Prices

The Times of India I read on the flight to Bangalore discussed price spikes of onions.  The Star of Mysore I read on arrival in Mysore talked about increased price of vegetables.  They were all close to Rs. 100 per kg.   I bought some oranges and mosambies at Rs. 100 a kg each.   You get about 4 of each for half kg, meaning each fruit is about Rs. 12.50.

Later that evening I was in a department store A to Z.  It is modeled on department stores in the west, albeit in a much smaller space, and carries everything from soaps to packaged snacks to groceries.  I observed with interest familiar brands like Oreos, KitKat, and Knorr soup concentrates.   An Oreo packet with about a dozen of the well-loved cookies was Rs. 20.  KitKat had smaller sizes to suit varied budgets in India (exemplified in articles and books like ‘fortune at the bottom of the pyramid’).  The typical size that costs 50 cents in the US cost Rs. 20, a packet half that cost Rs. 10, and a packet half that cost Rs. 5.  This meant that a maidservant’s daughter could probably afford a KitKat treat at times.  That's good.

It also meant that a KitKat indulgence was more affordable than an orange or mosambi indulgence.  A Knorr soup concentrate packet was Rs. 52 (with multiple vegetables, onions and tomatoes in concentrate form), the price of half a kg of one vegetable.

This was a real change.  When I was growing up, an orange was probably 25 paise, while a Cadbury bar was Rs 5.  Chocolates were expensive and out of reach.  Everybody bought vegetables and fruits for everyday use, and chocolates on rare occasions (maidservants not at all).  While fruits and vegetables (along with salaries) have gone up 50 to 100 times or more, chocolates seem to have gone up only by 4-5 times.  This seemed to similar to the situation in the US.  (I had been extremely surprised when I landed in the US to find chocolate prices on par with vegetable and fruit prices and the more processed food it was, the cheaper it seemed to be. It took me a long time to get my head around the fact that the poor are obese rather than being thin as sticks, and cheap processed food was one of the reasons.)  

Everything in India has gone up.   But processed and packaged foods seemed to be holding their own.  Is it because of efficiencies in production?  And that it is easier to maintain packaged foods when compared to fresh foods?  That is the explanation in the US.  But in India vegetables and fruits are local, don’t have to travel from afar, and don’t have to be preserved for a long time.  This is puzzling.  Was Cadbury that expensive when I was growing up because there was no competition, or are they keeping the prices low now because of efficiencies in production?

The impact of the high prices for pulses and vegetables is obvious when you order dosas at any small hotel – the sambhar has no toor dal, no vegetables.  It has some onions and tomatoes, occasionally potatoes, and I don’t know what is used to thicken the gravy.  The rava dosa price at these hotels has not gone up – a special rava masala dosa is still Rs. 45.   Is it the competition keeping prices down (there are tons of eating places of this kind) and they have to manage their margins by using less and less dal and vegetables?

First Impressions

This will likely read like fluffy and superficial to some, with the tone of a visiting NRI.  But I believe First Impressions have value, denoting the initial reaction to things we see and the people we meet (and of course, immortalized by my favorite Jane Austen).

By the time we travelled the distance from Bangalore airport to Mysore road, from outside the northern tip of the city to the south, I was tired of the traffic.  It was fairly early in the morning (around 7.00am), but the bustling and teeming roads seemed already full.  I was happy to think of Mysore, happy that it was a smaller city, and happy that I didn’t live in Bangalore and did not plan to do so in the future.

The Bangalore-Mysore highway was also very busy, and the road bumps meant many slowing downs and picking up speeds.   As always the highway was lined with plenty of eating establishments.  The smaller road side establishments were still visible, but more visible were larger, newer, establishments. One was a nice vegetarian restaurant called ‘Adigas’ proudly proclaiming that they were part a chain.  (What surprised me most was the ‘we are hiring’ sign out front looking for everyone from cooks to dishwashers in a new branch they were opening somewhere.  Surely finding people, especially unskilled workers, required practically no advertisement – didn’t the workers at existing branches have relatives they were desperate to get hired?  Also, the sign was in English.)  Most other newer establishments included ‘wine’ and ‘bar’ in their signboards.   There were also wine shops which I am going to guess sell alcohol (not just wine). 

As we got close to Mysore, huge billboards advertised a variety of luxury accommodations, appealing eating places, and jewellery stores.  After we got home to Kuvempunagar and made trips to shops as we got settled in, some of these themes were obvious.  Wine (alcohol), umpteen eating places, jewellery stores, a new store selling meat, lots of new bakeries (selling decent looking cakes in addition to the traditional vegetable puffs and sweets) summed up the businesses that thrived in Kuvempunagar.  All of this does indicate wealth and changing patterns of spending.   I think I was most surprised by the number of jewellery shops, all within a few blocks of Kuvempunagar.

