other was a small 2x2 newspaper print quality picture. But for Andy (like most white people) all brown guys look the same. So I don't see much hope in him every ID'ing the guy.

I joke about it, but in all seriousness it's pretty annoying to have someone walk into your home and walk out with you phone. And even more annoying is that Andy can get 5 cops to show up and register a case but my friends who had their car smashed the other night couldn't get them to register anything. As the saying goes - yeh hai Dilli mere yaar...

Mobile solution - final recommendation

2009-03-23T01:47:00.000-07:00

After spending a month looking at different products out there I've recommended that we go with the AMDL bluetooth printer paired with a Nokia 5000 or Nokia 3110C cell phone.

The Access printer is a simple 2 inch thermal printer that is made in India (assembled in Bangalore). This is what makes it very attractive. Anything we import is slapped with import duty, putting the printer squarely out of our price bracket. Having a restrictive price range helped since it quickly narrowed the search down (can't help but contrast this with my profligate ways at the "hedge fund"). The cell phone-printer combination costs around Rs 13000 (~USD 260). This printer is also used by ALW, increasing its attractiveness for us because our bulk numbers increase lowering the price of this device.

This brings us to the next stage of the project - development. The tech team has been working for a week trying to figure out how to communicate via bluetooth etc. etc. Interestingly AMDL provides no software support, no API's no anything. Can you imagine buying a hardware device and not getting any support on how to communicate with the device? I guess this is why it's so much cheaper than any of the other options (Zebra, produced in Europe, costs ~Rs 20,000). There are cheaper printers that we could buy in China (how do the Chinese do it?), but it would make no sense for us since it would come with 0 local after sales support. Someone should try and solve this problem - how can a firm that has a good solid cheap product quickly establish itself in a market to sell it's goods with little upfront costs (an on the ground distribution network that can easily be leveraged by different vendors?).

As we move into the development cycle, I'm getting more downtime. I'm probably going to undertake a microfinance project mapping out Category A loans. More on that in future posts.

Keeping my fingers crossed now for a successful pilot

Delhi parking

2009-03-16T01:38:00.000-07:00

Most urban cities have parking issues. This is stating the obvious - like Subho will not lose the 12 kg's he's aiming to this year.

Delhi though seems to be in a league of it's own. It's one of those things you'll never read about in Lonely Planet. Parking spots are guarded zealously and if you talk to any Dilli-wallah you'll always hear "he got away easy, people get killed for parking".

Parking near my place, like every other place in Delhi, is tight. Very few people have garages and will park their cars on the street in front of their house (so far, nothing objectionable about that). This, people believe, is their right. The street in front of the house is treated as a reserved parking spot for them and no one else dare encroach upon this right. I haven't crossed this hidden line and always park near the market down the street if my roommate has his car in our garage.

Last Saturday we had a party at my place and had a ton of people over. A friend must have parked in an "objectionable" spot near my place. One of my neighbors (don't know who) deflated the tires of this car. At midnight, not only is this annoying but glaringly counter productive if your goal is to move said car. Why would someone do this? You guessed right.

Another friend showed up late at my party. Why, because he was over at his sisters house and when they got out someone had thrown a rock at his windshield, cracking it and there was a massive dent at the side of his car. Nothing stolen, and his best guess is that he too had parked in an "objectionable" spot. He called the cops and what do you think the cops did. Asked him why he left his car on the street? Umm - where else is he supposed to park a car, in the trees? Even the cops know of this unspoken law and are ready to defend it. They refused to file a report about the incident (in India, by law, all cops are required to file a report regardless of the situation). How completely exasperating? That too on a Saturday night!

And when I discussed it with people at work on Monday. "He got away easy, people get killed for parking."

Kerala with Amitav Ghosh

2009-03-10T10:52:00.000-07:00

I've not spent much time discussing my travels on this blog, since I wanted to really focus on my Drishtee experience. But my short trips are such an important aspect of my India sabbatical, I can't not talk about it.

This past weekend I went by myself to Kerala for 3 days. Things in Delhi have been so busy, so much stuff going on that its all been a bit of a whirlwind. It was great to get away - just me and my thoughts; and an entertaining book - Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh. I would have enjoyed this getaway with a number of seasoned travel partners, but Amitav Ghosh was great company. Absorbing, and I could shut him off whenever I wanted. What more could one ask for?

March is already a bit hot for Kerala. I landed at 9:30 and was immediately embraced by humid salty air. I loved it! Growing up in Bombay, it was nice going back to the sea. Went straight from the airport to Munnar (hill station 3 hrs away from Kochin).

