A story from the Impact Industry
self notes
p1 protag
p2 woke liberandu / ngo / marathi
p3 closet sanghi / csr / bengali
P1 was flustered. What was supposed to be a short vacation to __ a beach near Mumbai had spiraled out of control.
“Teach a Man to Fish and you feed him for a lifetime, or so goes the saying,” P2 was saying over chips & beers, gazing into the infinite spread of the sea. “What they don’t talk about – but what of the Woman?”
“Such a woke liberandu way of looking at things. You know, that’s the problem with the country. No respect for the men who’ve been both catching fish and teaching how to catch fish since times immemorial.” P3 looked like he was deeply disappointed in the person P2 had grown up to become.
But what does any of it have to do with our host?
P1 was trying to recall where it all went wrong. They were meeting after a long time, almost a decade after college. It was difficult to say that P2 & 3 were the same people as they were in college. But it was equally hard to deny that any of them had changed the slightest.
Their hosts were a middle-aged couple with smiles more beaming than any P1 had seen. It was embarrassing for him that he kept responding back with equally beaming smiles. He was sure that they thought he was goofy beyond saving. Over lunch, the man was talking about having to set up the homestay because fishing wasn’t enough to manage the costs.
Then they opened the beers.
And now they were in the middle of heated arguments about something called a log frame, an rct (he had thought they were arguing over our city for 1 full bottle), a cct (sea-city, another bottle) and some other complicated-sounding words that P1 was sure were meaningless.
“Okay, you tell me, what do we do?” P2 asked 3. Do what?
“It’s simple, really. Think of the aisa roya aaye.” 3. What.
“Isko paisa denge kya hoga? Keu jane na. Much better to teach him to save, then borrow, then buy new equipment or tap into a supply chain or something. So much aisa roya aaye.”
“arre pan dada mahine ka kharcha nahi nikalta toh save kya karega?” 2’s disappointment at 3 was of a different nature, it seemed. “decadal support chahiye bro. and what about the insights that we can contribute to the ecosystem! iske padosi ko paisa mat do. i’ll get volunteers to monitor usska income for a decade. then we’ll be able to tell apne decadal support program ka real impact. if you’re interested i know this policy guy who can work with an iim prof to define a framework for estimating if the difference between their income rise against a benchmark of local, national & global fishermen uh, person. fisherpersons.”
what what what? is it the beer? also, what was that thing about teach a woman?
“but that’s not transformational enough.” 3 grumbled, eyes spreading wide like an emoji at the word transformational. “heh, tum boka ciformational bolta hoga.”
hehehehe well that was good even without the beer. but let’s take some control. “kidhar pahunch gaye bhai log? main toh keh raha tha thoda extra pay kar dete hain. kidhar policy making?”