New Year......New Trips........New Beginnings

After a long slumber we are getting back to the blog with something new and interesting. 2010 was a great year for a start and we had out first program with some great delegates from Vienna (thank you guys....!!). The journey of knowledge or knowledgeyatra as we call it began on the 6th of September and ended with a lot of new experiences and excitement of having been in India. For the KYI team is was a great achievement to have given our ideas a platform and realized a goal, but also a realization of the improvements and efforts required for creating the KYI experience over and over again for many other young people. The program also came with a great realization for the KYI team of each other as a team member and how to work with each other and more importantly how not to. We as a team are thankful to each other for a solid 100% effort to make and deliver a program that was able to impact the life of our delegates and in-turn ours.

We would also like to thank our Partners Dr.Nilima Chitgopekar, Mr.Indra Jung Thappa, Joy Mischley, Pratham, Delhi School of Social Work, Udaipur School of Social Work, IYCN, Council for Social Development and Mr Navin Gulia from Adda. Without the selfless support of our partners the program would not have been possible and we thank them with all our gratitude and hope to receive their support always. Last and not at all least I want to thank the delegates for their patience and openness during the trip. They took what ever we threw at them with a

smile and an intention to face the challenge and were very open to new things that they would not have ever seen. They were able to understand that this is a new place, new people and different ways of doing things and living life in India, which made the trip for them much more easier to cope-up with. India can be a cultural and emotional shock for a first timer and with exception to some incidents they took it all quite well and were able to create great experiences for themselves which was one of the most important goal for the KYI India Social Development Program.

Wrapping up we would like to say that 2010 sowed and germinated the seed of an idea that is going to bare very interesting and exciting results for the KYI team and future KnowledgeYatris.

We are soon coming up with our new website and some very interesting new programs, so be on the look-out for more.......

Team KYI

PS: You can see the pictures from the Trip on our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/KnowledgeYatra

A start to a great adventure- Day 1

It has finally begun! :)

Today, September 6, was the first day of the KnowledgeYatra Study Tour about Social Development in India! After all the hard work that the team has put into this project it was great to see it come to life!

Day 1 of the study tour was designed to help the participants (7 very intelligent and motivated individuals) and the KYI team (5 very excited people passionate about culture and social development) to get to know each other better. We like to think of ourselves as one group, not organizers and delegates separately. That is why it was important for all of us to participate in the activities together. In order to help us kick off to a great start we had Joy from SevaYatra as facilitator! Thanks, Joy!

In the first part of the day we did fun team building games and we discussed Do's and Dont's about Indian Culture, as well as Health and Safety in India. We shared some funny stories and got quite useful insights into the way of life in India.

But it's not good enough to just sit and talk about the way things are in India. It is important to experience it first-hand! That is why in the second part of the day we split into 3 groups and headed out on a scavenger hunt in the south part of Delhi. The 3 groups went to Lodhi Gardens, Nehru Place and Dilli Haat. At each of these locations we had to complete different tasks ranging from taking a picture with a couple in Lodhi Gardens to buying a pirated version of Microsoft Office 2007 at Nehru Place to asking at least 5 people about the differences between North and South India at Dilli Haat! In order to get to these places we used metro and/or autorickshaws, which made the experience even more exciting!

After emerging into the Indian life already on the first day we ended the evening with a lovely Indian meal! Yummy! :)

This was just the start of the journey! There is much more to come!

Kick-off event: Indian Evening about Social Development

The KnowledgeYatra team has been working hard in the last months in order to make something great possible: a unique study tour in India with a specific focus on Social Development, which is to take place this September!

In order to celebrate our work so far, present it to the public and give the space to talk about development issues in India, on June 14, 2010 we had our first event: an Indian Evening about Social Development.

Our lovely audience was welcomed by Julia Hüpfl, one of the founders of KnowledgeYatra, who opened the evening with words about the diversity of India, a country of many contrasts, colors, smells, languages and people; a country so fascinating that everyone should have the chance to trully explore.

Her opening speech was followed by an introduction about India given by Mr. Patnaik, the Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of India in Austria. He talked about his country with great passion and welcomed everyone to experience India, concluding that whoever goes to India has 2 options: to either love it, or hate it. There is no in-between. He showed his active support for KnowledgeYatra and we are looking forward to welcoming him again at our events.

His introduction was nicely complemented by our next speaker- experienced journalist and author Brigitte Voykowitsch who has very rich insights about India and social issues in the country. She gave an overview about the development of India, about the social issues facing the country in the past and the present. She shared the experiences she gained while travelling in different areas of the country, meeting locals, following social and political developments over the years. You want to know more? Well, you should have been there! :) Her useful insights outlined the major social development issues in India and raised a lot of valuable questions about the future of the country, about the development it needs, about the different sides of the social conflicts…

It is always hard to talk after such great speakers but we our best anyway. :) Julia Hüpfl and Steliana Kokonova gave an overview of the current activities of KnowledgeYatra and particularly the study tour about social development. We introduced the vision leading the project, the details of our study tour and tried to transmit the passion that stands behind it all.

