Merry Christmas from the Land of Kings

'Twas the week before Christmas and our team at Lok was busy finalizing an investment proposal for one of India’s fastest growing microfinace institutions, an organization currently serving over 200,000 women borrowers below the poverty line and looking to reach over a million by next year. Once we finished up our work it was time for me to hit the road again and make the most of my brief Christmas vacation.

A side note - so far I’ve kept my discussion of Microfinance and my firm’s role in the microfinance sector to a minimum. That will change soon as we begin to finalize our first set of investments and I figure out how to make the most of this medium for commenting both on the microfinance industry and the Indian growth story in general. Expect some major changes to the site in January. Until then, this wikipedia page on Microfinance can get you started.

According to NYTimes columnist Thomas Friedman, "the world is flat," and a spin around YouTube and the blogosphere would convince most he has it right. Even TIME Magazine, the penultimate example of the mainstream media, has finally caught on, naming you (the individual) it's most important person of the year in 2006. But my brief travels here have led me to believe that there are parts of the world that are still mountainous, where religious differences, physical geography and the inescapable clutches of history pull time half a step backwards for every full step it takes ahead. I spent Christmas in one of these places.



Rajasthan, which literally means, Land of Kings, is a rocky desert state bordering Pakistan on India’s northwest border. Geographically, the landscape looks like a harsher version of America’s Southwest. Historically, its warrior clans could be more closely compared to something out of Europe’s feudal era. The Rajputs were known to possess bravery and chivalry unrivaled on the sub-continent. Their ovens developed a diverse diet sustainable in the desert, their engineers built mountain top forts that could withstand wind and erosion, and their armies fended off Muslim and British incursions for centuries. When finally overwhelmed and outnumbered, as was the case three times at one outpost named Chittorgarh, the Rajputs preferred suicide to submission, committing mass “jauhar” in saffron robes on funeral pyres rather than submitting to oncoming Muslim conquerors.

My tour of Rajasthan began on Saturday after an all night bus ride to its capital Jaipur. It was vintage and classic car day in the Pink City and the father of one of my co-workers hosted me, driving us around town in his "classic" Indian-made, 1960s-something (just a paint-job shy of the ferrari from Ferris Bueller's Day Off really).

The next day I headed off to the isolated little desert town of Pushkar, which besides being the location of one of Hinduism's holiest lakes, may as well have been hippy heaven. It only took tours of two streets full of dreadlocks and Yoga dens to figure out that this is where all those folks who disappeared in the sixties ended up. After a trip down to the lake and a visit to the main temple I found myself at the Pink Floyd Hotel - I couldn't resist after seeing the sign. But after walking in it felt like I had just stepped into the Wizard of Oz, or maybe the twilight zone, as “Dark Side of the Moon” started playing throughout the guest house the moment I set down my bags.



I spent Christmas Eve with some Australians and Norwegians who were also touring Rajasthan and got up around sunrise on Christmas morning to hike the mountain behind Pushkar's lake (a challenging 45-minute workout).

After my morning exercise I took a cold shower (the “Pink Floyd” was experiencing a power cut) and caught a bus to Ajmer, where I made visits to the Presbyterian and Catholic churches before settling down to a nice, if ironic, Christmas dinner of mutton and chapati at an open-air Islamic diner (the only place in town that served meat).

After a long 7 hour bus ride I was back in Delhi around midnight, just in time to get home and find the handle on our apartment door not working and all of my flatmates out of town. Thus, Christmas 2006 ended with me breaking into my own apartment through the window and landing on my own Christmas tree…yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus…apparently, its me.

...More to come in 2007

- Merry Christmas, Seasons’ Greetings and Happy New Year from the BankerInIndia