Community connections

There’s less than a week left before I fly to São Paulo. It’ll be my first time in South America – and needless to say, having expectations is futile. I don’t know what I will experience, and I’m happy not knowing! The joy of travelling is that it opens up entire perspectives on our ideas of life, society and the whole of humanity. And these are things that you cannot even imagine until you get there.

As I prepare for the trip, I realized that I have been thinking a lot about what the word ‘community’ means to me. Of course, the Warriors without Weapons program is all about community development through entrepreneurial practices, so being able to understand what ‘community’ really means seems important to me.

How similar or different is it going to be at the favela of Baixada Santista, compared to my experience in Dharavi, Mumbai? I can only guess.

A short while ago, I made a short video on my idea of ‘community’. It’s a short, rather vague poem, juxtaposed with scenes from Dharavi and Urur Kuppam – a small fishing hamlet in Chennai. I was helped by Madhusudhan Reddy on the camera, who recorded anything that caught our interest, as we explored the streets in these two communities.

Brazil and India: similarities?

 I think this is an interesting question to ask – all societies have their similarities and differences. At first glance, of course, Brazil and India seem to have very different culture, but from what I’ve come to learn, there are also interesting similarities! Here are a couple I want to share with you. I’m curious to see what other cultural similarities I can find once I get there!

Time!

 Indians don’t care too much for punctuality, and everyone knows that. Perhaps it’s because we have a cyclic idea of time, that everything temporal repeats itself infinitely. If not today, tomorrow; if not this lifetime, the next one! In other words, you have infinite time to get things done – so why rush? Two hours late for a party is nothing on the cosmic scale of things!

Strangely enough, Brazilians seem to think the same way, and take a rather relaxed, informal approach to time. They’re tolerant of delays, and sometimes even an hour or two’s delay for a lunch or party is not uncommon. Of course they blame the traffic – but so do we, so I get the feeling I’ll feel right at home as far as time is concerned!

Jugaad vs Jeitinho

 The two words even sound similar, and mean essentially the same thing. Jugaad, is the patently Indian approach to life – being resourceful in limited circumstances, and improvising to get a job done, even if it means cutting a few corners, or taking a shortcut.

Jeitinho, which means ‘little way’ in Portuguese, is pretty much the same thing. Wikipedia defines it as a means to accomplish something through improvising or bending the rules. But essentially both Jugaad and Jeitinho are characterised by opportunism, resourcefulness and a pragmatic attitude unencumbered by rules or prescribed procedures. Of course it becomes interesting to see this attitude as being born out of the day to day lives of people – so there must interesting parallels in the lifestyles of Brazilians and Indians. I’m curious to see what I will find when I get there!