Navpraarambh (Abhinav, GM'13)

Of being awakened:

All pumped up with excitement, I reached Old Delhi railway station. It was my first visit to that station and I could see the contrast between the New and the Old versions of Delhi through the station’s eyes. It was too crowded to look for the other change-agents who were supposed to travel with me and that is when technology came in handy; I called them up to an old-fashioned yellow telephone booth (yes, these do exist even today, not just in Old Delhi but in the New one as well), right at the center of the platform from which the train was to leave. Everyone came in one by one and just as we were done with our informal introductions, the train arrived at the platform and was ready to leave in a few minutes. People started moving towards their respective coaches and so did our group. Those of us who came with friends and family members waived goodbyes to each other and received the best of wishes for the days to come. And then, even the train waived goodbye to the station by honking its horn, received the best of wishes in the form of the green signal and started off to take us away from our usual lives to places unknown, even if for a short while. This filled all of us with a strange zealous feeling and we looked at each other, for a moment, with the same blank expression. All of us had different questions in our minds about what was to come, about how Gramya Manthan (the rural exploration program which we were going to join the very next day) would turn out to be. These questions led to various discussions and train-conversations about each other. Some slept within an hour; some after realizing that they were hungry and after sharing a meal; and the remaining few had some serious discussions (on topics ranging from Bollywood to the underworld to the Indian Army and all the way to education, economics and political science) till late hours and slept only after realizing that they must if they had to be awakened.

Most of us awoke a few minutes earlier to the scheduled time of the train to reach the destination but as it happens in life, sometimes the stops are not the final destination and are meant only to test our patience and perseverance, the train stopped for long intervals at different places in the middle of nowhere. The train was now almost two hours late and the people from Youth Alliance team who came to pick us up were waiting at the station. When we reached, we were welcomed by them along with a cool welcome by the nature’s messengers: dark clouds and breezy winds. One of the vehicles sent to pick us up was surprisingly an ambulance. Strange or funny though it may sound; was quite resourceful (as the team needed to have an ambulance ready all the times to attend to any cases of emergency, why not use it as an A.U.V. - Alternate Utility Vehicle). The ambulance did not save our lives but it did more than that: contributed its part in changing our lives. As we reached the entrance of the place where we were to stay, I sensed a feeling of alchemy on seeing a hoarding with a picture of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam honoring a young girl. We were directed to our respective rooms and the alchemist in me was awakened yet again, on reading the name of the room: 'Swami Vivekananda Sadan'. Here I was, in the heart of a city unknown to me, in front of the faces I had never seen before, being welcomed first by nature and then by two of the most influential personalities of my life.

The view outside the rooms, in one of the corners of the courtyard and right in front of the Science Hall, was that of two old men (in their vests and pajamas) cutting a huge log of wood by continuously moving their hand-saw; a few of the change-agents helping them curiously, to learn the easy-when-looked-at but difficult-when-tried process. But the real lesson that those 'hidden hard-workers of the wise, who are always on the rise' taught us was to have a firm grip on our saws, to make the logs of our lives stable and to keep moving our hands across ages: within us, they awakened the spirit of life.

Of being connected:

It was the time for registration process and we started gathering in a hall with its floor clothed in white, ceiling painted likewise and the walls colored in pink. It appeared like a lotus in the midst of a water-body; each change-agent present inside was like a phenomenon. Once the registrations were completed, we were officially introduced to the core team members of Youth Alliance; all of them were like the shiny water droplets sitting on the leaves of that lotus: even from outside, the droplets facilitated the phenomena inside in a way that we could receive the light once the leaves opened.

They divided us into groups but only to break the ice, if any, among us. Each group was given a clue which opened the door to a subsequent clue on completing the task attached to the given clue. There were three clues in all and hence, three tasks:

1. The first one for our group was that of trust fall, which taught us that the base of trust is always present behind our backs; it is us, who have to climb up the stairs believing that even when we fall, the very same trust (that we had built with our own hands) will come to our rescue.

