The year of the jholawallah

YEAR-END SPECIAL

January 1: I am soooo jetlagged and hung over... between dashing from Washington to Seattle to Geneva to Delhi, the last two weeks have been really exhausting. I don't know if all NGO chiefs have to fly across continents but I do know that if I didn't, my set-up would run out of funds. It is a "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" world.

In Washington, took N out to lunch at the St Regis. It set me back $600, but he has access to UN funds. I have my eye on the Child Rights conference in Tokyo next year that he's organising.

The restaurant is being refurbished but we had lunch in the dining room at the lobby "" with floor to ceiling "Palladian windows". Thought to myself "" there's this and there's the floor-to-ceiling view from the circuit house in Kalahandi! I must be uniquely blessed "" or in the right business.

January 30: Went to an End of New Year Parties party. It's such a good idea, because it avoids the crush of the pretender NGO-types. It was at A's farm. Really tastefully done. Organic veggies, free range chicken, cocktails made only with desi alcohol "" Feni, chhang, arrack. French wine is nice but you do tend to lose touch with your moorings; though arrack is not a bad way of losing touch with your moorings.

Saw R. She was wearing a gorgeous outfit. Made by a fashion designer in Sudan, she said, from condoms "" to promote HIV awareness. Must get into that area. Talked it over with S. Not difficult, he said, just hire a pretty young thing with a Masters in Social Welfare "" and the HIV funding agents will be beating a path to your door. I like S. He has such intense eyes.

February 15: Got an invitation to attend a conference in New York on "The elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child". Too busy here, but if I send the Number 2, they might misunderstand. So might the Number 2.

June 3: The carbon trading stock market fell today. This is the area to pursue "" lot of money in the Climate Change area. Could get a paper written by one of the young things. All I have to do is polish it up and may be it will catch Nick Stern's eye?

August 9: Hundreds of thousands of traders, hawkers, farmers and workers protested across India today asking domestic and international companies to quit retail. Dharmendra Kumar, director of India FDI Watch, is the hero of this, though Sonia Gandhi must be congratulated for writing a letter of warning to the Prime Minister. You may not like Vandana Shiva's bindis, but she seems to be on the right track.

October 11: The jholawallahs won today. The government has approved the Resettlement and Rehabilitation policy "" in part owing to some efforts by me "" for it now recognises a balance between land for development and the needs of cultivators.

The Nandigram agitation has had its effect. Some pink newspaper wanted to have lunch with me today and wanted a write up. Good publicity but conference in Rio on Climate Change was a priority, so I had to pass. Must get a better hotel in Rio next time. The one I stayed in didn't feature smoked salmon on the menu...

November 8: Medha Patkar was assaulted in Nandigram today by supporters of the CPI(M). The poor girl, how many blows she's taken, from Sardar Sarovar to this...she says Nandigram looks like a concentration camp.

December 31: They used to call us jholawallahs, derision and ridicule were our lot, we were accused of slowing down the revolution, well-meaning but ineffectual social butterflies...but 2007 will always be remembered as our year.