Munnar is tea estates as far as the eye can see.

I rented a bicycle the first morning and rode around the tea estates. I could have opted for a scooter, but the bike gave me a better opportunity to slow down and interact with people. Kids everywhere shout out as you ride by. And the thing that took me by surprise (even thought I expected it) is that everyone spoke English, making it easy to chat with passerby's.

Kerala has the highest literacy rate in India (100%) and was the first in the world to democratically elect a communist Govt. Till today the marxists run the state.

It's an interesting case study. You'd expect with literacy the economy and social infrastructure would rise as well. Instead Kerala bucked the trend, and lags a number of other Indian states. In fact, it is the one state where in some rural villages you will find a higher female to male ratio. This is because, with no industrial goods to export Kerala exported it's remaining valuable commodity - man power. The direct flights from Kerala to the middle east are a the testament to that. Dollar remittances are a big part of the economy here. As a result Kerala is disproportionately affected by the global financial crunch.

After spending a night in Munnar, I sped off to Kochi, the queen of the Arabian Sea. Kochi is a group of islands and is one of the best natural harbors in south India. It's seen Arabs, Jews (it has a section of town called "Jew Town"), Portuguese, Dutch and of course the British. I stayed in Fort Kochi, a small island that is perfect for travelers. Everything is walking distance, and because it is so small you keep running into other travelers, and you quickly become part of this community of visitors. You can never feel out of place when everyone is just like you.

They have a number of great restaurants in Fort Kochi. It's hard not to given how great Kerala food is. And I don't know what it is about fish cooked in banana leaves, it's mouth watering. I wish I had time to take a cooking class there - you can buy your own fish in the market, take it back and they teach you how to cook it followed by an incredible dinner. Guess I'll just have to go back for that.

There was just so much stuff to do there, and I didn't get to do enough. I went to a culture program and saw a Kathak performance, spent the day in the backwaters, sunset at the fishing nets, and of course a great relaxing Kerala ayurvedic massage. I would have loved to have just sat in one of the tea shops and read more of my book, or done some historical sight seeing, or taken a sunset cruise, or gone to some of the surrounding small islands and beaches. Fort Kochi is a great place to come relax and just mellow out. Anyone planning a trip to India - think about spending 4 or 5 days here. You can easily make it your base and do short trips to surrounding tourist destinations.

The last night in Kochi it rained, and I mean REALLY rained. Going to sleep with the sound of a heavy downpour was a perfect ending to this weekend. Too bad I won't be in India for the monsoons...

Here are some pics from my trip -

More on ALW

2009-03-04T20:23:00.000-08:00

In my previous post on financial inclusion I talked about how Drishtee is working with ALW in Assam. And in case it didn't come through in previous posts, I am pretty excited about what these kinds of disruptive technologies can do.

I'm tempering that excitement now. I've learnt a bit more on ALW, and I give it a thumbs down. My biggest complaint is that villagers are tied to the access point where they opened their account to withdraw money. The excuse given is that villagers don't leave their village much so it's not a big inconvenience for them to just "bank" at the kiosk they opened their account at. Gimme a break!

Just to refresh your memory, the way it works is that SBI has partnered with ALW to provide a technology banking solution for rural India. Drishtee is the "business correspondent" (BC) that actually implements this solution in the field. Our entrepreneurs/kiosk owner (KO) make money by getting a fee for every account they open and 0.5% of all transactions. This last piece is a bit backward. If a customer deposits Rs. 100 then the KO makes Rs 0.50. Now the same customer can withdraw this money and again the KO makes Rs 0.50. It's a great money making loop [insert favorite reference to the financial crisis in America]. So what does the bank do? They limit the number of transactions in a day. Which sort of sucks because financial inclusion is not just about opening bank accounts, it's getting people to actually use the system. And putting a limit on the transactions just defeats the purpose. The RBI probably said you need to have x number of rural accounts and the banks scrambled to achieve this. Great example of how poorly defined metrics can achieve lop sided results. I just want to scream out - "focus on the goal!".

There are other solution providers out there. I know of eko and mCheck. mCheck is clearly the leading player. They have a tie up with Airtel (leading mobile phone provider in India). You buy a airtel sim card, and you get mCheck pre installed. mCheck just enables mobile payments by letting you connect your sim card to your debit card or credit card. We're exploring with mCheck a proposal to bring to SBI for rural banking. They don't have the silly limitation of only doing banking at the kiosk you opened your account at. You're account is connected to your cell phone, and you can make a mobile payment to anyone with a mCheck enabled sim card from anywhere there is cell phone coverage. Also mCheck is probably going to charge a subscription fee instead of 0.5% per transaction. This way villagers will use the service more and make it part of their everyday lives. We have to figure out how the kiosk owner ends up making money in this model. The right incentive structure is critical.

