Our 15 minutes of fame...

I think that every CSC assignment is pretty special and you are treated to experiences that you did not anticipate. In our case, we most definitely have gone up another level. IBM India has a focus on their local CSR work and through a film crew, have been showcasing the assignments of local India people who go abroad to complete their assignments. The website that you should check this out is called Desi Corps (desi means 'local'). As we were in India, we were asked to participate in a small documentary style video shoot given we were 'local' in India. Naturally we said yes.

Not really knowing what to expect, all we knew was that we would be given a briefing one night and then shooting would start the next day. Maria from our team was our communications representative and she did a great job in keeping us informed of the Desi Corps movements as well as creating a schedule for shooting that our IBM brains could take solace in (:P)

With my dad working in TV for many years of my childhood I was quite familiar with the type of gear that the crew would be carrying with them however I did have an assumption of the team before we met in that they would be middle-aged men (just like my dad). Now, those who know me know that I have tendency to liken grown men to 'cute little boys' or 'little babies' for what ever reason as it is viewed in my brain. I love seeing men be passionate about their work, doing things for the right reasons and having an air of niceness about them and somehow this translates them into being little boys. Why? I don't know, perhaps I should speak to a psychologist.....

First day of briefing- Enter the Desi Crew. They were a group of cute little babies, some complete with scruffy hair and jeans that drag on the ground as they walk (Sorry Jayant and Dev, if you are reading this- not you two specifically :P )...but that was my first impression. And to be honest, it gave me a great sense of relief. They were normal. They were young. They were keen.

And over the next 2 days they had to handle multiple personalities, many stakeholders, run to various schedules and work with a creative direction that sometimes differed amongst themselves. I imagine like any artist, being given full rein is desirable however in our corporate worlds and in real life- this can be a bit of a challenge. It was a very interesting process to watch and the boys work long hours, with many minutes spent waiting whilst something is being altered before the next shot can take place. Definitely not within my skill-set so I don't envy them but they seem to enjoy themselves and believe in the vision they can see even when the rest of us cannot. I thoroughly enjoyed observing their work practices.

On the second night we were asked to provide a few minutes of individual speaking time with the crew, covering our personal views on being accepted into the Corporate Service Corps and our expectations once we arrived. Well, for a group of 'talented' individuals, this still drove in shivers of fear. Nonetheless, with a bit of tough love 'self-talk' I decided it was now or never and I was the first one to speak with the crew that night. Here is a shot of our Concept Society sub-team (Tyler, Anika and I) speaking on camera about what it is like to work with one another:

Inside the Lemon Tree hotel

Our next experience with the film crew was done on a group basis. For us, this meant that the film crew accompanied us to the slums where we interviewed a family about their reason for migrating from a village to the city of Indore. The purpose behind this interview was because it directly relates to the work we are doing with Concept Society. To recap, Concept Society is an NGO in Indore, India that has strong relationships with women in villages, tribes and the slums.

Quite often there is an industry demand for skilled resources and the women have a need to work with the cost of living on the rise. There is however, a gap between these women having the necessary skills to be suitable for the employment on offer. This is where the Women's Resource Centre (a new future service line of Concept Society) plays a vital role. Using the existing relationships Concept Society has, the WRC can provide a platform which trains these women, whilst also providing them safe lodging facilities and preparing them to be 'work ready' as this will be the first job for many.

How does this family fit in? Well, the fact that they had to migrate from the village to Indore to gain better employment to allow for a more successful future for their son is directly the target group that the WRC can assist. Tyler, Anika and I had by this time spent 3 + weeks building a self-sustaining business model and a case management process with psychological considerations of our target group (these women coming in from rural areas) who are being subject to training and assessment for the first time in their lives. We now had a small chance to speak with a family who had already made this move, take the time to share the WRC concept and find out if a platform like that had existed at the time of their own stage of decision making- would it have made a difference? A great opportunity for the film crew to be present during our assignment.

I would like to share the story of how we met this family first though. Tyler's camera often runs out of batteries and on one of his 'find batteries' missions he went into a computer-like store whereby the man directed him to a nearby shop, sending his 13 year old helper to accompany Tyler down the dark alleyways. On the way there, Tyler struck up a conversation with this boy who turned out to have great English speaking skills. The boy, whose name is Rahul shared a little about his life which referenced the fact that his parents had migrated from a village to Indore for work. And when an opportunity like that presents itself, Tyler went with it.

Over the next week a relationship was built with the shop owner who is a bit of a Godfather figure to the boy who then in turn lisaised with the parents for us to get permission to conduct an interview with them (and explain what the cause was). Then there was the next step of getting permission for the interview to take place on film (again, explaining that purpose). Many translations between English and Hindi occurred and much thinking around logistics to ensure the comfort level of those involved.

