About Last Night...


Last night I had a meeting with the Director of Education at Azim Premji University at 6pm. We met for 1 and 1/2 hours. We talked about the Design Thinking Process and the guide I am creating for teachers. She loved it and had some really good feedback. Here I thought I would tie everything up in a nice little bow and hand off my work to Azim Premji and Indus International but the bow came undone. Instead, I was able to forge ongoing relationships with both affiliations to continue my work in India while getting the guide off the ground at home. I love that I have still will have such a strong connection here in India. Bangalore will be my second home.

Today, we packed up all our suitcases and cleaned the house. Well actually John cleaned the house. It is spotless. Thank you John. We had lunch  with our dear friends and were gifted 2 plates by a local artist for our dinning room. We were so touched and so glad that we got a break from packing and thinking about our shift back to the US. The plates are absolutely gorgeous and really represent us and the artist, Deepak. It is our first plates that have such a significant meaning to them. We become very close with Deepak and he made the plates especially for us. Usually we go into a local artist's store and pick a plate. This time it had such depth and meaning to it.



And then the coolest thing happened. Our neighbors came over one by one to say goodbye with such heartfelt sentiments. It was delightful. My heart is full.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Farmhouse Retreat

Image
My class on Education Policy and Decentralisation took a field trip to a village. One of the students, Sanjeet, was kind enough to offer his farmhouse for all of us to stay at the night before. Sanjeet has an amazing story which I will save for another post. Briefly though, for 20 years or so he worked in the corporate world and decided to leave his job and enter in the MA program at Azim Premji University. His family runs a school in a village outside Bangalore and he wanted to learn more about education in India and put his talents to good use in the social sector. There was about 15 of us including my Professor, Dr. Paik. This class is more like a community and how they interact with each other, with me, and our Professor is a case study in itself. Right from day 1 of the class, I felt the warmth, kindness, and enthusiasm from each one of them. The farmhouse adventure is a testament to their true generosity and compassion. We left the campus around 5:30pm on this bus th
Read more

Caste System in India

Image
Author's Note: Please know that I am trying to understand the Caste system in India and I am just thinking out loud based on what I am learning in my Class, Caste, Gender course. There is NO judgement. They are just thoughts. General History of Caste courtesy of BBC News:   Manusmriti , widely regarded to be the most important and authoritative book on Hindu law and dating back to at least 1,000 years before Christ was born, "acknowledges and justifies the caste system as the basis of order and regularity of society". The caste system divides Hindus into four main categories - Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras. Many believe that the groups originated from Brahma, the Hindu God of creation. At the top of the hierarchy were the Brahmins who were mainly teachers and intellectuals and are believed to have come from Brahma's head. Then came the Kshatriyas, or the warriors and rulers, supposedly from his arms. The third slot went to the Vaishyas
Read more

John's World...Sports

Image
Nehru Stadium, Kochi.  One of the loudest outdoor stadiums in the world according to Guiness. While I plan on answering everyone’s questions they send me, this email caught my attention: Hi John, What is the sports scene like in India? Can you give more details on what sports they watch and how they support their team? RR from Roslindale Thank you RR from Roslindale.   I had planned on penning an entry on this very subject.   One of the things that attracts me to sports to the degree that it does is that you can see the beauty, horror, simplicity, and complexity of life played out over game time.   Race, religion, class, politics, gender, you name the issue-it comes to the forefront in sports.   Triumph over odds through merit, the great vehicle of endeavor plays out over a test, a game, a period and gives us hope.   Back in the states I am immersed in soccer, hockey, football, basketball and from time to time baseball.   I love watching, listening to com
Read more