A side note on how I think they came to this 0.5% transaction fee. I think some smart McKinsey analyst probably calculated that it costs banks around 2% per transaction at a branch and 1% at the ATM. So they just extend this model for rural banking and say at 0.5% I'm saving money. Again, pretty silly IMO. It's a completely new model, requiring people to think in new paradigms.

There are other benefits to the mCheck approach like reducing Drishtee Foundations exposure etc. but I'm not going to get into that (email me if you want to know more). The challenge with mCheck is whether SBI will want to adopt such a technology. ALW uses biometric finger print scans, and apparently that is considered more secure by banks. I don't know enough about the security regulations, but that is a big strike against mCheck. I do use my credit card everyday and I don't really need an eye scan or finger print to authorize a payment. mCheck requires a physical sim card as well as a pin number to authorize transactions - and that maps pretty well to how ATM cards work today and I consider that very secure. I think it's just the issue of a new technology being accepted as normal/standard. HDFC canceled it's banking pilot with EKO (another mobile payment solution) because they claimed it was less secure that debit cards and than people don't see cell phones as a banking mode.

Is anyone else seeing a pattern here of decision makers not visualizing what the future looks like?

More Assam

2009-02-23T21:29:00.001-08:00

Went to Assam with Mallory. If it wasn't for her I'd probably have missed my flight.
She's working on a pilot program with Drishtee for education microfinance loans. With a "real" camera her pictures are more interesting than mine. Figured I'd share.

Thanks Mallory :)

Financial Inclusion

2009-02-22T06:37:00.000-08:00

There is a large section of the Indian population that lies outside the realm of the banking industry. One takes things like having a bank account for granted. Maybe this is not the best time to blog about the virtues of putting your money in the bank, but its obvious that being part of the financial economy has huge advantages. Not only do you have a safe way of storing and accessing your money, but you can build your credit, have access to credit or access to "safe" and "reliable" investments. Well, most Indian's don't have these facilities.
The RBI has issued a policy for Financial Inclusion, directing banks to "voluntarily" provide banking services to the rural poor and bringing them into the banking system. This is not an easy task. First transaction costs are high. It's not easy opening branches in remote villages or setting up ATM's. Applying urban banking models to rural villages just doesn't work. But there are sustainable and scalable solutions to this problem, involving intelligent technology and innovative business models.
State Bank of India is currently exploring pilot programs to address this. Drishtee's rural franchises provide a ready network of entrepreneurs for this pilot. These franchises (or SBI kiosks) are given a small kit to sign up new customers. The technology solution is developed by A Little World (ALW) who are also partners in this pilot. For every account they open they get a small fee. The kit consists of a cell phone, bio metric blue tooth device and a blue tooth mobile printer.

Note the mobile printer, this right now is the leading contender in my own mobile printer evaluation. Its already proven to work in the field, and is pretty cheap. Anyways - back to financial inclusion. The cell phone comes with a camera, so they also take a picture of the person opening an account. The cell phone is connected to the web, so data can get uploaded and is already in the system by the time the paperwork forms with supporting documents reaches the bank. It's a great system. But the business innovation is that these SBI kiosks can operate as human ATM's. Once the bank account has been opened, the customers get a small card called a tiny card. Using this card they can withdraw or deposit money into their accounts. The tiny card just needs to be swiped to record the transaction (technically its a contactless card, so just needs to be waved). For each transaction the kiosk owner gets a small percentage (and Drishtee also gets a small share). These are very small cuts, but it is the transactions that make the model sustainable. Banks bring in customers and deposits and rural villages get to be part of the financial systems. Drishtee takes a deposit of Rs 15,000 from the franchises, and this protects Drishtee from the franchisee ever just running away with any deposits customers make through him. Fairly well thought through and has a good policy backing. Yup it all sounds great.

Here is a picture of Satyan (Drishtee CEO) opening a rural "no-frills" account

Come on, things can't be that easy. I spent some time in Assam talking to SBI kiosk franchises, and it was a litany of complaints. When we started the project things were going well. Kiosk owners were signing up a good number of rural customers and had a great steady income (~Rs 5000 - Rs 15,000 per month). Obviously this would plateau and we needed them to increase the transaction traffic instead. But the SBI has been slow in issuing the tiny cards. The ALW solution has had 2 to 3 software upgrades. I guess all to be expected in a pilot. But still frustrating for franchises and even worse for the end customer. Specially when you're building a new business, you can't tell a customer come back next week after he's been visiting you for a month to get his tiny card. What's even more frustrating is that they now have a new bank manager at the Sonitpur branch. And he's been sitting on all the paperwork for any new accounts. Saying they're short staffed at the bank. So forget issuing new cards, we can't open new accounts either. The business has by and large stalled! It's so frustrating. Unclear what the new manager's incentives are. It all comes down to relationship management and working with the local branch manager and ensuring he's happy and getting whatever he wants out of this. Disappointing and frustrating.
But I have to stay positive. The kiosk owners have bet their business on this model. It can work. It has to work!