We had dinner at a local small restaurant, with crisp rava onion dosas and Indo-chinese food on the menu.  Yummm.   There was what looked to be a head waiter, several junior waiters, and low down the totem pole, the table cleaners.  They took dirty plates away and cleaned tables, but only the waiters served food.   As has universally been the case the table cleaners are young.  The boy who cleaned our table would have been in class IX or X, if he had been in school.   He was probably from a nearby village, and had to drop out of school or was forced out.  To my eyes he was sad and tired, and clearly at the bottom of the hierarchy at the restaurant.  The tip was pocketed by the waiter, and we had no easy way to tip the table cleaner.  As I was leaving India after my last trip a year ago, I had eaten at a restaurant in Bangalore where the table cleaner was about 10 or 11.  In spite of everything including the Right to Education Act, the meal I had when I left and the meal I had when I came back had this in common with my restaurant meals growing up - young, overworked, underpaid table cleaners.  And this is in Bangalore and Mysore, two relatively well-to-do cities.

 

However prosperous Mysore becomes, the lower ranks seemed to be always filled in with people ready to do any job.  Though some people had probably climbed into the lower middle, middle middle, and upper middle classes and were frequenting the jewellery shops and bakeries and wine shops it did not translate to job vacancies at the lowest levels – people just came in droves from around to fill them up.  I don’t hear of any difficulties in middle class homes finding maid servants.  I doubt the restaurant has any trouble finding table cleaners (notwithstanding the ‘we are hiring’ sign at Adigas).  And, there seems to be always people in temporary blue tarp tents – I have not yet figured out what these migrant workers do.  The blue tarps are around in vacant lots (mostly public) for a few days/weeks and then they disappear.  One year I heard they were digging ditches for fibre-optic cables.

India 2014

At the suggestion of a friend, I decided to capture experiences from my visit to India in writing, as a blog.  I intend to share this only a small group of family and friends.   Some of my observations might come across as naive and inexperienced to folks who live in India; however, my experiences are valuable to me, and perhaps of interest to the small group I intend to send this to.

And I enjoy the writing. 

Shanta Bai

An article in the NY Times today reminded of an experience from 2004. Is it our limited view that makes us surprised when we meet people like Shanta Bai and Kakuben Lalabhai Parmar?

Shanta Bai


I had run into Shanta Bai in Barcelona, Spain, where I
was visiting for 3 days. It was of course unexpected
and exciting that I would run into someone who could
speak Kannada, and after exchanging the initial
surprised remarks, we exchanged information on where
we were from, what flight route we came on, etc. She
was from Bellary and I was from Mysore. Shanta Bai
had been in Barcelona for 20 days, and consequently
did not know the result of the Indian elections. She
had voted, and then left for Barcelona.

"What happened to the elections? What happened in
Bangalore?" she asked. I initially began to talk
about the central government (we had just heard that
Sonia was going to step aside and ask Manmohan Singh
to be the PM) and then realized she was asking about
Bangalore.

I had more recent information than her. "It is a hung
assembly", I said. "The Congress headed by Mr.
Krishna is out. The BJP, Congress, Janata Dal have
shared seats with no clear majority".

"Who got the majority?" she asked. "BJP or the
Congress?"

"The BJP, I said". I paused to recollect, because
experiences in Barcelona of the past couple of days
were clouding what I had read and heard about the
Karnataka state elections. "I think what happened was
that the BJP and the Janata Dal had formed an alliance
during the elections, but after the elections there
seemed to be a fallout. Thus the BJP could not lead a
coalition government, but the Congress could. I think
that is what is happening. I think it is doing to be a
Congress-led government."

She nodded with with general approval. "Yes, I think
that is good. They are better."

I was bubbling with the excitement of the Congress
winning at the centre and Sonia stepping aside. This
was exciting election news. I began to talk about
central government politics and she asked, "Yes, what
happened in Delhi?"

"The Congress got a majority. It is excitingly
unexpected. The BJP is out". I added the last bit a
little cautiously because I am often unsure about
people's reaction to my feelings about the BJP. I did
not want to quarrel with her about the BJP in
Barcelona of all places.

"I heard that in my constituency a BJP MLA has won. I
felt really bad", she said.

"Yes, I don't like the BJP at all", I said, still
cautious.

"I know", she said. "Ever since they came to power
there has been a lot of strife and
conflict. Lot of fighting. Nothing has been OK."

That was very pleasant to hear. "Sonia is stepping
aside. She doesn't want to be the prime minister", I
continued.

