A man with a mission

     It was this rainy day in the last week of September. Morning breeze, cup of coffee and Times of India... Front page news... 'Generous commuters put prof's school for poor kids on track'. Some professor was collecting money from the commuters in local trains for funding a school. 'Bravo!'... I muttered and flipped the page right to the last page for the sports section. It wasn't a good sports day, Indian teams not doing well in the Champions League and the shameless stories about the corruption and scams in the buildup of the Commonwealth Games made the matter even worse. In no time the paper was back on the table and me back to work. The 'man with a mission' was forgotten right then and there...

(Courtesy: Rediff.com)

      February 14th 2011... Bright sunny day outside. Had boarded an evening local from Virar. As the train passed Vasai, the cool breeze from the window tempted my brain to shutdown and off I went to sleep. Somewhere close to Andheri, suddenly I woke up. There was this man in his late thirties, with a black rucksack, very decently dressed standing in the aisle, holding a few placards in his hand with some news articles bearing his photos and a donation box in his other hand. 'Ok one more guy with 'charity' on his mind.' I grinned as I closed my eyes again trying to complete my sleep. But I woke up again when he said in fluent English, "Namaskar, I am Professor Sandeep Desai... and I am asking for your help to run a school in Ratnagiri." And then he started showing all the placards with national dailies mentioning him with his unique way of collecting charity. He didn't take long, may be 2-3 minutes and he explained everything how he and his organisation 'Shloka missionaries' have already started a school in Goregaon and now are building a new one in Ratnagiri with the help of the donations that Professor Desai collects from his train travels. 

    "Vidya Daan, Shreshtha Daan" he says... and ends his speech with a strong message. "If you feed a hungry man, you feed him for a day, but if you educate him, you help him out of that life forever." That really moved me. Soon as he finished his short speech, collections started pouring in as he walked down the aisle holding the donation box in front. Some gave 10 Rs, some 100 and some even put only a few coins. But that man accepted each donation with equal humility and a smiling face as he bowed down everytime saying, "Thank you for your kind help, Sir". I recollected reading about him that day in September. I had donated but I still felt that it was not enough. Bandra was nearing... I got up, went to him, he was standing there near the door, holding the rail. 

I greeted him, "Hello Sir!".

 "Hello", he replied with the same smile.

 "Sir I really want to congratulate you for whatever you are doing and I wish you accomplish the goal soon." 

He replied back, "Thank you son, thank you for your kind words. They will go a long way". 

And he got down at Bandra and boarded yet another train on the down track continuing his mission.

     I returned home. I googled his name and foundation, and was awed with the information I got. Professor Desai, on an average collects around Rs 5000 a day. He also got the attention of many national dailies and has been even mentioned in a magazine. His unique efforts also caught the eye of Salman Khan who tweeted about him and called up to congratulate him one day when Desai was in the middle of his mission, collecting funds in the train. Salman has reportedly agreed to fund him Rs 20 lakhs every year for whichever school he opens in any part of India.

     

       Professor Desai is a former engineer who used to teach at the S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research. But he quit his job in 1997 to teach the children in the Goregaon slums. He usually starts his mission in late noons and ends up at 6 p.m. It was his mother's dream too, he says, to open a school for the slum children. He is not only looking for money but is also in need of volunteers or 'Vidyasevaks' as he calls it, who may be willing to teach for at least 10 hours a month or participate in any other activities for his Shloka foundation. Here are his details:

Name: Sandeep Desai

B.E., MBA from NMIMs

Ex-professor of S. P. Jain Institute of Management & Research

Organisation: Shloka Missionaries, A-6, Ujval, Road no. 6, Pandurangwadi, Goregaon (East)- 400063

Schools: 

1. Shloka Public school, Lucky apartments, Building No. 9C, 1st floor, Iraniwadi, Goregaon (E)

2. Sudha-Manohar National School, 55, Thiba Palace Road, Zadgaon, Ratnagiri- 415612

Contact details: Tel: +9122-28740859, (+91) 9322757030, (+91) 9820366127

email: vidyadaan@shlokamissionaries.org 

website: http://www.shlokamissionaries.org

    Its difficult to believe that in such a fast, selfish lifestyle of Mumbai, there are people like Professor Desai who are giving their everything for the betterment of the society. All I can say is "Thank you Professor for 'waking' me up that day!

    His foundation's website welcomes you with a message from Mahatma Gandhi saying, 

"Strength does not come from physical capacity, but from an indomitable will." 

So true...

