My new neighbor

This big guy greeted me downstairs on the way to work last week. You can't really tell by the picture, but he's one GIANT monkey! He was right on the sidewalk but ran up the building when I started approaching.

Just another Monday evening

I'm having a decidedly I-love-India night. And what's most amazing, there's really nothing special about it.

But that's what's so great about it. As much as I love traveling, I really haven't lived anywhere internally longer than three months. The longest is probably working in Australia or studying in Russia or London for the summer. So now that I'm going on 2 1/2 years here in India, the joy of simply living abroad, as opposed to traveling or studying abroad sometimes catches me in unexpected moments. Like tonight.

I leave work early for a change (meaning 7pm) and head home. As I wonder which take-out place to bring food home from, I decide it would be more fun to cook. So I head to my favorite local vegetable stand, just down the hill from where I live. Rs 10 for vegetables and an egg, another Rs 10 rupees for spices and flavouring for chicken-noodle soup, and I have a meal for less than fifty cents!

As I walk up the hill home, I pass children playing on the streets. My neighbor's adorable son (who just recently learned to walk) comes out of their apartment laughing, completely naked except for a red string around his waist (an auspicious tradition here that many parents do on their children). His older brother whisks him away when he hears my approach, embarrassed.

As I am about to close the front door to my apartment, the call to prayer starts from the nearby mosque. While on some days (especially very early mornings!), I just want QUIET, today the call has a melodious quality that somehow matches with the warm tropical Indian air. No doubt about it, summer is starting soon in Hyderabad.

I keep the door open and listen to the call to prayer, as I start chopping my vegetables for dinner.

Not a bad way to end a day.

My local "grocery".

An un-Hyderabad night in Hyderabad

Went to an incredible show last night completely atypical of events here at Hyderabad: a Senegalese hip hop concert! Of course, it was held at the Novotel (which is my own personal pet peeve that ALL cultural events at Hyderabad occur in culture-less hotels). But I shouldn't complain too much because it was incredibly fun.

Turns out the band of Senegalese rappers (called BBC Sound System) live in France. The event was put on by the Alliance Francaise, who is sponsoring the band's tour across India. One of my favorite marketing posters is from the Alliance Francaise of Trivandrum, who invites folks to "an evening filled with a blend of African melodies, raga, hip hop, soul and salsa rhythms...It is perhaps for the first time that this genre of exotic music is being performed live in Trivandrum." Gotta love it.

Midway through the night, the band (rapping in French) threw in some Hindi (ache, do, teen, char!!!). The crowd went wild.

Intrigued? Here's a link to one of their songs. Go for it; they're that good :)

Happy New Year!

Happy Ugadi! Yesterday was Telugu New Year, celebrated throughout Andhra Pradesh. My favorite part of the holiday is the tradition surrounding it:

Each family makes a special chutney together, called "ugadi". The base of the chutney is fresh mangoes (mmm....) To this, the family adds five other items: neem buds for bitterness, tamarind juice for sourness, green chilly for heat, jaggery and ripe banana pieces for sweetness, and a pinch of salt for saltiness.

The symbolism here (as you may already have guessed) is that your upcoming year will be comprised of many things: the sweet, the sour, the bitter... The main thing is keeping this all in perspective! (and I'm sure going through all of this with your family is also a key part!).

This made me smile

"An afternoon nap: serious business." From a somewhat cute but also slightly disturbing newborn baby slideshow.

Public Announcement Sign

"Do one good act each day."

Stuck in traffic and I see this sign painted outside a building in Delhi. The NY cynic in me rolls her eyes at the trite platitude.

Traffic resumes and we lurch ahead. As I continue to stare out my window, I realize what the building actually is: a mortuary.

Suddenly the advice painted on takes on a whole new level of meaning, doesn't it?

This stuff makes me miss NY!!

Incredible. J.D. Salinger's letters are up on display in the Morgan Library & Museum in NYC -- a gorgeous library founded by Pierpont Morgan (and one of the most magical places for lunch or coffee in midtown).

In a way, you gotta feel bad for the guy. Completely private and a recluse... always wanting to be left alone. In fact, his friendship with his best friend ended when his friend asked Salinger to autograph a copy of Catcher in the Rye (FYI, autographed copies now auction for $100,000+). So what happens? Salinger gets mad at his best friend. His best friend gets mad right back... and sells his correspondences to a collector, who then sells it to a Vanderbilt heir, whose widow donates them to the museum.

