Barsati Party

You’ll have to forgive me as the title to this post is just terrible. I wanted to include the term barsati as that is the type of abode I live in, but was struggling to find a word to rhyme it with. In any event, I live in a barsati, which is essentially a small rooftop room or studio apartment that…

Sightseeing in Old Bhubaneswar

Yesterday was the first time in many visits to Bhubaneswar that I had off work and all to myself. That’s not to suggest I’m some sort of workaholic go-getter, quite the contrary actually (I certainly enjoy “Down time”), it’s just that being based in Delhi has typically…

Cool Ass Kolkata

I spent about 36-hours in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) this weekend as part of my strategy to take the fullest possible advantage of my new base of operations, Bhubaneswar. (Kolkata is a short 8-hour train ride from the Bhubs).

Back in Bhubs’ Bastis

I spent last week in Bhubaneswar conducting interviews with various partners on the sanitation project I’m working on here for inclusion in a case study that Yale University’s School of Management is creating for the initiative. Most of the time was spent in offices or conference rooms…

Vox Populi

This intro bit is really redundant to any regular readers of this blog, but c’est la vie.

I live in Delhi, India and work for a local company that is a grantee on an urban slum sanitation project in the cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, located in the eastern Indian state of…

Holidays Abroad

A friend of mine from the States asked me recently how people celebrate Thanksgiving in India. Not one to pass up an opportunity to be a sarcastic asshole, I asked, “Do you know what they call ‘Thanksgiving’ here? ‘Thursday’.” Granted, this is pretty much a dick response to an innocent, if naïve…