confessions of unknown IRMAN- 2008 reflections

Confessions of mostly unknown IRMAn! Where shall I start? I think it is better to start from my brief background and initial student days! I am the eldest of my family led by my father who was a school teacher, and later retired as headmaster of Zilla Parishad school. My mother is a house wife. Throughout my schooling days, I was a topper. After Intermediate I was not much attracted to Engineering. Based on my 10th class marks I got national merit scholarship during my Intermediate days. After Intermediate I joined a State government Degree college ( called Silver Jubilee College, as it was formed in the Silver Jubilee year of Indian Independenc) at Kurnool (AP) which offers scholarship that includes food and boarding to its students selected based on a state-wide entrance test. The decision to join this college was taken purely based on the scholarship as I did not want to trouble my parents who have been already burdened with 4 more children to take care of! I did not do too well nor too bad in the academics during my graduation days. During these I heard of Mr Sivakumar who joined IRMA from our college and the concept of Educational loan-cum-scholarship attracted me sufficiently. I wanted to write IRMA entrance immediately after Degree but the idea of travel to Hyderabad to write entrance deterred me. During my Degree days itself I wrote bank clerical exams in the name of another person and that person was called for interview. After completion of Degree (1984) I got admission into University of Hyderabad through a common entrance for MCA and DCA into the first batch of PG Dip in Computer Application. My academic record was not too brilliant there. By the time I completed DCA, I got jobs in SBI and Indian Bank as clerk and admission into IRMA. My father sincerely suggested me to join the jobs. But as a rebellious son who did not want to join government jobs I refused the offers and plunged into IRMA with a view to learn more and do well in life. After joining IRMA (6th batch 1985-87) I realized that most of the subjects required prior experience in the real working experience. I have passed through first two terms with modest marks. During the next two terms I have got less than 2 CGPA. But the academic council decided to continue me based on overall average for the overall four terms. During the course, as an adamant person, I took tough courses such as Management Science Applications etc and avoided being branded as Marketing/Finance person and I wanted to be generalist. During the fifth term the exams were liberal and I scraped through the entire course. I was in the last 3 ranks. After completion of the course I wanted to join big organizations such as NDDB. I also wanted to do computer related jobs as I had the qualification of DCA. I did not get any of them. On the final day of the campus recruitment, I have got job in Amul, where I did my second MTS. During the course days some of my batchmates started a parallel recruitment process with corporate organizations and I played the menial role of preparing the covering letter, photocopying of the same and dispatching the brochures to the Corporate entities. We did not get much encouragement though some got good offers. Anyway I had to join Amul, as I could not show my empty face to my parents. After a few months in production department I was dispatched to Kanjari cattle feed factory of Amul. As a person determined to do computer related jobs, I tried for some jobs in Ahmedabad, Baroda without much success. One of my classmates started a NIIT franchise in Vijayawada offering computer education to students where my next brother joined as a student. When I came on a vacation to my native place which is closer to Vijayawada, I discussed with that friend about setting up a software development unit at Vijayawada. I sent my resignation to Amul through a telegram after completing two years! I dabbled with software development without much success. I had severe depression and did some mad things during that time. I took some treatment from a psychiatrist. Then I realized that I need a job!. I wrote some government competitive exams and was selected for SSC and AIR. Meanwhile I got a job in Tata Consultancy Services in Management Consultancy Division at Chennai (Aug 90). I was overjoyed by the offer and soon joined. After working for projects on Cooperative supermarkets and Industrial Growth Centres, I requested for a transfer to Hyderabad and I got it. I have done some projects for Girijan Cooperative Corporation, Tribal welfare board etc and meanwhile got married. After five years of working with TCS, I was confused and at the same time was asked by the management to look for alternatives. I got an offer from Cooperative Development Foundation (Dec 95) to promote APMACS Act in the state for a lesser salary than TCS. After two years of intensive work for the propagation of APMACS Act, I had got into problems with the management and was asked to leave. I tried teaching at an MBA college, which was a disaster for me. Again I joined CDF back and worked for two more years with some more good work of continuing the propagation of APMACS Act. I visited Germany during these days. My aggressiveness at Germany made me loose my job again. As I did not get any offers from good development organizations, I had to join a grassroot level NGO for a very small position and for a very small salary at a very remote place. I had to live separately from my family for about an year. Later I moved to Warangal for the same organization started coordinating a regional network of NGOs working on NRM and my family joined me. I learnt a lot about NRM and I hade decided to quit as I was not getting well with the donor representative. Again I was jobless for some time. Through a friend I joined MARI, another grassroot organization, for a project on education for remote tribal children. I did some work with Community forestry management, drinking water, child labor and HIV/AIDS. While working with MARI, I got an offer from India HIV/AIDS Alliance as a Programme Officer for a reasonably good salary to run a family at Hyderabad (Apr 2005). I worked with Alliance for about three and half years and was denied promotion more than twice. While at Alliance, I have attended a training programme on harm reduction at Bangkok. Later my efforts on harm reduction resulted in good recognition for Allaince. On 1st of October 2008 I joined as Regional Coordinator for Freshwater Action Network South Asia (FANSA) as its first employee and even now I am the only employee. Before joining itself I was invited for a Governing Council meeting at Amsterdam and I have attended the same. After joining the organization, my first mandate was to make an impact on South Asian Conference on Sanitation. As the only employee all the responsibility of the coordinating the events fell on me. I played a key role in coordinating the CSO meet in terms of planning, mobilizing resources, coordinating with support organizations. I also played a key role in pushing the agenda of Right toWater and Sanitation into the Delhi Declaration. Now we are planning to follow-up on SACOSAN in terms of monitoring the commitments made, mobilizing the civil society and enabling the civil society to play a key role. We also started a global project supported by DFID through its Governance and Transparency Fund. We are likely to get commitments from several international organizations in the near future.