New blog

Hey peoples (those few that still visit this haunted space)...have started a new blog....http://inksmemoirs.blogspot.com/ to document the startup story....
Thanks for visiting and love u all.
Ink

Pledge at HAL

Women taking a pledge at HAL, Bangalore
"....to improve the lives of our families and children...Khuda Gawah"

More Field Visits

Chamrajpet Chawls


Been travelling in the hot sun all over Bangalore. Have visited slums in Chamrajpet, HAL, Halasuru, Koramangala, Yeshwantpur so far.....large number of field visits remain. No better way to understand the issues of the poor unless one spends a decent amount of time with them. Some more pictures attached. Views on micro finance as a poverty alleviation tool are crystallizing...will put up a post soon....

Update!!

Quick life update - have joined Ujjivan, an urban micro finance company as the marketing head. Job is to create financially inclusive products for our customers, who are working poor women.
Some pics of my first field visit:

The hill

An old friend from a frozen time sent in this poem.

A : In memory of my wonderful times with you, I am posting this for posterity here. Love.

The Hill

This normative hill
like all others
is transparently accessible,
out there
and in the mind,
not to be missed
except in peril of one's life.

Do not muse on it
from a distance:
it's not remote
for the view only,
it's for the sport
of climbing.

What the hill demands
is a man
with forces flowering
as from the crevices
of rocks and rough surfaces
wild flowers
force themselves towards the sun
and burn
for a moment. 

How often must I
say to myself
what I say to others:
trust your nerves—
in conversation or in bed
the rhythm comes.
And once you begin
hang on for life.

What is survival?
What is existence?
I am not talking about
poetry. I am
talking about
perishing outrageously
and calling it
activity.

I say: be done with it.
I say: you've got to love that hill.
Be wrathful, be impatient
that you are not
on the hill. Do not forgive
yourself or other,
though charity
is all very well.

Do not rest
in irony or acceptance.
Man should not laugh
when he is dying.
In decent death
you flow into another kind of time
which is the hill
you always thought you knew.

    -- Nissim Ezekiel