1 Train | 12 Destinations | 15 Role Models | 15 Days | 450 Youths | 9000 kms
Creative and Cultural Economy (CCE) brought along three YCEs (Fraser Muggeridge, Hannah Bird and Karishma Rafferty) for the ride of a lifetime!
Jagriti Yatra is an annual train journey that that takes hundreds of India's highly motivated youth along with international students and experienced professionals on a eighteen day national odyssey, introducing them to unsung heroes of India. The aim is to awaken the spirit of entrepreneurship - both social and economic - by exposing participants to individuals and institutions which are developing unique solutions to India's challenges.
The vision of Jagriti Yatra is to inspire young Indians living in the middle of the Indian demographic diamond to lead development through social enterprise and innovation. At each stop, the passengers visited community role models who are already working on solutions to their country’s socio-economic development challenges through, for example, models for sustainabile livelihoods, youth employment, and design-led solutions to sanitation and hygiene. Fraser, Hannah and Karishma share their experiences.
Fraser's blog:
The opportunity to spend two weeks on a train in India with 450 students meeting change makers who are shaping India through enterprise promised to be a unique experience. A dedicated train travelled quite literally the length and breadth of this vast country of 1.2 billion people and 1.2 billion minds.
The Jagriti Yatra certainly lived up to expectations: overwhelming, challenging, enlightening, entertaining, gruelling, and inspiring. Only in India would a journey of this distance and on this ambitious scale happen and only in India would you give a lecture on a moving train.
As a design resource person I interacted with the participants on the subject of graphic design, typography and branding and how this can play a role in social enterprise. As the country continues to develop, the value of art and design within society is becoming more apparent. Graphic design is a relatively new profession in India but the highly talented designers I met on the train were positive about the role they can play in the future. My plans to hold a Typography Summer School in India are back on track.
Hannah's blog:
There is no way to begin this, that doesn't sound like a cliche. Dismissed openings include:
- Imagining waking up on Christmas morning with hindi music playing in your ear, a tropical breeze blowing through a train window and 75 caterers walking through your carriage serving you chai. Welcome to India, Welcome to the Jagriti Yatra.
- It's Christmas eve and I'm stood on a train platform at an unnamed station in Mumbai, there are 600 of us. The anticipation is palpable. Our journey is about to begin.
Cliched beginnings aside, I've just completed a train journey of 8,000km across India with 600 travel companions. This is the Jagriti Yatra, an annual train event, the largest in the world. The train journey is the tool to awakening the entrepreneurial spirit, the tool to inspire young Indians to develop India through enterprise. Enterprise with a social edge.
Breaking it down to its basic, logistical form the Jagriti Yatra is a series of programmed role model visits, panel discussions, facilitated group discussions and a morale boosting dance. Adding in the layers of experience, humility and the uniqueness of India the Jagriti Yatra is a complex spiritual, physical, thought-provoking journey. I was asked to join the trip on behalf of the British Council as a creative entrepreneur working in the UK, to talk about my experience of running a business in London and to begin to describe the role the cultural economy can play in developing a country. To some I was merely a representation that it is possible to have a career working in the arts, the first of my kind they may have met.
It ended on 8 January 2012. By the 10th January I had returned to my life in London. When friends ask how was it, I don't know where to start. The extremes of experience; highs and the lows, laughter and the tears, beauty and revulsion are too wide to reconcile in my own mind let alone try to communicate to others. But transformations and developing countries do not end or start in extremes, they are instead a series of incremental steps; in isolation meaningless but when fused together integral to any journey. In any one day, small steps can become giant bounds;
31 December 2011
Wake up in my bunk. Bogie 14, Compartment 4. 6am, take out my earplugs, listen to Vibha over the PA announce the day's arrangements, laugh at Shivangi my next door neighbour who's just told a joke. Grab a chai from our Baiya, Deepak who is busy running through our bogie [carriage] serving us chai and coffee in an attempt to get us moving. Get dressed sat on my bunk, new Indian clothes of bright colours and beautiful patterns, Karmel attempts to hold up a towel to preserve my privacy. Get down from the top bunk whilst the train is moving by jumping to the floor, try to avoid washing lines, suitcases, rubbish, mice, cockroaches, people - all of which can be found beneath my bed. Help Shruthi find whatever item she has lost that morning. Hold out my plate for our Baaiya to serve us breakfast; of curry, served from huge buckets. Sit bent over my plate eating breakfast (curry) with a spoon joined by the five women I'm facilitating; Divya, Shruthi, Karmel, Debarati, Meera. Try to avoid the fact that although I'm supposed to be looking after them, they're doing the majority of the looking after.
Train stops. 50 members of the crowd control team direct us to a series of buses by whistling, pushing and shouting, an activity I am neither used to nor comfortable with. Sit on a bus with Swapnil who talks about his brother's motorcycling touring company. Wish I was staying in India for longer to be able to experience a slither of what this country can show me. The road is bumpy as we travel further into rural areas, passing small villages along the way - everyone stares at the parade of 10 buses passing their way.
Arrive at Gram Vikas. See the podium, join the audience, already keen and waiting to discover something new. Sit in the shade; the Odissa sunshine is strong. Open my ears.
Something amazing happens. Joe Madiath, founder of Gram Vikas shares his extraordinary vision, what led him to set up Gram Vikas in 1971, what led him to stay with it "I have chosen my path". Take a moment to realise how privileged I am to be here, to hear. Just a moment. Perform the Jagriti Geet (the morale boasting dance).
Lunch. Curry. A plate. A spoon.
Bus. Bumpy road, amazing conversations. Beautiful scenery. Realise that this city girl from London is happier in the rural areas of India than the cities. Quick snooze.