2. The second task asked us to form a human chain and to crawl underneath, one by one, to make the chain move forward. This is what we need to follow in our lives as well: to crawl forward when it is our turn; and to stretch ourselves out of our comfort zones to allow others to crawl past us, enabling the chain of entire human race to move forward.

3. The final task was probably one of the most tasted but with one of the most vital ingredients: to form a human pyramid of maximum height; taught us that to touch the sky, we have to strongly connect to each other and provide our connected shoulders as solid foundations for others to climb, effectively increasing the height of the human pyramid.

Our group did not win but that was never the motive of the exercise; the purpose had ultimately been served, the ice had broken: we had a mutual trust among us, we were ready to stretch ourselves out of our comfort zones to help others, and we were connected to each other.

Of being mapped:

Then came one of the most interesting sessions that I have ever been a part of the life mapping session in which everyone was given a blank sheet to draw a map of his/her life in a short duration. During the initial few minutes, my mind was just like the sheet in my hands: full of colored moments which when combined together, formed blank white. And when I tried to extract all the colors out of the blank white slate of my mind, the moments started flowing in a circular fashion and so, I decided to draw my map in the form of a spiral originating from the point when I was born to the point when I was drawing it and continuing beyond that point, I defined various sections of the spiral as different moods and feelings which corresponded to different phases of my life. Even while sharing my life map with others, I had to take two chances (just like any two random points on the spiral) to complete my story. I personally believe that the thoughts (that had been provoked within me during that session) drew inspiration from Swami Vivekananda – portrayed tall in his famous observant pose – at the back of the stage where we sat; and that the wisdom (bestowed upon me through others’ lives) was a blessing from Maa Saraswati – sitting amongst us, in the form of an idol (I am not an avid fan or follower of idol worship) – at the center of the stage. The insight that I gained, by sharing my story with people whom I had known for not more than a day and by listening to their life stories, was that all of us came from different backgrounds, classes, regions with different sets of beliefs; all of us had tasted different sweet successes and had faced different bitter moments of failures and rejections but there was a common energy, flowing within each one of us, which brought us together on that stage to form a powerhouse.

After a few refreshing games of Volleyball, which I had played for the first time in my life, we assembled at another bigger and higher theatrical stage. A Kabir Doha was stated as:

'Bura Jo Dekhan Main Chala, Bura Naa Milya Koye

Jo Mann Khoja Apnaa, To Mujhse Bura Naa Koye'

And we were asked to stand in groups of those who agreed and those who disagreed on either side of a virtual line and those who were confused and/or could not pick up a side, on the line. Those on either side of the line were supposed to convince the confused set to join their side. I stood among the confused ones with a firm viewpoint that, I believed, would keep me at the same place till the end. I argued that 'if we just look for the bad in the outer world, we may not find it anywhere but within us' and at the same time, 'if we seek for good in the outer world, we may not see it anywhere but within our own selves”. This confused a few on the either side of the line and one of them even joined the set in the middle. During the process, after listening to others’ arguments, I was still stuck on mine; but I started to look at it from a different angle, that of a mathematician’s: I thought if Kabir was a mathematician and if this was one of his theorems which held true, its converse would also hold true. This realization made both points of my argument to be valid and that is when I took a leap of faith and joined the people in agreement to the original statement.

The day’s activities came to an end after a traditionally served dinner and the reflection session; leaving us mapped together, like different regions, without any borders but filled with our own individual colors and shades.

It was an initiation:

an initiation of being awakened,

an initiation of being connected,

an initiation of being mapped.

Abhinav Saxena

Originally from Shivpuri, Madhya Pradesh, Abhinav just left his job at HCL Technologies, to explore the education sector while doing his MBA, he intends to start a learning center of his own and/or design a curriculum based on activity learning for the school being run by his family in Shivpuri.