Short Stories of the Week

It’s a relaxing Sunday morning. The start of the single day of the week solely dedicated to non-project related activities. It’s the perfect time for some blog writing. It’s the best time to remember and reflect on the closing week. So, here it goes--a collection of assorted short stories of the week.

***

It’s early: 6:09am. I roll out of bed, get dressed, and step out of the apartment to the noises of a slowly waking community. I stroll. A half-clothed three-year-old from the “squatter” home next door cries unabashedly while a group of roosters confidently make their morning calls. Birds trill their exotic tweets above while auto rickshaws distantly honk their mechanical horns. Sleeping dogs are scattered here and there nestled in mounds of trash and mud. Two minutes go by, and I arrive at my destination: guided morning yoga on the rooftop.

***

I walk behind the podium stationed at the front of the classroom. Externally, I look calm. Internally, I feel my nerves firing. In front of me are thirty pairs of focused eyes watching my every gesture and thirty pairs of attentive ears listening to my every word about the value of community service and serving others. Our team’s presentation ends. We circulate the sign-up sheet and patiently watch it fill up with the names of almost half the audience. We are relieved and excited. We say our good-byes happy to be partnered with a great group of student volunteers from this Women’s College eager to teach our health education curriculum at a primary school in the local slum community.

***

A smile lingers on my face from all the fun I just had playing alleyway cricket with the neighborhood kids. Without warning, rain begins pouring and lightning illuminates the darkening sky. This is monsoon season. My two friends and I keep walking along the side of the street seeking cover and dinner. Suddenly, three young children--one brother and two sisters---close in on each of us. The oldest girl, probably around seven years old, isolates me. Her tiny left hand tugs forcefully on my wrist. Her right hand makes a hand gesture to her mouth. We keep walking. The kids keep up stride-by-stride. My compassionate heart yells “please help, your pockets are full with rupees”. My thoughtful mind counters “be smart, you shouldn’t perpetuate the cycle of begging”. I’m torn. After nearly a hundred meters of walking and countless reluctant shakes of my head, the kids resign. I look back as they drift away, now soaked from the falling rain. I’m disappointed with myself for letting an opportunity to make a genuine, even small, positive impact in someone else’s life slip through my fingertips.

***

It’s Friday Movie Night in the Deshpande Center’s seminar room. The credits roll as Jamal and Latika dance to the beats of “Jai Ho”. The film hits me with an even stronger emotional punch after seeing it a second time. For this time, I am witnessing first-hand the land of “Slumdog Millionaire”. I am in India: the amazing place of unbelievable contrasts.

***

Eyes glued to my laptop screen, I realize that I haven’t moved from this couch for over three hours. Completely immersed in the task at hand--assessing the financial feasibility of implementing a community-level reverse-osmosis water plant--time passes so quickly. The prospect of having uncovered a legitimate water solution for S.M. Krishna Nagar sends pulses of inspiration through me. The potential opportunity: clean pure drinking water for a family for only 2.5 rupees a day, a viable business model with significant earnings potential and long-term sustainability, a way to improve and protect the health of over 4,000 individuals. I keep plugging on applying entrepreneurial frameworks I’ve learned at USC to a real-life problem. I’m in my element: changing the world through business.

***

The four of us comfortably sit in red plastic chairs eating ice cream under the dark night’s sky. Our conversation moves from topic to topic: exercise, girls, USC, spirituality, strawberry ice cream. Enjoying our late night Hubli hangout, I remind myself for the fifth time today, “I’m in India”.

-Bronson