Shantanu Dutta muses on what’s the right approach while working in the development sector- to rough it out by living among those whose lives are being developed or to regard it as just another profession:

Meanwhile, the voluntary sector has mostly gone professional. Yes, the jhola chaaps still exist but that exists in most cases more as a statement of attire than a vocation that it once was. Mostly the voluntary sector has turned professional and is more tuned to 509 deliverables, results and evidence. Methodology doesn’t count for much but results do. And so NGO workers like me function in day to day life not with Khadi spinning charkhas but with e mail weaving lap tops.