So here are some photos of how we went on the day:

Sitting inside the house, preparing for the interview with the family

Sound adjustment part way through the interview

A good opportunity to check my reflection in my sunglasses

And here we are after the interview:

Here is me, Tyler, the boys father, Hemal (our NGO), the boy Rahul, his mother and Anika after the interview took place.

Some time was spent with the film crew after the interview to get our thoughts and feedback and you can see these shots in action below. It made for a pretty impressive visual (for us), with one of us talking and a group of people standing around with equipment to catch what you have to say:

Here I am saying my piece. I won't be a newsreader anytime soon, let's just say that.

Here is Anika, being ultra comfortable in front of the camera, she did great.

As did Tyler, sharing his experiences.

The crew discussing what thread of the story should go next

But there is time now for a group picture with Rahul and the film crew:

I love this picture. Here are the main boys- Second from the left is Jayant, Dev and our boy Rahul.

The Concept Society sub-team debriefing with our NGO, Hemal

One of the boys shared this picture with me that was on their camera, not actually a fan of me in it personally but I like the background and shades:

And later on that night, back in the hotel when further filming was being done- we were able to capture a few pictures of the crew in action... (An interesting cycle, they are here to take footage of us yet we are equally as interested in getting footage of them, taking footage of us, double vanity perhaps?).

Location - Tyler's room

Haha, cheeky.

So that was our 15 minutes of fame. When some of the clips are released, I will share them with you all here but I encourage you follow Desi Corps on your favourite social media platform as a lot of what they do is quite interesting. In fact, somewhat related- here is a great clip that some of them worked on with IBM India CSR teams becoming a 'flash mob'.

When all was done and the nerves were calmed, we all commented how professional this film crew was and it was evident that they knew what they were doing. In fact, we have kept in contact and some of us have realised a double benefit of doing so- who knows when you have an event that where you will need to hire a good documentary film crew?

Well done team. Thank you Rahul and his family for sharing a part of your lives with us and allowing us to intrude so personally into your home. We appreciate your openness.

#ibmcsc 

April fools gone wrong, disco rickshaw and a bed full of elephants

We certainly have had some fun on this assignment (but we have been working, I promise :) ). I mentioned in one of my Bhopal posts that I had a story to share and I am now going to make good on that promise.

The beautiful hotel we stayed at was once a palace that had been converted in recent times. What has remained though is the Muslim heritage it brings, so no alcohol is served at this venue. Enter in a group of CSCers who have spent a day exploring, in between bouncing around on a bumpy bus. Some of us went straight to bed whereas others decided to go to the closest thing that resembled a bar and we found ourselves at the business centre, ordering mocktails.

The hilarity began from the moment we tried to order a beverage from the phone in the business centre. Despite being assured that we could order drinks from the business centre when we were at reception deciding what to do, the person on the phone said it was not possible. Paul went back down to reception to place our order in person, only to return with the person serving us trailing behind.

Now this is definitely one of those stories that have the tag line 'It was so funny....oh...I suppose you had to be there'. But I am going to share it with you anyway, because...it was so funny (...you had to be there). Depending on your country, April Fools for majority of us in the Business Centre that night was celebrated on April 1. We realised this whilst sitting there as the clock struck past March 31 and into April Fools. We quickly established a team rule that if you left the business centre for what ever reason, the remaining people were not allowed to play a trick on you.

This led to the natural conclusion of all remaining in the business centre that we should play an April Fools joke on the rest of the group who by this stage, had gone to bed. Now united in a safe front, everything became funny. I can't even remember the suggestions that we initially came up with but they started out simple and naturally ended up outrageous. We eventually decided that every person not in on the April Fools joke was going to wake up in the morning and find a letter under their hotel room door, advising them that there was an issue with their passport and that they would be met by authorities later in the day.

To not incriminate ourselves too much, I will refrain from going into step by step detail of what we sourced, attempted, created, tried and completed that night but it included and was not limited to; considering what wording should be on the letter, what sort of official letter head could be on the paper, what sort of envelopes should be used, what time the letters should be distributed and a back up plan incase we all ended up in Bhopal jail. Because some of those people who were going to be the victim of our Aprils Fools joke are just too smart for their own good, we had to include a rogue letter which one of us on the 'joke' side would also receive to help facilitate the alarm and panic in such a way that it would allow us enough time to capture this on camera (and without the alarmed and panicked person getting too stressed). A semi-script was then developed on how this should take place the next morning when the letter reveal was scheduled.