Only two months after Salinger's death in January (at the age of 91), these letters are now on display at the Morgan Library. And as much as I feel sorry for the guy given how private he was, how can you not see them?? Man oh man do I wish I were in NY.

The little snippets I've read sound incredible, and totally fitting the author of Catcher in the Rye (which I've read five times). Letter #1 is my favorite:

May 22, 1951
Salinger writes from London, detailing his experiences sharing drinks with a Vogue model he met on the ship. (“No real fun, though.”) Later, he hangs out with Laurence Olivier (“a very nice guy”) and his wife, Vivan Leigh, whom he calls “a charmer.” Salinger finds himself at a party—where he accidentally snorts gin up his nose—with the Australian ballet dancer Robert Helpmann, described as a “sinister looking pansy” and argues with Enid Starkie about Kafka. He also goes to see a play, and compares the theater in New York City to that in London’s West End. “The audiences here are just as stupid as they are in New York, but the productions are much, much better,” he writes to his “Buddyroo,” Mitchell.

Angels with Dirty Faces

Went to a quite unorthodox play tonight. Called "Angels with Dirty Faces", it's an adaptation of Oliver Twist... Done to hip hop... Imbued with Romeo and Juliet... And performed by Delhi street children.

The production was put on by two organizations: Going Solo, a UK-based charity aimed at empowering street children through education, theater, and music; and Jamghat, a Delhi-based non-profit with a similar mission. Proceeds from the performance were going to build a girls shelter.

The night took on a quite surreal twist when Miss India took to the stage after the performance to talk about the plight of street children... her diamond-studded attire was a bit in contrast with the cast behind her.

But for the most part, the night was really fun. The best part was the end of the play, when all the children took to the stage for a big dance party -- see pic below!

Scavenger Hunt

Beautiful day in Delhi today -- perfect for exploring on the back of a motorcycle! We head up north, on the search for what turned out to be the "elusive" Ludlow Castle.

This is likely one of the most striking underpasses I've seen, which stretches out from the Red Fort:

What we think is Ludlow Castle...

...still pretty neat to explore! (although cute children run after us to warn of the "danger dog" behind the ruins)

Love and Marriage

Not long after moving to India, I started getting emails from friends back home: "Have you read Eat Pray Love yet? You really should! -- the book totally reminds me of you."

Naturally intrigued, I finally bought a copy and started to read... then promptly got annoyed at everyone who thought this was me. Here's Elizabeth Gilbert -- the author, hysterically sobbing on her bathroom floor amidst the ruins of her terrible, failed marriage; who would rather travel than have children -- and everyone thinks this is me?!

Luckily I continued on in the book, and did start to see what people were talking about. Her adventures, her international passion, her search for deeper spirituality amidst her repeated "failed" attempts at meditation... and at the end of it all, finding peace with herself.

So perhaps it's timely that her new book, Committed, has just been published. Now engaged to a man she met and fell in love with during her international adventures, she uses the book as a vehicle to contemplate what marriage really means, as well as confronts her own fears about the institution.

I bought this book this morning at the airport bookstore, on my way to Delhi...and haven't been able to put it down since (one of the few times I was happy the flight is two hours!) Some parts had me laughing out loud...her self-deprecating humor is really quite witty. At the same time though, I was often annoyed by her air of self-importance (although as my yoga teacher often says: "Everyone is just a mirror to yourself. What annoys us in other people is really what annoys us about ourselves." And so it is.)

While I don't share her fears and sheer loathing of the institution of marriage, I did find her contemplation into it -- and research into its history -- quite fascinating (did you know that for centuries, the Church called marriage "evil" and actively tried to steer people from it?)

At times, I did have to laugh at some similarities... Here's one of my favorites: she's giving her fiance a list of her biggest character flaws, to ensure that he's "properly warned" in advance.

#3 of these is:

I have far more enthusiasm in life than I have actual energy. In my excitement, I routinely take on more than I can physically or emotionally handle, which causes me to break down in quite predictable displays of dramatic exhaustion. You will be the one burdened with the job of mopping me up every time I've overextended myself and then fallen apart. This will be unbelievably tedious. I apologize in advance.

Sounds a bit familiar ;)

A weekend in Pondicherry

So it turns out that turning 31 is much less stressful than turning 30. Last year, I was all about digging out my "30 before 30" list and getting anxious and mad at myself for never having written that book (despite the first and last chapters being done!) and never becoming fluent in Swahili.

