30 Year Birthday / India Reflection

Originally sent via email 6/4/2014 to broad network of friends and family. Deciding to capture this little time capsule on the interwebs for posterity.

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Subject: Letter from the Martin-Allens: Good news, 30th Birthday, and a look back at last 3 years!

Dear friends and family,

Sarah and I have wanted to send an “official” update for a while now and wish you all well. But first, we’ve seen lots of exciting job and geographic moves and new baby pictures on Facebook, and want to say we are very happy for so many of our friends and family who are enjoying this new phase of life! We look forward to celebrating new life with you in person soon.

Everything I read on the web suggests that no one has time or inclination to read long letters these days, so while this letter is a bit longer, I’ve tried breaking it into more “snackable” chunks. Digest at your leisure and we hope to reconnect personally very soon.

Headlines & Braggy Stuff

In July, Sarah and I are returning to the good ‘ole United States of America after 3+ years in Mumbai. Sarah will enroll at Duke University’s Fuqua MBA program as a CASE Fellow (with a nice scholarship to boot)!

As for me, ZipDial, the Indian startup I’ve helped build, due to mysterious forces, was recently named #8 Top 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World in Fast Company magazine. While it’s still an exciting time in the company’s growth, I am also now turning my attention to the U.S., and am excited to be exploring the best ways to channel my passions for the intersections between technology, government and community-building within the Southeast.

Lastly, just before my 30th birthday in March, I was extremely honored and humbled to be showcased in a publication featuring special people Under 30 in their respective “fields.” It’s a surreal experience to see yourself on the cover of such a famous magazine. ;) Thank you, Sarah and others, for your submissions.

30 is the new 40 — Adam’s 30th Birthday & A Quantitative Reflection

I spent this March milestone alone in Jakarta (there for work) comforted by a new best friend, Mr. Chocolate Peanut Butter Cronut (still a newish phenomena this side of the world). As I contemplated its health impact, and my 30 years (outside the womb), I realized I’ve already kareened through approximately 40% of an average lifespan for a US-born, white male as of projections in 1984, or a slightly improved 38% if you consider improvements in the state of nutrition and medical care in 2008 for a 30 yr old (US Census). (Either way, thanks Mom for the bonus time!) Perhaps it will end up being 42% after I have few more Cronuts. In that harshly quantitative spirit, I also calculated that I’ve spent:

• 100% of my life with a sister and loving, supportive parents and extended family
• 51% mindful and grateful for the above
• 43% in pre-pubescent youth
• 26% independently charting my way through adulthood
• 27% in an intentional relationship with now-wife Sarah (the juxtaposition of these numbers begs the question: would I have actually entered into adulthood without Sarah Allen?)
• 9% in higher education at Davidson in North Carolina (excluding summers)
• 10% living in India
• 3% married to a special lady

India — Looking Back on the Last 3 Years

So what’s the last 10% been like for Sarah and me? The short answer depends on who you are. To young couples, we’ve basically been on an extended honeymoon- putting off normal marital strife by having a personal cook and cleaner who folds our laundry for us, and stretching our exotic travel out over the last year. To my Doctor (aka Sarah’s Dad), let’s just say, my gut flora is reeeally diverse right now. The longer answer, below, you may want to save for another read.

Why we came?

As a reminder, Sarah and I did want to come to India. :) We wanted to immerse ourselves in an emerging economy with rampant innovation in our fields of interest, especially while we were fairly young and nimble. India, the world’s largest democracy (with an historic month-long election for the next Prime Minister having just ended!), is only 66 years old and has the largest population under 35 year old in the world. The working age population is expected to more than double over the next 20 years from 430 to 910 million people (UN). As a result, this “demographic dividend” or “time-bomb,” depending on your perspective, means 100s of millions of people could be lifted from poverty and drive global consumption over the next 20–30 years. There are currently over 800 million mobile phone users, and it’s predicted that in the next couple of months there will be more internet users in India than in the US (mostly via their phones only). Meanwhile, there are still huge issues and access gaps across society in quality educational opportunities, human rights, and government effectiveness that are being taken up by an increasingly entrepreneurial and proactive middle class. Whether you focus on problems or opportunities, the future is East my friends!

Why we stayed?

No matter how increasingly important this region may be, we stayed because we found a great community of people that has helped us feel connected and inspired here. Our friends have founded a fair-trade t-shirt company, a bagel shop, a rural solar lantern company, and a live story-telling event series. Sarah gets to see many inspirational entrepreneurs supported by UnLtd India, the social enterprise incubator where she works. The sense of opportunity is palpable and is the flip-side of the overwhelming sense of need we encounter every day — e.g. auto-rikshaw drivers who don’t have decent toilets at home and homeless boys that sleep in the lobby of our building. Besides the community, and the energy, there’s always something new to discover; still SOOOO much we still don’t know or understand about India.

Other ancillary benefits of living in India:

• Sarah enjoys the default shared, family-style approach to all meals and automatic smaller portions — aka. “sarah-bytes” — as well as being the fastest woman on the Mumbai ultimate frisbee team called “Storm Chasers”
• For Adam, a joke with a southern accent gets way more easy laughs here than anywhere else he’s lived
• Watching 3 year olds wave down rikshaws (like a taxi) with one hand while holding their mom’s hand in the other
• Being immersed in a culture that doesn’t idolize work or prioritize it over family and other important aspects of life
• Convenience of free door-side delivery of groceries and anything else you need (that’s a Mumbai-only feature; not India-wide)
• Watching the seasons pass by the changing fruits at the roadside stands (strawberries to sour apples to mangoes), rather than new Starbucks special latte flavors (Pumpkin Spice to whatever)
• Not to mention the best mangoes in world (see fresh mango salsa)
• Delicious and super cheap street-side snacks, aka chaat, our favorites being sev puri and ragda pattice

How we changed?

Since we moved here, the biggest official life change is that Sarah and I were engaged (see ring pop photo) in India and then finally married in the the US as of June 15, 2013. So we are more in tune with each others’ strengths and foibles than ever. I think are more patient, with each other and with India. We can switch into a zen mode more easily when one of us is being forgetful or naggy, when we are standing in lines or in elbow-to-nose crowds. And we also have also learned to be more comfortable, for better or worse, standing in the awkward moral ground that comes from having relative wealth among the extremely poor, white skin within a more openly racist culture, and influence where rule of law is weak.

I believe we are more deeply grateful than ever for our lot in life. Our pysches have been imprinted with the faces and stories of Indians who struggle for the same necessities and comforts that we’ve enjoyed our whole lives and mostly taken for granted. Temperature control. Comfortable transportation. We’ve watched families scrape out a life on the sidewalks with their children, working as janitors, building guards and trash collectors. The chaatwala that sent his kids to college in the U.S. Colleagues struggling with the forces surrounding arranged vs “love” marriages. India is not just a “story of large numbers” anymore. The Indians we have known have born witness to the fascinating complexity of life here and to the abhorrently inequitable architecture of global opportunity which will not be forgotten easily.

One thing seems sure, that we will all continue to engage India throughout our lives in some form or another. We look forward to seeing the bright people we’ve known here claim the next 50 years as their own. Meanwhile, we look even more forward to reconnecting with all the blessings of the USA (that means you!). Come visit us in Durham, NC!

Much love,
Adam & Sarah