Susa - I honestly don’t know why he’s called that, but the most popular theory has something to do with a girl called Susan. Well, Susa and I worked together on our college placement committee. We’ve kept in touch since we left college and one day while we were chatting, Susa mentioned in passing a site he’d come across. To pre-empt all denials, here is an unedited portion of our conversation:

Sudharsan: its a program that aims to send young people around the country to learn about rural problems first hand

me: oh my god…

        that is so awesome!!

Sudharsan: I wanted to apply for that grant, but you’ve got to do it in a team, and I dunno anyone who’d be interested, so I’ll probably try my hand at the marketing intern part..

Yes, Susa told me that he didn’t know anyone who’d be interested. Anyway, I corrected him on that front (he’s lucky I was 10,000 miles away at the time, or there’d have been more than just talk) and we had half our team in place. The next person who immediately sprang to mind was Husain.

He’s so passionate about rural health care that I knew he’d love to be a part of something like Grassroutes. I mailed him the details and sure enough, the next day he said he was in.

Our fourth team mate took a little longer. I tried contacting another friend of mine who I knew would love to be a part of Grassroutes, but she’d gone off to Orissa to see the Olive Ridley turtles. Since she had no internet access while she was in Orissa, I knew there was no way we could work out the mini-campaign.

Then I had one of those moments. Where you smack yourself on the forehead and say how stupid am I? (regardless of the bewildered stares you’re getting.) And I called up Maya, one of my oldest friends and said, dude we have to do this. She said, you bet!

And that’s how Spokes was formed.

I thought it might be little difficult initially because I was the only person each of the other three knew. But (not surprisingly perhaps) we gelled together so quickly and so well, it was like all of us had known each other for ages.

I think we’ve come a long way for a team that didn’t think of each other to start with, to a point where I wouldn’t want to go with anyone else on what promises to be an enriching and fun roadtrip!