Assam site visit - photo essay

2009-02-20T20:01:00.000-08:00

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind, been traveling for the bulk of it. Flew to Guwahati in Assam on Tuesday morning, spent 4-5 hours in the car getting to Sonitpur (the district office). Got there at 8 pm. Spent the next day going out on the delivery route to observe the supply chain delivery process in Assam. 120 km's, starting at 9 am and getting back to the office at 8 pm. And then on Thursday, we leave at 6 am, reaching Delhi at 8 pm that night. It took me 2 1/2 hours to fly from Assam to Delhi and then 2 hours to get through traffic to get to my place from the airport. Out of 72 hours, I spent 30 hours traveling.
Even though I didn't have much time for touristy sight-seeing, going back to Assam was nice. People in Assam were so much more friendlier that Mathura. Drishtee also seems to have a much bigger presence in this state. And the entrepreneurs there really want to engage you in how they can do better. People asking for micro finance loans, discussing new products they'd want us to supply or trying to figure out how they can market their services better. It was great, they were truly entrepreneurial.

On the other hand, the delivery process I observed - not so great. They have only one route, and I can see why. I thought Mathura was disorganized, but these guys are even further behind. The stock room had goods scattered everywhere, with no organization whatsoever.

The normal process is for someone to call the RRP's (rural retail points) and take down the delivery orders the day before. This way when the vans go out, they know what specific goods to take. Not how it works in Assam. These guys had no delivery orders, instead they almost took a mini version of the entire stock room! Given how bad the roads are, its nuts to take so many unnecessary items out and expose them to the jarring journey. And just imagine the inventory reconciliation process at the end of the day, nuts!
Loading the van in the morning -

It was great to go into the hinterland of Assam, even though I was in a 3 wheeler, squeezed up in front on a seat meant for 1 person being shared by 3 of us (driver, delivery executive and me). I spent the entire journey gripping on for dear life, while the delivery executive sat comfortably on the other side, like it was no big thing to almost get thrown out of a moving van every 3 seconds. I tried sitting like him, relaxing my posture and not holding on to anything. Lets just say after the first small bump in the road, I quickly changed my mind.
This is what the 3 wheeler looks like. Gautam is the delivery executive in the blue shirt, with the driver standing next to him.

At some points the road was pretty good -

At others not so good -

We got to a point where they were constructing the road we were driving on. I am particularly amused by the picture above, because at the hedge fund I worked at we were fond of saying working there is like driving at 80mph while they are building the road under us. Here we were literally driving on roads that were getting constructed under us! The van had to take a detour at this point and get into the neighboring fallow fields and go around the trucks. Eventually we had turn around on this path because the road ahead was just not passable. So we end up a diff "road" that is in a much worse state of disrepair. And what do you think happens? Our 3 wheeler gets stuck in the mud. Had to get out and push. If it wasn't for the enthusiastic bunch of school kids that saw us stuck, I don't think we'd have made it out. That's the other thing - wherever we went if there were kids around they would swarm to our van and just stare at what we were doing. Always the center of attention, wherever we went.
To give you guys a sense of how rural this supply chain is, I took this picture of one of the villages we service. It has 1 school, and no electricity. We got there around 1ish. It is as calm and peaceful as it looks. Hard to believe that this place has been suffering from separatist violence for decades now. But with the huge military presence in the area, it's hard to forget this reality.

Ended the day at around 8pm at night. I can't imagine having to come back the next morning for a similar routine the next day. But these delivery guys and drivers do it everyday. Here is a before and after picture of the delivery van. It's crazy that the van returned with more than half the goods it went out with. At Mathura, in contrast, they would come back with maybe 1 or 2 boxes of products.

We visited 12 RRP's (1 was closed) and sold goods worth Rs. 10,067 (~$200). This was less than what we made in Mathura per RRP and we had spent more time in the field. I didn't think it possible to be more inefficient than the Mathura operations. Wrong! I also spent time understanding microfinance and the education operations here. Will leave that for another post though.