I dunno, maybe it's all part of "maturing", but gone are the month-long celebrations (I celebrated my 25th with 3 parties -- one in NYC, Boston, and Atlantic City!) and agonizing about the past and what I hadn't done yet. This year is all about just enjoying where I am and celebrating new chapters up ahead.

Here are some pics from my birthday weekend, spent in Pondicherry -- a cute little town on the southeast of India and a former French colony... with enough Indian "champagne", you can sometimes pretend you're somewhere in southern France... (almost).

Customer-focused enterprises

Early on in the Acumen Fellowship, Jacqueline told us: "Once you set your intention, the universe conspires with you to achieve it."

I thought about that quote last night, as I was sitting in a SalesForce event at the Taj Deccan. I was hearing all about CRM strategies and ways to make your business successful by better tracking and analyzing your customers.

What's funny is this is exactly the type of work I was doing straight out of undergrad, as a consultant at Braun. After two years there, I decided I wanted to keep doing what I was doing... but apply it to something I was infinitely more passionate about - social enterprises.

What's interesting is how novel that sounded then: treating people as "customers" and not as passive recipients of aid. I went to the Philippines and convinced skeptical leaders of a Catholic MFI to hold customer focus groups to better understand how happy they were with the organization's services. Even my business school interviewer was a skeptic. Reading my business school essay now makes me cringe, but the basic gist is that I wanted to help social enterprises grow their organizations by better understanding their customers.

So Jacqueline's quote comes back now... while I didn't plan on focusing on CRM, my terms of reference as an Acumen fellow were exactly that. It's been really amazing applying those same skills to the work we're doing here. While we're a social enterprise, our attention to customer tracking and customer conversion is just as rigorous as the companies I used to work with as a consultant.

And apparently SalesForce has noticed, for we were just asked to do a case study on the way we track our customers. We were also in a BusinessWorld article last year about our CRM initiatives:

Hyderabad-based LifeSpring Hospitals uses CRM to track customers real time. "We have seen conversion rates improve," says Tricia Morente, head of marketing. For LifeSpring, the biggest benefit has been automation and generation of a database over the Web.

What's interesting is how many of my Braun colleagues within the strategy group have gone on to work in social enterprises... In fact, I just had a phone conversation with a former manager who's now working in Pfizer's emerging markets strategy group, and is now looking into maternal health through a partnership with Grameen.

When I first moved here, many former colleagues laughed when I told them I was working to develop a CRM strategy for our organization. "Can't get enough, eh?" Maybe not. But it's nice to know at least some skills are transferable!

World Health Congress

Just got a Google Alert for LifeSpring Hospital and was pleasantly surprised to see the recent press release for the World Health Care Congress 2010:

World Health Innovation Summit to kick off 7th Annual World Health Care Congress with key insights on how innovations in the developing world can be applied to the developed world, April 11, Washington DC.

...with the byline:

Professor Muhammad Yunus joins LifeSpring Hospitals, Results for Development Institute, mHealth Alliance and DataDyne for exclusive one-day summit.

Ah what a difference a year makes! Last year I was lugging around a huge poster of LifeSpring to display at the conference and help get our name across... while few people had heard of us, we did get questions on when we would open our first hospital in the US! This year, our CEO will be speaking at one of the Innovation Summit panels, and we're highlighted next to Yunus.

But much more than that, what's most exciting about this year's Summit is the major shift in focus towards highlighting innovations from developing countries, in order to spark ideas for how these learnings can be used by the West. Last year, the conference was 99% US-focused... after all, Obama had just entered the White House and health care was a subject of huge debate.

One year later, domestic health care is still quite debatable, but there's also more of a willingness (driven perhaps by an economic imperative) to look beyond our borders and see what innovations are happening around the world. Looking forward to hearing about these agents of change.

Happy Women's Day!

It's International Women's Day today, which India is celebrating in full-force. This means getting text messages like:

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. A woman must do what he can't. Wishing you a Happy Woman's Day.

Everyone is greeting me Happy Women's Day, from our office boy to all the COO candidates I'm speaking to by phone.

Here at the hospital, we're holding Women's Day health camps at four of our locations, which includes our doctors speaking about women's health and health check-ups. One of our hospitals has also partnered with a local non-profit called Healing Fields (started by an Ashoka Fellow) to do a health camp focused on adolescent girls - in conjunction with a grant we recently received from Nike Foundation.

And a happy just-in-time Women's Day update: twins were just delivered literally five minutes ago and just down a few flights of stairs from my office... the family lovingly crowds around to welcome them into the world (always an amazing treat to see on my way down to lunch).