"This is the second time she is doing this", Shanta
Bai said. "She has done this before. It might be good
to have her as the prime minister and see what
happens. It would be a change. We could try her".

I didn't fully agree, and felt my usual cynicism about
Indian politics. "I don't like any party", I said.
"But given the options we have, I am glad Congress won
and the BJP lost."

"Well, we will have to see", she said. "They might do
something good. You never know, they might do
something good¡¨.

¡§If the Congress wins¡¨, she continued, referring
back to Bangalore, it is good for girls. They could
come up in life. If the BJP wins, it is the boys who
benefit all the time".

"In all likelihood Manmohan Singh will be the Prime
Minister", I said, again shifting the conversation to
the exciting politics.

She paused, and thought. "Is he from Punjab?"

"Yes", I said gesturing with my hand a turban to
indicate he was a Sikh.

She nodded with general approval again. She could not
recollect bad things about him, and was in general
reasonably satisfied with the state of affairs. "But,
I can't stand the fact the the BJP MLA won in my
constituency. It is all because the BJP has more
money. I felt really bad", she said again.

A perfectly normal conversation to have between two
Indians in the middle of election results being
announced and governments being formed. So, why do I
write about this?

Because I am a product of middle class India,
volunteering for Asha for Education, to "educate
underprivileged children for socio-economic change in
India". Shanta Bai is a Lambani tribal woman, from
Susheelanagar village near Sandur in Bellary district,
who was part of a Samiti formed by an NGO to produce
and market exquisite hand-made embroidery that seemed
to be part of their traditional craft. (the craze of
the west and westernized India). She was in Barcelona
as part of the micro-credit booth at the Universal
Cultural Forum (see note at end for details). By most
indicators the Lambanis are "backward" and are poor.
(by the standards of the modern economy). The mines
in Bellary district provide some employment, and the
men work there for about Rs. 50 a day. "There is work
for us if we are ready to work", she said. The women,
atleast in her village, seem to be mostly associated
with the NGO and worked on embroidery. Shanta Bai
probably had never gone to school, might have been
made "literate" by the NGO. (I did not know how to
ask whether she was literate since we were conversing
as friends, as fellow Kannadigas who had run into each
other in Barcelona.) Yet, contrary to my expectation
as a volunteer working to educate "underprivileged"
children, she was fully aware of the political
process, knew about the political parties, knew more
politics than I did (I could only vaguely recollect
the first time Sonia Gandhi had passed up a chance to
be Prime Minister). She was not only aware, she was
interested, and keen to see a government in power that
would benefit her. She was interested in the local
MLA, in the state government, and the central
government in proportion to how each would affect her
life. She clearly knew who she was voting for and
why. She was eager to know the results, and asked
about election results within minutes of me meeting
her ¡V the first Kannada speaking person (and probably
the first Indian) she met after she came to Barcelona.
Clearly this was noone from a "remote" village who
thought Indira Gandhi was alive.

My education continued.

"What about the children?", I asked. "Do they go to
school?"

"Not really ...", she said. "In schools our children,
Lambani children are treated as stupid and good for
nothing and seen as children who will not learn much.
So most parents don't send their children to school".

I digested this. This was in keeping with what we
hear from our projects and issues tribal children
face.

"How did you get selected to come to Barcelona?", I
asked.

"I own the national award for embroidery last year",
she said, and then took out a copy of the award and a
photo of receiving the award from President Kalam
which she proudly showed me. "Our NGO was contacted
when the Barcelona event was organized and Mr. V
selected me to go. I went to Sweden last year for a
similar event. The Government of India paid the
travel expenses."

This was an interesting piece of information. I had
not realized that marketing of handicrafts made in
India and organized by NGOs had reached that level of
streamlining, that going to foreign countries to
display their wares happened periodically.

"My sister-in-law is going to .....what is the country
where the people are dark skinned?", she asked.

"Africa?"

"Ah yes! South Africa. My sister-in-law is going
there next month."

"When you get back will you discuss with the others in
the village about your experiences?"

"Yes, the NGO will organize a discussion session. In
my village of course like everywhere else, there are
people who are jealous, people who will be mean, but
people who will be nice as well".

She then began to talk about her experiences in
Barcelona. "To show affection the Spanish people
kiss each other on their cheeks. The NGO coordinator
with us tried to do that with our hosts, and I don't
think it went down very well", she giggled.

We were continously interrupted by Forum visitors who
wanted to take a picture of her, dressed as she was in
Lambani attire. I was soon happily joining her
indulgent giggling at the eagerness of the
picture-takers and the novelty in their eyes.

