Category Archives: (non) fiction

On the trucks around town…

By Ananda | Published: June 15, 2011
We two, ours one

Anyone who has spent some time in India is sure to have noticed the slogans painted on the back of trucks, autos, and other vehicles advising “we two, ours one”. This is part of India’s “family planning” efforts–efforts which have had a pretty bumpy history that included a forced sterilization program. Originally, the slogans were [...]

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Effective Communication?

By Ananda | Published: February 12, 2011

When people begin the study of communication, their attitudes vary anywhere from “I think this would be a very important class: it is important to understand the communication process if I want to improve the effectiveness of my communication,” to “What a waste of time. I’ve been communicating all my life. Do I really need [...]

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A Primer on Linking Disaster Risk Reduction with Development Efforts

By Ananda | Published: June 10, 2010

I’m very happy to announce that the primer I wrote for the Advanced Centre for Enabling Disaster Risk Reduction is now available online. Here’s the abstract: When one surveys news reports today, mention of disasters seem to be commonplace. And, quite often, there is a lot of response to disasters. Aid agencies channel money or [...]

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You should run for office

By Ananda | Published: May 8, 2010

At least that’s what one of my former students told me at Tata-Dhan Academy’s third convocation, during which I got to dress up in a very white shirt and a long white dhoti.

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The ODF Campaign

By Ananda | Published: February 13, 2010

Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about poop in my “community”. Amy had given me a book to read called “The Big Necessity” and I found it really interesting and applicable to what the students at the Tata-Dhan Academy have been studying. I, in turn, lent the book to one of my colleagues, who [...]

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Democracy, aristocracy, plutocracy, meritocracy, and bratty students

By Ananda | Published: January 19, 2010

I started the day today [note: as with "And when the numbers go against what you have always said....,” this was written around a week ago] with my dictionary. I was trying to remember more precise definitions of things like democracy, aristocracy, plutocracy, and meritocracy because our topic of discussion for the day was “deepening [...]

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And when the numbers go against what you have always said….

By Ananda | Published: January 19, 2010

Today [note: this was actually written about a week ago, but I just got around to finishing typing it], around 400 DHANites got together to talk about poverty and our motivation to work with the poor. Our “reference” materials were a chapter from a book titled Moving Out of Poverty (one of the authors of [...]

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The (unbutchered) retreat report

By Ananda | Published: January 13, 2010

I just came back from my first DHAN Foundation retreat (which I plan to write about later) and I also got two books filled with “retreat reports” from other DHANites. The retreat reports range from extremely dull to pretty fun to almost instructional. By design, they are meant to highlight the best and worst parts [...]

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Do Indians have a sense of humor?

By Ananda | Published: November 23, 2009

AKA “Irony over the stinky river….” Sometimes, just when I begin to not have faith that Indians have a sense of humor, I run across something like this: Near our house, there is an extremely foul river…. actually, it’s hard to even call it a river since it really seems to only flow when the [...]

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Marina Beach

By Ananda | Published: November 23, 2009

AKA “The sweet smelling ocean spray on Chennai’s shores….” Aah. Marina Beach. Great to go people watching. Good place to buy little silly plastic touristy stuff. Smell the fresh ocean breeze. Take a dip in the water to cool off. Or should you?

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