(Inputs from TimesofIndia.com, The Telegraph, Rediff.com)

Egypt presses Ctrl-Alt-Del

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

February 11th, 2011... 1102-2011... an interesting date when literally a crowd close to a few millions of young, spirited and determined youths turned the tide of their destiny back, just like the date, to start a new beginning to their future. By the time I write this post, the Egyptian Revolution that started much earlier than January 25th had resulted in ousting their President Hosni Mubarak who ruled them for 30 long years. (Phew!)

(Courtesy: Internet)

While writing this blog, I admit, before January 25th, I hardly knew anything about Egypt except about Giza, the Suez Canal and well of course the famous photoshop gimick about Hosni Mubarak. As a non-Egyptian, I guess that was the only thing I ever knew Hosni Mubarak for. And I assume there were millions others like me around the world who never particularly knew much about Egypt and its people except for the Pyramids. But as history would have it, the perception of the world towards this country with a sharp right angled boundary, changed so dramatically over the last 18 days. And no price for guessing who was responsible for that... it was the common middle class youth in his twenties, calling for their right to lead a life they deserve.

The Egyptians proved the real power of 'We the people'. This uprising will be known for the non-violent and peaceful approach that the demonstrators used to make their voices heard. It will be remembered for giving a new meaning to the word, 'Internet Revolution'. The protestors showed no sign of backing away at any time from their key demand about Mubarak stepping down.

The most important thing that came out of this revolution or uprising was that people not only in the middle-east but the whole world witnessed one's faith in humanity's spirit and its aspirations. Though there was so much to fight against - the government, the thugs, the police, yet the demonstrators remained admirably peaceful while defending themselves. They didnt show a single sign of resorting to violent means while sticking to their core demand of installing democracy in their state. In Tahrir Square or 'Liberation square' as it is called, everyone saw this tremendous spirit of cooperation amongst the people themselves. They were so much determined and illustrative towards their goal while cleaning the streets after the clashes, protecting the Egyptian museum, setting up make-shift hospitals, distributing free food and water and protecting the journalists. The spirit of the people behind this uprising showed that autocracies cannot long survive the sharp and focused glare of their own people and community.

(courtesy: blog.aljazeera.net)

The slogans and the chants like "al sha'b yurid isqat al nizam!!!" (The people want the regime down!) and "Yascot Yascot Hosni Mubarak" will be rememberd forever in people's mind. These people were no one else but the educated middle or upper middle class, responding to other young activists and bloggers well versed with blogging and other social media like the Facebook and Twitter. Wael Ghonim started it on facebook, Asmaa Mahfouz posted one dramatic self-recorded video on youtube, and it spread like a wild fire bringing down a 30 year old regime. Al Jazeera played a massive role in this uprising. Despite the fact that it's license was revoked, it quickly had other alternatives like satellite phone calls, video uploading facility through creative commons, linking a live feed through Youtube, just to keep the spark of journalism alive. The internet shutdown flopped big time in its attempt to stop protesters from communicating and coordinating with each other. The crackdown on the foreign press made the resolve of the protesters even stronger. Information was relayed in 140 characters throughout the world, faster than one could believe. Twitter proved as a mini-broadcast medium giving out information to the world who was stuck to the television to witness a revolution, one of its kind. Citizen journalism was at the summit.

All the petty attempts by Mubarak to stay connected with the Egyptian politics finally failed when on 11th February 2011, Vice-President declared that the president fled to Sharm-el-Sheikh. I would like to congratulate and thank the people of Egypt for showcasing such beautiful spirit of determination and human aspirations. The road ahead may be bumpy for you, but rest assure, the world has no doubt today that you will scale it on your own successfully. Greetings from India...

What to do before Doomsday 2012

How many times have u seen a guy getting 175 in 140 balls and still ending up on the losing side! God! Yesterday was an awful day for me! I wanted to bang the T.V., but i didnt! So i switched the channel... just to see a pretty young news anchor wasting her talent in asking stupid questions to a panel of 'experts' called in to 'educate' the masses of the much hyped 'Doomsday' in 2012!!! It was much more disgusting than India's loss to see the Breaking news ticker displaying, "2012 mein dharti ka vinaash atal" (In 2012. the end of the world is imminent!)


I switched off the idiot box and slipped into my bed. But Sachin's failed heroics had snatched off my sleep too! So i kept pondering about the Doomsday! What if it really would happen! We would have only 1141 days left! So i wondered what things should happen or can happen before the earth gets sucked in, or collides with a meteor or whichever way its supposed to end! Let me tell you...


1. Everyone should start booking their tickets to Baker and Howard Islands, these places in the Pacific are going to witness the sunrise of 21st Dec 2012 the last! They are 12 hrs behind the GMT! So you will be the last one to die! Great achievement that will be...


2. Okay did you always wished to swear or kick your Boss's a**? Now dont hesitate, do it! You may get fired from your job, but dont worry, it would be not long before the whole office gets fired from this universe!