This entire process of drafting and writing an appropriately terrifying letter that had enough 'clues' to make you think something wasn't quite right with it (this was our back up plan as to not go to jail) all the whilst maintaining as much integrity our contract writing skills could muster. Imagine 5 or 6 heads all leaning in together in front of a laptop screen, debating terminology and syntax until the perfect letter was complete. Some time was spent on trying to make the now perfect letter, appear on the official looking letterheads.

Again, certain steps were attempted to try and do this and all the technical skills in the room were not enough to make that printer work for us. We had the letter ready to go, the enevelopes had names written on them in 'hotel looking handwriting' and we were giddy on sugar from our mocktails. It has been about 2.5-3 hours by this stage.

I am about to make the last ditch effort to get these letters printed by calling reception and asking them to come to the business centre when I picked up the phone, only to have a dead signal in my ear. At some stage in the evening when we were scouring around the business centre looking for resources, we had bumped the table with the phone, which led to the cord being pulled out from the wall. We interpreted this as a sign from the Indian Gods that we should not go any further with our April Fools prank and alas, we all went sadly off to bed.

The next morning there was sort of a wistfulness in the air as we contemplated what 'could have been'. We eleceted to not tell the group of their 'near miss' until we had our CSC Social Event where we could show them a copy of the letter that they would have received.

Now that has been done, I've included a copy for you below:

Unfortunately Masashi (who is male, was going to be stirred that little bit more when we addressed him as 'Ms'. Another clue (for our back up plan) was keeping the correct date. Any thoughts on who has signed off the letter? Perhaps read it backwards for another clue?

So that is our April Fools story. This is what happens when you put a group of 'talented' people in a room together with mocktails and limited resources, the joke is on you.

In other fun news, we have had varying experiences with rickshaws around Indore. This one has been, by far my favourite:

Disco Rickshaw - Check it out!

My last story to share with you here is about Paul. Now Paul is one of those quiet achievers who may initially seem like the quiet one in the group but he is hilarious and often has you in stitches laughing. We have been very well looked after by the staff here at the hotel and quite often they will leave a towel in your room, that has been made in the shape of an animal. Swans, cobras, elephants have adorned our beds and it has been a running joke with Paul as he swears that his towel elephant is deliberately moved around on the bed to ensure it gets the right level of attention.

I came up with the idea that one day Paul should walk into his room, to find 30 elephants on his bed, on the floor, on the couch all looking at him accusingly, demanding his full attention. I laughed to myself about this for at least a week imagining his reaction but unfortunately my psychic ability was not developed enough to make this trick actually take place. So I shared my idea with Tyler and Anika who whole-heartedly approved. Minutes later, we find ourselves talking to the hotel manager about our plan who is more than happy to accommodate (slightly awkward pause though when he corrects us in saying that the elephant is actually a Ganesh, symbolic of an Indian God). We arrange for this towel stampede to take place the following day when all 12 of us are attending a press conference (which I will blog about soon). In the meantime, we track the progress of this ruse by adding an item to our daily agenda called 'Project Truncate Snuffy'- a result of including the words 'trunk' and 'snuffleupagus'.

The following day, we wait patiently throughout the press conference, follow Paul back to his hotel room close on his heels, making up stories as to why we were down his end of the hallway. We wait as he can't find his room key in his bag and then he finally opens the door. I then walk past his room, sneaking a furitive glance only to see an elephant-free room. With a small shake of the head, I indicate to Tyler and Anika that yet again, our trick has not gone plan.

We sulk in our break-out room for a few minutes whilst we try and figure out what went wrong. There was a 5 hour window for this to take place. After another conversation with hotel manager, Project Truncate Snuffy is back on the agenda.

Here is the result:

Our kind accomplice who set up the multiple elephants

And when Paul did walk into his room some hours later, he was surprised and came laughing into the breakout room, knowing full well who would be behind this amusement -> Tyler, Anika and me. Unfortunately I had gone off to bed to nap away a headache and missed the actual reaction, but check out the pictures of Paul and his bed full of elephants:

Making himself one with the heard of elephants

And just incase you didn't see that look, here is a close up. Cracks me up.

Byebye Paul, byebye Elephant!

#ibmcsc

A traditional Indian village wedding

Wow. Last night certainly was an experience. Remember how on the first day of the assignment, Tyler, Anika and I went and visited the Dewas village to better understand what our NGO did? Well, let me remind you anyway. This was the village where we visited the successful farming land that has had assistance from Hemal and Concept Society:

The main farmer is in the middle here, (the one with the white beard). Very impressive man.

Here are some other photos of the farm house on this land:

And to show you a better view of the yard:

The farmer featured above was hosting a wedding for the girl working in his home (I think there is a relation here but I can't find where I wrote down the exact relationship so I won't speculate). You may recall that I shared some pictures of her with the craft products that she makes. Here she is again:

She is about 16 or 17 years old

And now she is getting married. The farmer was kind enough to invite us to the wedding and we accepted. To our amazement, the entire farm was transformed as was the bride:

This was the entrance to the wedding, on the farm. The same land you saw in the photos above.