"Isn't this a nice idea?", she mused later. "We got
a chance to come here and get to know them, and they
got a chance to see us. People from all over the
world are able to meet."

"Yes", I answered. "I just saw the Moroccan acrobats
watching the Rajasthani dancers with great interest.
"Yes, it is truly fantastic."

"We have been busy since we came here. We get here at
around 11.00am in the morning and are here till
8.00pm. I haven't had a chance to look around the
forum. In Sweden, it was much better, in the sense
that we were taken to a lot of places. We ate at a
lot of hotels, and were taken to museums where we
learned how people lived thousands of years ago. We
learnt about adivasis there, and about history there.
It was very, very interesting". More stuff that she
had not "learnt at school".

"What did you eat in hotels there?", I asked.

"They took us to Chinese hotels. We would get rice
there, and it was very good. We could also get lots
and lots of fruits which used to fill us up. They
took really good care of us here."

"Where do you stay in Barcelona and how do you eat?"

"There is a house for the nine of us. We buy
groceries at the Indian store and cook our own food.
We bring lunch with us".

I was puzzled, intrigued, to some extent stunned, and
a whole lot of other things. Here was a young woman
who was well aware of the what was going on in the
world. I was not sure what more we could "teach" her,
that she could not learn herself. What more would
education have given her? How would it really have
changed her life?

The other aspect I was unravelling in my mind was that
the NGO appeared "successful", clearly had ties with
the Government of India. The Samiti seemed to be
doing well. Because of their support she could get a
national award from the President! Yet she only
seemed to be making about Rs. 20 a day. More to the
point, had her life changed socially and economically?
I suppose she was better off than before. What was I
expecting? A life where she would be able to zip to
Barcelona for a vacation? Or where her child would
go to the school I went to? I am not sure what I was
expecting. She didn't represent to me someone whose
"life had been socio-economically improved". But
perhaps that was just me being ignorant. Her life did
seem to have changed. Clearly she spoke well of the
NGO, so they had helped her. They had helped her find
a market for her produce. She seemed happy, though
she had to work hard for a living (as do many in this
world). Perhaps this was change, and I should learn to
understand that. If I wanted something more, maybe
this was the first step.

"Wasn't your family afraid of sending you alone this
far?" I asked.

"My husband and I are separated. There is only my
mother left, and she was fine with it. She is taking
care of my child. We have to work for a living, so I
could not pass this up. I hope my mother is doing OK
with my child. Only 9 days till I return".

Shahina Ahmed who was representing West Bengal then
joined us. In true Indian style within 5 minutes she
had discovered that I worked with computers, that I
was not yet married, and that the bangles I was
wearing were real gold :-) Shanta Bai greeted the
fact that I was not yet married with approval. "Yes,
sometimes that is best", she said.

She made one of her bracelets for me, "to remember me
by", she said. She also gave me the address of the
NGO in Sandur. Maybe one day I will meet her again in
Bellary and see whether her child is following the
same profession or has had more choices .... that is
if the child wanted more choices .....

------------------------

I met Shanta Bai at the micro-credit booth, a part of
the Universal Cultural Forum organized in Barcelona.
The NGO which had created the Samiti in her village
had been asked by the Indian government to send
someone to the Forum, and she had been selected. Her
trip was sponsored by the Indian government.

The Forum, as it is popularly called, was organized in
Barcelona, Spain, by the Catalonian Government, the
Barcelona government and UNESCO (Barcelona is in the
province of Catalonia in Spain). With a theme on
Peace, Diversity, and Sustainable Development, it was
started as an event to parallel the World Economic
Forum and the World Social Forum. They have done a
stupendous job in bringing people and their work from
all over the world, from those working in a charity
mode to environmental activists. Exhibitions included
"Education for All", "Fair Trade", "Ethical
Banking", "Community based city governments", "The
lives we live from an environment perspective",
"Micro-credit" (where I met Shanta Bai). Many of
the activities enabled visitors, especially children
to participate and experience diversity instead of
watching it from a distance. There was a strong
emphasis on children, because, as the brochure said,
¡§the children today are the leaders of 2015¡¨. Many
good ideas were displayed: filtering water through a
saree to protect against Cholera in Bangladesh,
Simputers developed in India, digital hearing aids
from Norway to name a few. Cultural diversity was
celebrated with shows from tight rope walkers from
Azerbaijan to water puppet shows from Vietnam to
workshops on Bollywood dancing (I am not kidding, I
have pictures of streams of young Spanish children
waving colorful chunnis in the air to the beat of
Hindi film music). There were hundreds of dialogues
and discussions on various topics from linguistic
diversity to objectivity in the media. The idea being
an emphasis on dialogue to resolve differences. All
against the backdrop of the oh, so blue mediterranean.
More information is at http://www.barcelona2004.org.
One of the goals of the Forum is to
let activists from all over the world know that they
are not alone. Or as the Argentine Nobel Peace
Laureate Mr. Esquivel, a Forum participant, put it,
"it is a place for optimists from around the world to
share different points of view".