Visit a village. A community that has worked with Gram Vikas to implement health and sanitation solutions, achieving the Gram Vikas mission for a "dignified quality of life". There is no rubbish, there are no open sewers. A record that deserves praise. I will never get used to the rubbish strewn across India. Get blessed by local villager. She stares at me, I stare at her. Meet Ghana who is drawing the most beautiful sketches of the journey, something she's never done before. Marvel at her hidden talent. Get complemented on the Mehndi designs two yatris (Shruthi and Ruchi) have decorated my hands with.
Gram Vikas School. Imagine that this could be the school of the future. On a global scale. Kitchen gardens, space for arts and craft, 500 happy children. We sing and dance together. Try not to romanticise this life, it's a tough one, these children have experienced more hardship that I'll ever know. Feel insignificant. Take a moment. Just a moment.
Bus. Afternoon singing. Quick snooze.
Train platform, Baiyas serve evening breakfast (curry), cross the train tracks with Jo and Jess, find a stall selling coca-cola. Drink a coca-cola, eat some crisps. Back to the train. Head count. Train departs.
Quick shower. Bucket of cold water. Least said the better.
New Year's Eve dinner with my British Companions. Curry. Chai.
Evening presentation in the 'A/C carriage' (two interconnected carriages where the onboard presentations take place, connected with screens and microphones) on product design by Tom, ends at 23.45. New Year's Eve party in the A/C carriage starts at 23.50.
Midnight. Wish Happy New Year to more people than I've ever known before. Bollywood music on loud speakers, stood on train seat, join 200 others in dancing. Incredible energy. Wonder if I've ever seen so many people in one room. Listen to announcement that we will all have to stop dancing when the train starts to move otherwise the motion from the dancing will cause us to derail.
01.00am dancing stops. Lights Out. Climb into my bunk, avoid washing lines, suitcases, rubbish, mice, cockroaches, people - all of which can be found beneath my bed. Earplugs in. Take a moment.
Repeat for 15 days.
These small steps joined together to be an immense experience, but it is neither the start nor the end. Over the next five years the Jagriti Yatra wants to involve thousands more yatris and extend its network to influence thousand more - the challenges India faces as it develops over the next 10 years are large but so are the opportunities. This 15-day odyssey exposed us to the role models and institutions that are dedicated to creating a better India and it introduced me to 450 Young Indians who will be joining them in doing so.
Check out an article interviewing Hannah here.
Karishma's blog:
On Xmas Eve 2011 I found myself standing on a crowded platform with around 600 others waiting to board the most ambitious train journey in the world. Journeying almost 8000km in 15days, the 450 participants in the group came from 24 different states in India and 23 countries worldwide. This annual journey called the Jagriti Yatra or awakening journey seeks to inspire participants to think entrepreneurially around India’s development.
Each day the train pulled in at some new part of the country and we were whisked off on 10 buses to listen to local role-model speak about their enterprises. The speakers and visits were incredibly diverse. In Bangalore we heard Narayana Murthy explain the vision and values that his silicone-valley like IT company with over $6bn revenue while in a small village in Rajasthan, Bukner Roy explained how Grannies from rural areas all over the world were coming to Tilonia to learn how to be solar engineers at Barefoot College.
Coming from a comparatively small country like England, it is hard for a first time visitor to comprehend the scale and diversity within India. Living on a train with people from 24 out of the 28 different states certainly helped highlight the huge differences in culture, attitudes and language across the country. Almost 70% of the 1.2bn population live in rural environments and most of those areas will each speak a language other than English or Hindi. India is filled with multi-millionaires and many cities are thriving ports for business and development. In contrast, villages such as Nerankati in Tamil Nadu felt relatively untouched my modern technology or ways of living. Need in different parts of the country vary from lack of basic sanitation and power (both in rural and urban environments) to modern issues such as lack of infostructure capable of handling the rubbish created from all the new consumer products.
The country is morphing and developing at such a rate that it is hard to imagine how these changes will be manifest themselves in even just a few years. You’ve almost certainly heard the prediction that India will soon overtake China as the largest population in the world, well it will also be the youngest population in the world meaning a big opportunity for new ideas and attitudes to blossom. Jude Kelly, Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre and Chair of Culture for the 2012 London Olympics joined us for the last leg of the journey. She spoke inspiringly in Rajasthan about the role of women within this change. In a time of whirlwind transformation in these ancient lands, social and cultural change as well as every other, is in the making.
A running joke on the train was that everyone from Britain was a designer and every Indian was an engineer. A cliché maybe but it really felt true at the time. The train was filled with young Indians wanting to become entrepreneurs, a strange new concept to many. Explaining my design background to crowds of engineers proved a daily challenge despite it being a key aspect of many of the organisations we visited. The vision at Arivand Eye Care in Madurai is to eradicate unnecessary blindness, a widespread problem in India. By re-designing the whole system of treatment, each Arivand surgeon can treat 200 patients a day as opposed to 5 a day in the US. The hospital now attracts top medical students from all over the world who study at Arivand to learn the ethos and model that makes the (once) unbelievable a reality.
Although my whirlwind experience was mostly spent seeing India through a train or bus window, it was enough to get a feel for the challenges and opportunities the country has to offer. It was wonderful to be surrounded by so many young entrepreneurs looking at ways to make a positive contribution to their country. Given my design background, I couldn’t help imagining the incredible opportunities for designers in the country too. This dual potential for designers and entrepreneurs to shape a country is something that I am really excited about. Change is afoot and India is at the frontier. What did I learn on the train journey of a lifetime? I learnt that there are incredible opportunities out there; the most important thing you need to make amazing things happen is a vision.
For updates on Karishma's new project, a platform for discourse on the crossovers between design and entrepreneurship follow @designpreneurProject on Twitter.