3. I ask why save money and pile it up in those bank lockers. Your plans for future have no meaning now, its already 'planned' by Nostradamus! Withdraw every single penny, break the FDs. Take your spouse to the most hi-fi places around the world. Now no worries about your bank balance!


4. Kids wont need to go to school. Why just scrap the 10th Std Board Exams? Mr. Sibbal are you listening? Scrap every Single exam. Let them have fun...


5. Government of India should not waste time and money in building a spacecraft for Mars in 2019!!! That would never come. Instead direct all the funds towards building a huge countdown timer...
Now did someone just asked me 'Where'? Okay, right in the middle of the sea, against the Marine drive backdrop, taller than Mount Everest (forget Statue of Liberty!) No one will protest now!


6. Supreme court should not unnecessarily give out stay orders to the U.P. government for building statues. 'Aakhri Iccha' puri kee jaaye!' And we educated citizens promise, we wont make a fuss about it now! Now who cares!


7. This time we have a stable government at the centre. So i feel sad for them who didnt vote this time. The next elections wont happen ever. You missed that right of yours! Also everyone should ask Manmohan Singh to step down and give us a chance atleast now to see India being led by a young man as in Rahul Baba.


8. One happy news is that the Cricket world Cup is in 2011. So critics leave Sachin alone and let him play till 2012. In fact call everyone Dada, Jumbo, Dravid, Kapil, let us give everyone a final 'chance'.


9. Orkut, you have very less time to prove that you are atleast somewhere in competition to facebook and Twitter! Get your a**es fired and show us some real stuff!


10. Okay so in short, each one of us has very less time in our hands. Since its already the end of 2009... so do whatever you wanted to do or dreamt of doing the whole life but couldnt! Whatever! Wanted to propose someone? Propose! Wanted to Kick someone? Kick! Wanted to kill someone? Go ahead, you will spend only few years in jail. Better so... do it on the last day... no punishment at all!


Ah! But Alas the world is not ending... they said so back in 2000 too... We are not stupid enough to accept that the universe will get screwed just bcoz a calendar has no dates after 21st December 2012! Had it been true, I would have cared sh*t to write a disclaimer. But it isn't, so let me be safe.


Disclaimer: The ideas above are fictional, no intentions to hurt anyone's sentiments, political or unpolitical!


But still do you have some weird ideas about what things to do if the doomsday was for real, let me know in the comments section.


Dont worry... We will be there even post 2012... me writing silly posts like the one above and you stupidly reading it till the end...


adios


.

Light of a new Beginning

Its the 24th October 2009... and the clocks ticking in front of me... both the minute and the hour hand come together and embrace each other with the number 12 watching them from behind... it seemed as if they whispered sweet nothings in each other's ears and planned a wonderful journey again for the next 12 hours to meet at their same romantic spot...


I am just sitting in my room with my new lappie, just surfing through few of my medical sites as a pop up catches my attention... ... and Its Aritra, my twitter buddy... i read his tweet... "@aritrasen : @kirtitandel Blog has been launched with some new posts"

I click on the link that he provided me... His Blog 'Denken' was quite a nice one with him recollecting his first tweetup (meeting of twitter users from a particular geographical area) in Siliguri, West Bengal. I instantly got fascinated by this idea of blogging. I was aware i was too late on that, but as they say its never too late... I decided then and there - I am going to have a blog of mine - impulsive as I was! I was completely amazed as i browsed my other friend's blogs too and thought that I can too try my hand on this. Since childhood i had this habit of writing in my diaries but it was not that consistent... It never picked up in that sense...

So the next thing i did was opened this Blogger site and registered myself. The whole procedure took pretty much time to understand but I was enjoying it. Writing in a diary was like keeping all your thoughts to yourself but this Blog idea meant like broadcasting your thoughts to the world... a huge world! And then lot many ideas started creeping up in my mind... I always believe that whatever we do should be meaningful. I asked myself the same regarding my decision to blog. Then I thought I will use this tool for many other purposes too. At the moment apart from just letting my mind open I feel I will also use this blog to dispense out valuable medical and health awareness topics to you all. Because I believe awareness is very contagious... It spreads in no time. Like how American Author Jim Rohn says, "Words do two major things, they provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness." And using this principle I want to do my bit to this mankind. And I am sure it will definitely help everyone.

Having said that now I am thinking of writing down a list of topics on which I will be posting. I hope you all will enjoy reading my posts as much as I do while writing them.

Here I would like to sincerely thank my Friend Aritra for that pop up which trigerred my brain to start this new journey. Thank you Dude... So here's wishing everyone a happy life and happy reading...

God Bless,

Kirti