I have often commented on how we as a nation cannot be well and truly advanced unless growth is all inclusive. I have also made fun of the India shining banners that people invariably tend to wave whenever something like "a doctor of Indian origin winning a Nobel" or "Indira Nooyi becoming head of Pepsi" happens.... as if we had anything at all to do with their successes. But!! But but but.... yesterday I felt things are changing.... for the better.

We have two girls (around 18years of age) who work at our place (cooking, taking care of the baby and keeping the house in general order). They come in around 9AM and leave around 6PM. Make about as much as any fresher at a call center does (I should know, ten years back I was exactly that... a fresher who had finished his MCA, with amazing grades mind you, and got his first job as a call center agent..... it was a sad time with the slump etc. and anyways that's a different story)..... so back to Pinky and Sunita (names not changed at all I wonder why they do it in newspaper stories). The kids spend most of the day with our 20 month old daughter Ria. Even though they have never been to a school in their lives these are very bright kids. Pinky for instance has learned, through observation, how to login to the PC and start the baby Einstein videos for Ria. They have also picked up the alphabet by watching Rias videos and reading her books. Sunitas' favorite activity for Ria is using the crayons in her coloring books (Ria ofcourse just scribbles while Sunita does the actual coloring). What's more amazing is that the other day we heard Pinky teaching Ria "twinkle twinkle little star"..... in a weird accent but heck what's wrong with that? Half of India has an accent that the world doesn't understand (when speaking English of course). We'd like to get these girls to study along with Ria and maybe, at least clear class 5 exams.... unless ofcourse they get married off before that happens :))

Yesterday evening wife saw an iPod shuffle in the kitchen in the area where they park their stuff.... she was like "yeh kiska hai? naya liya?" (whose is this? bought a new thing?) kids bring out another one and say both of them bought one each!!! So she looks closely and realizes it looks very much like an iPod shuffle but is actually a locally made gadget. So she says "oh ok it's a radio?".... to which they chime in together "nahin ismein memory hai".... I was in the study working on something and also hearing the conversation so I asked to see kya hai bhai? (what it is?).... Am completely blown away by the ingenuity of the device..... and more so by the fact that these kids who have had no education know so much about technology..... they knew it had a memory card, they also knew it needed to be connected to a computer to be able to put songs in it and they knew the break up of the costing.... total cost 550 of which 200 for the device and 350 for the 2Gb memory card..... not only this they also have a charger which they purchased separately for 20 bucks that connects to a normal power socket on one end and has a mini USB head on another end that plugs into the device to charge it..... most important they had the brains to understand all this, process it, analyze the cost and then make the investment from their hard earned money..... amazing thing if you ask me. So when their shift got over yesterday the two happily plugged in the IndiPods and pottered off..... and they were still plugged in when today morning I opened the door at start of their work day..... hilarious site.... am sure kids are loving it :)

This incident made me feel that technology has to be accessible to all and innovation is life changing only if it is affordable and understandable by the general public. Then again this reminded me of that adage so often used in Bollywood films "upar waale ke ghar me der hai andher nahin"..... it takes time for technology and empowerment to trickle down but trickle down it does..... slowly but surely if things like this keep happening I feel all inclusive growth just might happen and that if not now, if not tomorrow at least in a few years we could get to a stage when the citizen is highly empowered, growth can be seen in Dharavi, and Mankhurd as much as in Colaba and Juhu.