After this we closed the evening with a lovely Indian buffet, kindly offered by our sponsor - the restaurant "Indian Food Land" (http://www.indianfood-land.com/). Well, the Mango Lassi was personally made by the team and trust us, we had a lot of it. :) Special thanks to Vijit Hooda for that.

And so our first official event was over…marking the beginning of many more great events to come…stayed tuned for more!

Stereotypes about India explained

The source of all modern day knowledge-Wikipedia says ‘Stereotypes are standardized and simplified conceptions of groups based on some prior assumptions. Generally speaking, stereotypes are not based on objective truth but rather subjective and sometimes unverifiable content-matter’ However this is correct to a great extent, I would like to add that stereotypes are experiences over-simplified.

India being in the lime light for the past few years has had more people visiting and even more wanting to come here. People who have already been here take back their experiences and the ones that are in-line try to learn from these experiences. Another source of stereotypes is from Indians living abroad. Over the years I have come across many versions of how India and Indians are and most of them are correct in their own way and experiences of their believers, but to create a common stereotype for a country as diverse as India is a big mistake.
In the following the KYI team has tried to list and explain some (or 15) of the stereotypes from an entry by a Polish intern in Delhi on dillinet.ning.com. Hope you enjoy..!

1. Arranged marriages are very popular
Yes they are and the majority Indian youth still choose to get married with the ‘assistance’ and ‘help’ of their parents. The concept has evolved over the years. Originally it meant they decided who you got married to and you had to agree, but now they propose suitable matches and you get to choose after meeting the person and so on, depending from family to family.

2. Indians use hand right to eat, left hand to clean
This is a true stereotype, most Indians use right to eat and left to clean.

3. Some Indian men hold hands in the streets while they are not necessarily gay.
This is something that has always escaped my understanding too. This happens often & in a certain sections of society, mostly guys in smaller towns and low education backgrounds, but you will never see me and my friends holding have. :)

4. Rickshaw driver always says "no change" but if you insist on the change, they can find and give you
This is mostly for practical purposes when they don’t have any cash change and if you insist then they will ask others or anyone available nearby for the change money.

5. It is almost impossible to see Indian girls wearing sexy clothes
This is mostly a cultural & religious thing. Women in India are always raised to wear traditional Indian clothes or even if jeans or skirts, mostly very modestly. Wearing ‘sexy clothes’ will generally get you more attention than you can handle. But this is not a rule, things are changing fast in big cities.

6. Drinking beer in street will get you in trouble.
This is a social thing, alcohol is not widely accepted in public places although Indians drink a lot of beer and whiskey, but mostly in their homes or bars.

7. You can bargain even for the party's entrance fees
You can bargain for the entry into a club depending on how crowded is is in that club at that time and on its popularity.

8. Indians ask you about your qualification the first time you meet and they think they are better than you if they completed higher education than you.
Education is a very important thing for Indians at large and it is a symbol of success and hard work. Therefore the more educated you are, i.e. the more degrees you have, you are preserved as an accomplished and successful person. This is even more true in today’s social scene. The higher and more the degrees, the better the job, the larger the salary.

9. Going to shopping malls is like going to airport, you have to pass through the security and show your bag, but normally nobody really gives a damn on checking. In the past couple of years due to the terrorist activities and unfortunate attacks on the country by extremists from in and outside the country going to public places has become a matter of concern, therefore in most of the public places you will see a security scan at the entrance. Although sometimes they get a little lazy too and it seems like a hogwash.

10. In many public places (cinema/train station) there's often a separate line for women so that they don't feel harassed or simply uncomfortable squeezing with men.
This is primarily a gesture because the lines in India tend to get quite long and making separate lines makes it more comfortable for the women and it is a little bit of chivalry.

11. If you've been living for more than a month in India, you are becoming expert at decoding some sign language, such as:
- The infamous but awkward tilting of the head sideways, in between a yes and a no.
This is situational, it can both mean yes and a no.....I have always had a difficult time explaining this one. I guess this is just made for born and raised Indians :)
- The way rickshaw drivers sometimes tell you to hop in their vehicle (quick head movement towards the backseat, almost unnoticeable)
This is just a physical gesture to ask you to hop in
- The hand twisting, like unscrewing a light bulb.
This is a gesture to signal ‘why’ or ‘what’.

12. You can ask people on the streets for directions and sometimes even if they do not know, they will tell you something out of courtesy.
This is partly out of surprise and party out of courtesy.

13. You got a 5mins break in the middle of a movie in cinema.
This is called an intermission or interval. Mostly invented by the cinema operators to sell over priced popcorn, Coke, etc.