The Bride and Groom

Just stunning

I love this picture. Hard to believe we were a part of something so authentic as this moment in their lives.

There were some practices that we were not aware we had to do. For instance, before we could put our gift down, we had to stand together and get a photo with the couple, holding the gift. The next photo was taken of us presenting the gift to the couple with each of us having one hand on the gift.

A wedding ritual- Although I missed this taking place so I cannot explain further. I should say that these photos are a mixture from all of us IBMers who attended on the night. Thank you team for sharing your pictures.

The attention to detail on each of the wedding guests was simply astonishing. We have nothing on these girls.

Here is a video taken by Anika for when we initially arrived and were taking in the atmosphere:

Here are some pictures of the wedding celebrations, so many people. I'd estimate at least 1000:

Villages often still operate using old practices and traditions. What I mean by this is- the following I am going to describe here would not necessarily happen in the city of Indore (which is where I am staying). So in this next video, what you will see are the men being seated, first to be served their food. Not far away, the women will soon be served. However this is only a particular class being served, as it goes in order of highest to lowest class. Once they have eaten, they would move on and the next class below would sit.

What is also interesting is that the whole system of being fed whilst being seated at a wedding. This is considered a sign of respect. Typically a buffet would be available however as this is a more notorious wedding, the guests here receive special treatment. And yes, I did say 'being fed' in that sentence. You will see what I mean later on. Check out this video of how people are served:

Now I need to tell you about our experience whilst at this wedding. It was quite unlike anything any of us had experienced before. We literally we treated like celebrities, complete with the following of 'paparazzi', bright photography lights being held behind official photographers which made it hard to see at times, constant requests for photos and being slightly mobbed by the crowd.

Check out the video which does a good job of describing what it was like:

Here are some photos of our surroundings:

Tyler being surrounded by all of the teenage boys

You can see in this picture how many people want to be close to you. They were all crowding around us to get our attention.

Tyler now has the interest of the young boys.

You can't really see me but I am there on the left, getting asked like all of the other IBMers if we can pose in a picture with the wedding guests.

Example of said photo

250 000 photos later, we are now invited to sit down and eat. Extra effort is given to us to ensure we feel comfortable and they offer us a table and chairs. Note: this wasn't set up anywhere, they were offering to source it for us. We politely declined and said that we were fine to eat on the floor. They put down an extra mat for us to sit on. Here is how it went:

This is how it looks when you know what you are doing, eating these types of meals.

Here is our attempt. Somehow we don't look as relaxed or uniform.

It is also considered a sign of respect if you are being fed by someone. Literally.

This is the farmer I was telling you about. Can't really refuse when his status is one where he shouldn't be serving you but chooses to do so anyway.

I want to stop and make mention of this guy. He is easily, one of the most impressive, charismatic and engaging people I have ever met in my life. And he doesn't speak a word of English. That tells you something about a person's energy levels and demeanor when words are not required to understand his personality and intentions.

We were all sitting down in a line, like you would have seen in my earlier picture. But did you notice that Maco was about to stand up? Where was he going?

Maco was in line to feed us! Somehow he managed to find one of the bowls of food and he went up and down the line, feeding each of us (IBMers) but also the local village people :)

And after eating, it was time for some dancing. Many songs were played specifically for us, we were told. So there was no choice, but to dance (not a bad beat, some of them!):

"Arms in the air" was the dance move we were shown to copy

Tell you what, these men have rhythm.

Want to see some video footage? Maco (man of many talents) took this video of us dancing. Us girls were asked to dance by some of the ladies here who just completely put us to shame. Their dance skills are awesome :)

Some more pictures of us dancing:

Found myself a cute dance partner

Busting a move

This kid was definitely busting a move.

It is almost time to leave. But where is Maco?

Sitting cheekily with this group - it's like having your own personal 'Where's Wally' book in real life!

Of course before we go, I can't resist a cuddle from a small child:

On a serious note though, it was an absolute honour and privilege to be invited and accepted into these wedding celebrations. Those from the IBM CSC group who attended were myself, Tyler, Anika, Maco, Amalia and Patrick. We agreed that at times, it was overwhelming, completely unlike anything we had ever experienced before and the setting was very very beautiful and vibrant. Most of the people in the village had never seen a foreigner before so this contributed to the amount of attention we received. I can honestly say it looked and felt like we were on a red carpet somewhere in Hollywood, being swarmed by fans and paparazzi whilst playing the role of a celebrity. Definitely an experience. Thank you India.

#ibmcsc #citizenibm