Payscales

Shreya was making do with Rs. 3000/month salary. It was not much, especially since she was raising her son by herself, but still it was a livelihood and she managed. She taught Computer Science to middle and high school kids at a private school. A few years after her B.Sc in Mathematics she had finished her computer diploma course at a private computer center. Her teaching work typically kept her busy every hour of the day - the computer teacher was often called upon to fill in for other teachers who were absent and to help with a variety of school activities.

She had begun a correspondence source to get an MCA from Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU). This might expand her horizons and increase her expertise. In spite of her heavy workload and caring for her son she signed up for the course. The bulk of the course material was sent to her to learn by herself. Programming projects were done at the computer center MKU staffed in her town. This meant that after a long day at work she had to come home and work on assignments and when necessary go to the computer center to use the computers there. It was hard work, but she was diligent. She was determined to do well in the course.

Her first year exams were coming up, there were 10 papers. Relational database systems, programming languages, operating systems, all the standard computer science courses that one would see in the first year in a course at this level. She was working hard for the exams.

"Will you get leave to take the exams?" I asked.

"Oh, yes", she said. "They are very good about all that."

We went back to looking at her relational database course material. It was only some time later when the topic came up again that I realized - she would lose 10 days pay when she took the exam. 10 days pay cut when she took exams that would help her improve professionally. 10 days pay cut for something that would potentially help her do her job better. The job would wait for her to come back 10 days later - that was the school was being "good about."

As long as there are people who need jobs employers will get away with the least possible pay.

Prices of Toor Dal in India

Talking about food prices in India, I was totally taken aback on a recent trip when I saw that the price of a kg of Toor Dal was Rs. 90. I had to the shopkeeper a couple more times to be sure I had correctly. Good quality rice was selling at Rs. 30 - Rs. 40/kg and refined sunflower oil was Rs 80/liter or so. Oil cheaper than Toor Dal? (Yes, I know a liter is not the same as a kg, but still) Has that ever happened before? All through the years I was growing up oil was the most high priced item on the grocery list and was careful used in kitchens. But now Toor Dal was more expensive?

I began to ask around to understand why Toor Dal had risen in price. I asked shopkeepers, friends, family, NGO coordinators. "Oh yes, prices of Toor Dal has risen, doubled over the 3 months and tripled over the last 6 months", they would say. "It has become very hard to maintain meals for the children", said the coordinator of a NGO I know well. When pressed for reasons, I heard many: "hoarding by Tatas and Birlas and Reliance to shoot up prices later", or "exports have gone up", or "middle-men are hoarding, the businessmen have become ruthless", or, "consumption has gone up". The last reason seemed somewhat plausible as a contributing factor, and if so, did that mean that the supply was not keeping up with the demand? The hoarding sounded implausible, because when I asked further about reasons that could cause the hoarding at this particular point in time (was there a relaxation of some regulation?) there was no answer. It was quite surprising how hard it was to find out some plausible reasons for the increase in the price of Toor Dal.

By contrast in the US if the gas prices goes up by as much as 10 cents there is a slew of analysis and discussions on the topic. Every major media agency weighs in and there is much analysis on the airwaves. I am sure data is available in India as well, it just did not seem easily obtainable. Perhaps academic journals and some magazines have written on the issue.

It is not that people in the US speak sensibly on every topic, after carefuly gathering facts. The healthcare debate is a prime example of the contrary. But at least there is a framework to have discussions based on facts. Information seems more accessible to people who want to understand. And there are people who sensibly analyze topics based on facts.

Isn't this type of analysis based on facts and access to facts that education in India's schools should help achieve?

No one is quite sure why the situation is so dire ....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11FOB-Rieff-t.html?emc=eta1

Sometimes these articles make me really mad. It includes a line, "No one is quite sure why the nutrition situation in India is so dire. The lack of women’s empowerment in both rural and urban areas is thought to play a major role." I should say it is quite simple why the situation in India is dire. First, food is expensive and the economic boom has not increased the income of everyone to make nutritious food within reach for all. The government subsidies food through ration shops but there is a lot of corruption. The net result is the poor cannot get access to enough nutritious food. Simple.

The empowerment of women affects the nutritious levels of girls. That is a different issue from the fact that 43% of all children in India (boys and girls) are undernourished as the article describes.