Women's Day... maybe something we should start celebrating in the US?! ;)

Managing Energy

Around this time two years ago, all the Acumen fellows descended at Oxford to reconnect at the Skoll Foundation Conference. While much of the week was a blur of joyous reunions (snuggle town!), social enterprise panels and gorging on non-Indian food, one conversation in particular stood out.

Jacqueline had just arrived and was meeting with all the fellows. She said something to the extent of: "Obviously what you're all doing is hard work. But I want to know the extent to which you're energized by it or are drained by it."

Something during that conversation clicked, and I realized that "energy" was really the key. I was working much longer and crazier hours here in India than I did consulting in NY, with much less of a clearer delineation between work and "life." But I was more energized than I ever had been before. And now on days where feelings of burnout inevitably start, I think back to the key question: how might I feel more energized and re-invigorated?

All of which makes the book I'm currently reading all the more fascinating. Called "The Power of Full Engagement", its thesis is that managing energy -- not time -- is the key to high performance. What I like is that the authors discuss not only individual energy, but how this ties into organizational energy (very similar to conversations I've had with my mentor from business school, as well as with colleagues at Katzenbach Partners). Some particularly salient parts:

"Performance, health and happiness are rounded in the skillful management of energy... Leaders are the stewards of organizational energy -- in companies, organizations and even families. They inspire or demoralize others first by how effectively they manage their own energy and next by how well they mobilize, focus, invest, and renew the collective energy of those they lead."

It's an interesting thought: leaders as stewards of organizational energy. But it's true. How a leader behaves is manifested by the rest of the organization. Energy -- whether positive or negative, anxious or inspiring -- is contagious. Leader or not, we should all start to think about what kind of energy we're spreading.

24x7 water?

One of the amazing things about India is how many things happen in a day that are noteworthy. Each day is full of highs and lows and "I-can't-believe-I-just-saw-that" moments, which somehow still don't get old after two years of being here.

I don't think I ever really realized this until I started keeping this blog to keep in touch with friends and family. My first thought of what I'll write in the morning ("I'm reading a fascinating book about organizational energy!") has nothing to do with my thought one hour later ("I'm moving!! Top things I'll miss about Indira Heights...")... which is completely different from my ride home ("It was dark and I couldn't quite tell what I was looking at. I knew they were beggars but it looked like a husband-and-wife couple, with his arms around her lovingly... when I realized he didn't have arms and she was basically carrying him on her back...when I realized he didn't have legs either...)

Whew. So as you can see, a big day, but in a way, just any old day here in India -- for better or for worse.

So what's on my mind right now? Water. Or rather, the lack of it. I've been looking for a new apartment for about a month now. Not that I don't love where I'm living. It's beautiful with a gorgeous view of Banjara Hills below, and a deck complete with an awesome porch swing (thanks Nate!) But I'm ready for a change. Closer to the park or closer to work, but most importantly, a place to call my own.

In any case, my first strategy was to look for places near work. The fact that the nice apartments advertise "24 hour water" tells you something. A couple weeks ago, when I asked my Hindi teacher (who lives in a middle-class neighborhood) to teach me: "Is there water available here?", she said that question was a moot point and of course I'd need to go outside and fill buckets from the nearby pump.

I wondered whether I should be moving in the first place.

But that was just my thinking getting smug, for in the couple days since I've been back from Delhi, there's hardly been any water here either -- and this is the nice part of town. I suppose I could just get used to it if there's never water. But it's the somtimes water that's a killer. You put soap on your hands to wash, but then realize there's no water and now you're hands are soapy and sticky! Thinking I had figured out a system, I then began turning the water on first, to test it out. Seeing water indeed there, I'd then put soap on my hands... but in those two seconds, the water would run out!! -- worse still, and I'd feel absolutely awful for wasting that precious water...

Not much better outside Hyderabad, either. In Delhi, it has almost become a game... filling up the tea maker with water from the kitchen sink to take a "shower" ;)

Of course, living in India puts everything in perspective. At the same moment I get frustrated that my laundry is half-wet and completely mildewy with not enough water to complete the wash cycle, I remember the couple begging for money just an hour earlier.

Sure, things can always be better. But they can surely always be a thousand times worse.

A nice place for a picnic

While I continually miss picnics in Central Park, Delhi's not so bad either...

A Celebration

Toto, we're not in Hyderabad anymore...

Smokehouse Grill, Delhi