14. Teek hai (= OK in English) can mean anything between ok/ I will do it/I won't , but better say I will just to shut you up/yes, I know/I better pretend I know/...what is s/he talking about?
Very true…..it means many things in different situations, it is one of the most commonly used phrase. Advisable to learn it and even more important to learn to use it correctly.

15. In places like McDonald's or Subway they HAVE to have one of those signs that said that their products are not made of beef.
India is a secular state, but majority population is Hindu and Cows in Hinduism and other religions that evolved from it have a scared symbol and in India we like not to eat out sacred symbols, but all you hardcore non-vegetarians don’t worry, chickens and goats are not scared and we love to eat them :) also vegetarians in India means no meat-no fish, but a lot of dairy products. ‘Vegetarians’ here means everything but all living things.

“What good is a journey if it does not change you” - KnowledgeYatra,The Beginning

Why did KnowledgeYatra (KY) come into being??

There can be many versions of how or why KY was created depending on who is writing and this is my version. KY, or doing something like KY, has its roots in 2 basic ideas:

· Sharing the learning gathered by its founders during their travels and time spent outside their countries;
· Combining business and traveling into an entrepreneurial venture;

During my internship organized through the biggest student-run organization in the world AIESEC (www.aiesec.org), as well as business & pleasure trips to different parts of the world, I realized that there is so much more that a country and its people have to offer than what meets the eye, especially India and the need for inter-cultural understanding. Originally KY was started with the intention to create Learning and Traveling focused trips to India to present its culture, economy, diversity and heritage to the youth. This gradually transformed into an idea to bring youth to India and to take Indian youth to different parts of the world on similar trips. This idea very closely married my passion for doing something new, for traveling and meeting new people. As an individual I am always excited by new ideas and creating business that have a positive social, environmental and economical impact for all stakeholders and KY achieves all three and more. One thing about the idea of KY that excites me the most is that if the programs and trips under KY are planned & executed well they benefit all the people involved in them. KY is a win-win for all.

In the last 4 years I have had a few interesting experiences in business and entrepreneurship and I realized that I will not be ale to do a certain thing for too long IF it is not unique and if it does not involve me on a higher level. It needs to satisfy me in more than just making money, it has to constantly call to my creativity and innovativeness in order to keep me interested in it.

Traveling was always my passion and it made me realize the importance of inter-cultural understanding. It made me realize how wrong are we to just take other people and cultures for granted, or say “that is how they are..!” based on what we see on TV, or hear in the news, or read on the Internet. It made me realize that people, no matter where they are from, are similar, face similar problems in life and have similar dreams and aspirations. Finally it made me realize how important it is to travel and experience these feelings, especially for today's youth who are increasingly living in a globalized world, where we are not isolated from what happens to people in Kenya, or to forests in the Amazon, or the glaciers in Argentina, or to the women and children in Afghanistan.


“What good is a journey if it does not change you” or “DO NOT TRAVEL, IF YOU DON'T WANT CHANGE” (These are not copied from the Net, written by yours truly :) Some might find this obvious, but most will not, because when they travel either it is too short or they travel with so many preconceived notions that they stay closed during their travels and forget to change who they are. When we travel and only if we are open, we see so much, hear so much, feel so much and experience so much it is really difficult not to change, at the least in a small measure. When I went for my AIESEC internship to Poland in 2005, I was 21 and thought that I am going to be a certain way my whole life and was quite closed and short-sighted, if not narrow-minded. Today, if I look back at that time, it is safe to say that those 4 months in Europe taught me more about myself and life than my 3 years in Graduation. It changed me a whole lot and gave me a new perspective in life. All this happened because I met some of the most interesting people, they taught me so much and I rubbed off a bit of my culture and values on them too, and some of them are my closest friends now. This experience made me realize that the only thing that is permanent is change and there are no wrongs and rights, there are only perspectives.

KY is an idea that for me aims to create a memorable experience that induces inter-cultural understanding and changes people for the better. It aims to combine my ideas, emotions, experiences and passions and create unforgettable 'people experience'.

- Udit Hooda

(Co-founder of KnowledgeYatra India)

In Hindi 'Yatra' means ‘journey’ and 'Yatri' is the one who takes the journey. KnowledgeYatra India provides knowledge-based travel opportunities to create everlasting and impactful experiences for the participants.

We are team of young entrepreneurs with a vision in the field of cross-cultural education and development. With a focus on India and Europe as destinations, we want to develop cultural and developmental understanding, by organizing 2-4 week Intercultural & Developmental Study tours. These study tours will have a shared focus on getting to know the country and its culture and a certain topic which is closely connected to the country. We would like to provide the participants a chance to explore the deep and vibrant cultures of India and Austria and travel to the most popular tourist destinations.

In this blog we will post information related to our organization, to the programs that we offer but also to the topics that we address in our study tours- from development, to sustainability, to social entrepreneurship, and cultural understanding.

Stay tuned for many more insightful updates! In the meantime, check out our website: http://knowledgeyatraindia.com/