Is it just a spark or do I see the light!!!

As I was thinking over the mundane things that a MBA graduate needs to do I see a message pop out of my screen

dear jc r u online

As I start to type a reply I get a call from my very close friend after a long time and I run to the balcony to attend the call. Teledensity in India has risen from 0.8 percent to 6% but still the network is in its primitive stage to support such a high growth. The only available choice with the customers is to run to their terrace or a big open space. We talked for a while and reassured each other to keep in touch!!

When I come back to my table I get to see the message

“suyam_awake: Dear JC, hope you remember Erode volunteers Sakthivel, Karthik, Senthil, Shiva they supported us in tsunami time and also joined with you for first trip I believe. They are going to conduct a fund raising cultural program on 28th of this month in Erode. Myself and Uma unable to attend the program. If you find time, please try, any information you require do let me know on this”

I think the readers very well know about SUYAM, the NGO I got associated last year. The message was typed by one of the trustees of Suyam, Muthuram anna. I think it is important that I now introduce the people I got to know when I was working with Suyam.

Uma: Any one who doesn’t know about suyam and its people would be amazed to find it being led by a frail, petite young lady. She is 29 years of age I think but you would mistake her for a 12th standard student. She is someone whom you can look up to for inspiration anytime. Believe it or not she holds ten graduation degrees. She is pursuing her Ph D and MS now. (Reiterating TEN DEGREES... I am in the process of acquiring my second degree and I'll be 25 this Feb.)

Muthuram: He is M.Com and he is pursuing his MS in social work. (Not sure what he studies but he has to keep himself up to the demand of Ms UMA). He is the think tank of Suyam. Though the organization runs itself committed to serve at any cost there needs to be a justification on the spending that it does. He has every time, every day at least 30 days bills and receipts to check and account to (don’t ask me how he gets so much bills accumulated)!! I have made a Journal for 70 entry for an assignment and believe me it’s not easy to even have the same motivation even as you reach the 30th entry. He does that time and again. Accountability he says is something really important to run an NGO.

There are other people I shall slowly introduce but you should be wondering who the other names are in the message that appeared above.

Sakthivel, Karthik, Senthil and Shiva...

They are engineering students studying in Erode. They were one among the 14 volunteers with whom I had left for Nagapattanam last dec 28th. They were in their second year.

Four young students hearing and seeing all those stories about tsunami boarded a bus to Chennai so that they could render their help. They had no contacts here in the city. One of them had the Chennai Mayor his neighbor sometime back. So they went to the corporation for guidance. They were appreciated for their effort to reach out but they were not shown direction. They registered with Oxfam, Red Cross and the theosophical society. There was a huge response for volunteers to help in the areas in and around the Chennai beach. They had come to know that Suyam was leaving for nagapattanam and straight registered them selves to leave for Nagai on 28th Dec.

While coming back from Nagai I could hear them out. Even as they had left for Chennai they had gathered students to collect Relief funds for the tsunami affected people. By Jan 1 st their friend in their college had collected about 10 lacks.
I was overawed by the dedication I saw in them.

Muthu anna had just informed that they are now conducting a cultural program to raise funds.

suyam_awake: Your yahoo pictures keep me cheerful. thanks. neenga seekirama MBA mudichi, velaikku senthu, panam sambarichu, suyam vari vazhanganum Ungalaipola thiramaiulla alunga, mattra younsgtersaiyum nalla vidhama seyalpada vaikkanum, idhu en anbu vendugol, sariya

Meaning – asking me to contribute to suyam the same way after I finish my graduation. And to guide more people to work for good.

I had to take a lot of time to type for this one thing. Otherwise anyone who had a chat online would say I type at least 5 sentences for their one word.

I don’t see why I can’t contribute. I should be able to, to the extent I can but the second request did me.

You learn about leadership, motivation, cooperation, collaboration and what not in your HR papers. But nothing comes to help when you want to gather support for a cause. The problem is to have the high level of motivation and commitment that Muthu anna and Uma akka have. It is easily said than done. You get the beating a lot of times. You may fall flat in front of people for you have little or no say in many issues.

A statement consoles me -
“Pick up something every time you fall” – saw that on Dimpi’s page sometime back.

We have been having a class which people attend for the fun they have hearing the faculty. I heard something wonderful from the same guy. He said “Entrust authority with people carrying a lot of responsibility” Though this can’t be a hard and fast rule on all occasions my point is society has to cultivate a system which would encourage people taking up responsibility.

My life objective as stated on my resume -

My life objective is to run a self sustainable organization that does social work in the field of education and health care successfully.

Why didn’t I start with an effort to start the organization straight from college? I didn’t see myself powerful enough!! May be I wanted to taste the cake first and then eat the spinach.

I saw myself able to contribute only after becoming powerful. There were very limited choices. There is one batch mate who sees himself in politics – one way he says to be able to contribute to people. I did give myself a thought but I knew I would fail miserably in politics. Both of us are right in our choices I think – he in his choosing and me rejecting the option. I with all my sincere thoughts had got 20 votes in the students’ council and he won with the highest of 89 of the 120 votes.

I chose MBA to grow faster and thus taste power sooner. Becoming powerful to contribute;till then I can keep helping suyam with little things.

I still remember a Sanskrit sloka taught to me in class 5

vidya dadati vinayam ,vinayat yati patratam,
patratwat dhanamapnoti,dhanat dharmam tataha sukham

Meaning - It is learning and knowledge that gives capability to earn, and earning the ability to do dharma for a noble cause and this result in gaining peace.

