Karma-Yoga

With a passion to empower the society and drive to change the world, ten of us started with our very first Karma-Yoga visit on May 1, 2010. Ten minds were working on ten different ideas on how they could make a difference to a common villager’s life. Yes, I am talking about the Karma-Yoga project of Great Lakes, in which each student is supposed to spend 60 hours in a village for empowerment of the villagers.

On our very first visit, we headed straight to the Panchayat and then to the school. Panchayat visit proved to be fruitful in getting the important statistics like population of the village, sex ratio, main occupation, methods used for farming, issues faced by villagers and the like which we used later on for carrying out different activities in the village. Our next target was school. While on one hand, the visit to school brought smiles on everybody’s face bringing back memories of our childhood; we realised that this was the place where we could bring a positive change. With a promise to come up with a proper timetable to teach the kids and teachers Computers and English, we returned to hostel.

In the next few visits, apart from working on the plan of action for the school, we tried to gather some villagers and tell them importance of micro-finance. Great lakes along with a micro-finance firm- Rang De, had planned to help villagers take an entrepreneurial leap. By this time, we all realised that this was not going to be a cakewalk. With language being the biggest barrier, it was getting difficult for us to communicate with the villagers and build a relationship of trust. We managed to create awareness among villagers about micro-finance with two Tamil speaking members of our team. However, we couldn’t go ahead with this project due to some issues.

The teaching part at school was more of learning for us. While we taught MS Office and paint to our students (which included kids and their teachers along with the principal), we learnt how much planning is important even for the smallest of things. The computer classes proved to be successful with students showing interest and completing assignments correctly. We moved on to teaching Mathematics, Science and General knowledge as well in the school.We also planted saplings in and around the school and urged to school authorities and kids to take care of them.

Our next main project was organizing a health camp. We conducted a survey and found out the need for an eye check-up camp for the villagers. We fixed a date and started campaigning. Though people needed to get eyes checked, for some reason they were not very keen on coming to the camp on their own. On the day of eye-camp, we arranged for transportation for the villagers. They were taken to the camp site for check up and then dropped back to their houses.

As we look back now to those 60 hours, we understand the very purpose behind this project. It would be a sheer joy to learn that we were able to make some change to the village; but I can surely say that the Karma-yoga visits to village have transformed us all to better human beings.

My 7 commandments

1. Everybody has a split personality, so you should not take anything blindly because the person may say exactly opposite at some other point of time.

2. There are very few jerks in the world and the best way to deal with them is to avoid their craziness.

3. World is not a bad place to live in for a person who has been born in a normal household.

4. EVERYBODY likes to gossip.

5. Things which are normal but done by good looking and happening people get transmitted, falsified, amplified, transmitted and transformed into gossip.

6. People do not take you seriously if you've got a smiling face.

7. Introversion is often mistaken as snootiness.

Disclaimer: By the word 'world', I mean one's surrounding. These are not the ultimate commandments of life. I am sure I will come up with many more in future :) Moreover, as the very first precept goes, I may change these any time the dissociative identity takes over.

blame game!

The other day I was debating with my friends on where to go over the weekend for outing and believe me it was like a war! There were only four people and any place would have been absolutely fine with each one of us, but still somehow we had to argue. Then one of us (who had the car) got angry and rest of us had to give up to make sure we get to travel in the car!

And now thinking about it, I am left wondering if managing a group of four is like this, what it must be like to run a country! Crores of people, thousands of political parties, hundreds of leaders and one government- can u imagine thinking about everyone’s emotions and demands? I can just heave a sigh at the mere thought of it.

Suppose government is working on reducing the food price and thinking about taking the stimulus out of market- at the same time, opposition questions each and every move of it; some fellow goes on hunger strike asking for a new state and his so called followers create havoc in the mother state; there is an airplane/train crash in another state; an old politician comes under CBI scanner for a scam of some hundred crore rupees; a party leader in some state vandalizes everything from buses to multiplexes in the name of protecting ‘his’ state’s people; Maoists/ terrorists abduct some innocent people in some state asking government to release their savage brothers in return; internal party strife; sanitary issues in the country; farmer suicides; water and power shortages; corruption; inflation; educational crisis; communal riots; maintaining good GDP rate; cricket versus hockey; natural calamities and this is not all! Relations with other countries have to be maintained by signing different security pacts, getting fuel, acting on climate change, managing import-export etc etc etc.

I agree that this is the very reason we vote and elect a government, so that they overcome all the abovementioned hurdles and run the country smoothly-that’s their job! But I would also say that think twice before blaming it all on the government. Ask yourself some questions- Don’t we get tempted to throw something on roads while traveling in a car/train/local? Don’t we think of getting the registration of house/car faster by shelling out 100-200 bucks ‘extra’? Don’t we try to pacify the traffic police by saying ‘aapas me sambhalte hain na’? How many times have we thought of going to consumer forum for getting duped by a shopkeeper for his low quality products or by a travel agency for its third class service? Forget everything and just think how many times we have voted since we turned 18!

So, I would say while government is trying to do its job, we also have lot of things to do from our side than simply cribbing!

A letter:From theism to agnosticism!

I have many things on mind and I want somebody to answer them.

First and foremost, do you get everything you ask for from God?

If YES, then what is the secret that all your prayers are answered? Is there something we need to do? We d‘mannat and fasts to fulfill our wishes, but I really really think is God so objective that if we do one fast then he will grant us one wish, next time next mannat of 2 kilo of laddoos and we get other wish granted. He is ‘the God’, how can he do give-and-take? I still havn’t got the entire reason behind fasting. Please tell me if you know it. Or some book where I can find this.

If NO, then why do you still pray? Didn’t you get angry withGod?

Now, I will tell you my situation. I was a hardcore theist till sometime back, I think I still am; but an event has kinda shattered my faith. One of my best friend's sister just passed away. Maybe, you will think it’s stupid of me to cry about it so much, but I really think it’s unfair on God’s part to do this. I understand that everybody has his/her own time in this world and has to go when that time comes, but if everything is so decided then why pray? When I heard the news of her getting hurt, I went straight to the temple and asked God for her recovery and said if she was recovered, I would go to Shirdi for darshan. Now, imagine me doing this for my friend’s sister, then her close relatives must have had so many mannats and prayers. She didn’t have to leave this world so early. Still it happened!

After this, its not that I don’t believe in God, I know that He is there, but I am angry with him. I don’t want to ask him for anything. I am not the same old person now. Believe in God- do fasting- keep asking for something-no matter if wish is fulfilled or not still ask next time. I don’t know whether I am right or wrong, but I seek many answers.