People talk about the script being written for life in the younger age. I hope and pray this is the one for me.

what if i got back my life to live over...

This New Year I had people ask me if I had any new resolutions and I tell them the ever heard quote that resolutions are made to be broken. But it is not just New Year that we think of doing something different (resolve) but always when we are through a rough patch. Every time I find myself making a mistake I try to contemplate how differently I should have done things so that I would have been happier with what has happened!!

There are very few people to whom I have spoken of contemplation and looking with ones own self but many a times I have spoken to myself. I wasn’t this way till the year 2000. I would want people always around me and was never comfortable to spend time with myself. But I just think how many times I like to walk alone on the road, take a drive to Beasant Nagar Beach alone or even watch a movie alone that has got some good reviews.

During one such speaking to self exercise I started thinking what I would do differently if I had my life to live over again.

IF I had my life to live over again I’ll do more mistakes. I’ll be sillier than I have been. May be I’ll regret those mistakes but would never feel guilty for having committed those mistakes. I would take lesser things very seriously. I would laugh and cry more. I would express love and affection without fear. I will thank everyone who bring about a change in my life. Surely wouldn’t have left my father take his own sweet time in taking care of his health.

I’ll play with more children and hear to more old people. I’ll smile at everyone I see. I’ll tell more people that I like them. I'll care less about what people think about me and accept me the way I am. I’ll be bolder in taking decisions. I’ll meet trouble on the ground than just think of it. I would travel more, climb more mountains and see more seas. I would give more time to the moon and sunsets. I would learn at least two musical instruments. I would sing in public without thinking of what the audience would say. I would feel sad but never depressed. I would get annoyed but not angry. I would shout at people but never carry any grudges. I would as informal as I can be. Shall eat more sweets and ice cream than having to think of how much I’ll weigh!!

I’ll not study engineering but shall like to graduate from an Institution as diverse like REC. I would make more friends and like to touch their life every moment of my life in someway or the other. I would learn things for just learning sake and not look for what comes along with learning.

I have been a person who has lived life cautiously for quite sometime. I have had my own nice moments and no complains for what has happened. But living free is in itself is like being in heaven. No additional baggage and you travel light.

Communication Engineering !!! Engineering Communication ??

I have been proud of myself last couple of months and at times amazed with my new interest to study. Just that I am doing something totally new for the first time. I have started to like studying. Never before in life have I learnt a subject for the Learning sake. Having got engrossed in something new these couple of months I have lost something which I used to be good at.

I have always liked myself crowded with people I know. In that way after my four years of college I have tried to be in touch with almost everyone I know - close and not so close. Means of communication being plenty it has been so easy to alteast keep informed about people- Yahoo groups, the messenger the old yahoo`s and the new google talk, and the very common means by a call over the cell.

The new orcut - I call it the lost and found place. So many people to be in touch with and it is natural to miss a couple of people. One such guy was Girish I had come to talk to because of Orcut. For people who don’t know Girish he was my senior at college. And guess what it is full four and half years after which I had a message from him on Orcut. Then his voice on google talk. Just the same OYYA as we used to call him after seeing KAADHAL MANNANs vivek. May be we’ll have a meet in Chennai this time when he comes back from US.

DOT "raghavan praveen" just popped in on my screen a couple of days back after a sabbatical. He is in Chennai with a short break from PhD. And I remember how communication helped us both in making a difference by contributing to a reconstruction of a school at Nagai.

My Anna sending in pictures of Aswin my nephew in days of being born, then me mailing new year wishes to my friends and their prompt replies wouldn’t have been possible without the facility available to us today.

Yesterday and today I have been proudly showing my big photo albums to people here at BIM and telling my stories with each of those pictures. I am sure for people around me some might even be bored of the story but I haven’t been bored of those stories having told them more than a hundred times. I am not sure; there might be even some who would tell the same stories better than me having heard me for quiet sometime. I have a soar throat actually telling Thyagu, Nandini and IM those stories. I know for sure that this story telling will be part of the bed time story telling to my kids.

The point is the people I have come across have left an impression that shall stay for a really really long time. Not that the new ones I meet haven’t made any difference but do we really express about people who stand in front. May be I’ll tell a story of these people to someone else. All these people I have met have been so different in their own right.

There are a billion people and a billion attitudes and each one is so unique

I had called Goutham the other day to wish him for the New Year.
He had called me yesterday.We talked in length about different length. Just before he had called I was chatting with another friend of mine Sujeevana and was mentioning about him. Just that it is nice to have people around you feel really good. And it feels even better that you remember someone and they call you. It has happened not once but thrice last two days.
Now after my stories about the photo album I get two mails about people I talked in length.

One of my New Year resolutions is to revive my contacts. I was telling Goutham that it had become a ritual calling my friends even the dear ones. The last time I called him was on his Birthday. I had called others was during Diwali. I feel it is really artificial about talking to them on just some occasion. So I have decided I better mail them about things regularly and keep them informed. All this said and done I shall do with no intension of getting a reply for different reasons. :)

I am a communication Engineer from REC. Engineering communication is what I learnt from REC and not Communication Engineering!!!

Now when I am doing MBA I get to hear

" Whether having contacts is important for an MBA".

If people see the advantage behind the act of being in contact as the only motivation so be it. I think we learn much more than anything being with people. Engineering Communication!!