This far, and no further. Where, when and how we draw the line is very important. We need to be at our wit's end if we allow things to go out of proportion. Timing is important as a stitch in time, saves nine. All these sound good. Comes the most important and difficult question, how do we do it. Do we act tough? Do we act soft? Do we not act at all expecting things to fall back on its own weight? There is no one shoe that fits all.
Bead String
The clock strikes 5:00 AM. Waking up and taking morning walk. Beautiful campus, morning breeze. The loudspeaker of a neighbourhood colony gently pouring in "Om Bhurbhuba Swaha .." You reflect on the past. You gear up for future. You know that yours is to act, to play your character, as long as you are on stage. Many people acted in past, many will come in future. You are only one of the beads in bead string. See that your bead remains shining. Pray, the string that connects all the beads finds mine worthy enough to put on Her necklace.
An Inspiring Speech
We got more than what we could give in terms of our service to village school children when we listened to one youngster from Gholgharia Primary School in NSS, IIT Kharagpur Annual Day on April 12, 2014 (video link). Even if you do not know Bengali, you may feel like listening to it again and again. His audience was a full house V2 auditorium that included students, faculty, Dean, Director of IIT Kharagpur. He took up anecdotes from life of Vivekenanda where his mother Smt. Bhubaneswari Devi and Guru, Sri Ramakrishna taught him adherence to Truth and - it is Truth that conquers.
Reaching Out
Director, IIT Kharagpur in his speech emphasized on learning experience of an IITians when (s)he goes through program like NSS (video link). Many students for the first time in their life visit a mud house in a village. It surprises how a two-storied mud house gets built and how it survives. He recollected his own NSS Days as student here. He used to visit Balarampur village to teach underprivileged students. Those students often used to come to campus to clarify their doubts. He encouraged NSS team to come up with more programs for the welfare of underprivileged and reiterated institute's commitment to contribute to the development of villages in 20KM radius of IIT Kharagpur campus. A cultural program by village school students followed (video link).
Chandrasekhar Yadala Memorial Scholarship
This scholarship is in memory of our departed student Chandrasekhar who died of cardiac arrest soon after leaving his MTech program and joining job. This scholarship is funded by faculty and fellow students of his laboratory at IIT Kharagpur. It was bolt from a blue to all those who knew Chandrasekhar, a very jovial and warm person, good at extra-curriculars too. The NSS function saw the award of late Chandrasekhar Yadala Memorial Scholarship to six high school students of neighboring villages of IIT Kharagpur (video link). There was a slide show where we remembered beautiful moments of Chandrasekhar's stay here.
Candle March
There was also a candle march scheduled on 12th April and it started from Gymkhana later in the evening. It was the last event of the 'Reach Out Week' (April 09-12) and was in memory of two departing souls, who we lost recently. It was a silent procession with candles in hand. The evening was quite windy. People reached out to each other to keep the respective flame burning during the march, whenever it was getting extinguished due to wind (video link). One of the student who I took help from most of the times, was a wing-mate of one of those two boys. There was no apparent reason - he was good in academics, sports and games; probably it was due to overpowering emotion - he was a sensitive boy.
The Substrate
I saw the poster in Students Welfare Group's facebook page that says, "Never make permanent decisions on temporary feelings." During our walk, we discussed what I wrote in earlier posts - the amount of effort we give to gain control of external world and not a fraction of it for control over internal world. There is knowledge abound on this in this country. We need to take some amount of our attention away from single-minded pursuit of material wealth and glory and build the aadhar, the substrate - that is me. Else, where will we put all those medals? Also, it will help us to know which are the medals to go after.
Taekwondo
Does talking about inner development sound out-of-fashion? Does it sound like prabachan (sermon) which is not meant for youngsters? Well, how about martial art? That probably is fashionable! And one would not feel shy or ashamed to take lesson on that! The other day I was going through basic tenet of Korean martial art Taekwondo (Link). They are: Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self-control, Indomitable spirit, Community service, Love. We got to acquire these character qualities.
Making Choices
Each of us is a leader. Someone or the other always looks up to me. We need to know how to lead. It first starts with how to lead oneself. There is no choice but to make choices on what we take as input, what we cultivate within and what we place before others. We have to make choices on our input - the company we keep, the material we go through. We have to make choices on what to cultivate, of various inputs that we receive. Finally, we have to see if what we give back to society, has gone through a value addition, if we are contributing to the making of a better society, and a better tomorrow. It starts from self. Then if we get an organizational responsibility, there too we have to make choices. There is no escape from it. But we always have to ask ourselves, our conscience this question - what are we trying to achieve by making this choice.
Endnote
Every action has a reaction. A leader has the strength and ability, will and resolve to withstand it. It is easier if sufficient contemplation is done, if the decision is for the greater good. To lead is to sacrifice. Sacrifice gives moral strength to the leader, earns him / her respect. That is the real power. Rest is only supplementary. We have to sacrifice many of our smaller propensities to lead ourselves to our greater selves. We should not be afraid of sacrifice. Let me end with a famous quote of Vivekananda, "Sacrifice in the past has been the Law, it will be, alas, for ages to come. The earth’s bravest and best will have to sacrifice themselves for the good of many, for the welfare of all."
Bead String
The clock strikes 5:00 AM. Waking up and taking morning walk. Beautiful campus, morning breeze. The loudspeaker of a neighbourhood colony gently pouring in "Om Bhurbhuba Swaha .." You reflect on the past. You gear up for future. You know that yours is to act, to play your character, as long as you are on stage. Many people acted in past, many will come in future. You are only one of the beads in bead string. See that your bead remains shining. Pray, the string that connects all the beads finds mine worthy enough to put on Her necklace.
An Inspiring Speech
We got more than what we could give in terms of our service to village school children when we listened to one youngster from Gholgharia Primary School in NSS, IIT Kharagpur Annual Day on April 12, 2014 (video link). Even if you do not know Bengali, you may feel like listening to it again and again. His audience was a full house V2 auditorium that included students, faculty, Dean, Director of IIT Kharagpur. He took up anecdotes from life of Vivekenanda where his mother Smt. Bhubaneswari Devi and Guru, Sri Ramakrishna taught him adherence to Truth and - it is Truth that conquers.
Reaching Out
Director, IIT Kharagpur in his speech emphasized on learning experience of an IITians when (s)he goes through program like NSS (video link). Many students for the first time in their life visit a mud house in a village. It surprises how a two-storied mud house gets built and how it survives. He recollected his own NSS Days as student here. He used to visit Balarampur village to teach underprivileged students. Those students often used to come to campus to clarify their doubts. He encouraged NSS team to come up with more programs for the welfare of underprivileged and reiterated institute's commitment to contribute to the development of villages in 20KM radius of IIT Kharagpur campus. A cultural program by village school students followed (video link).
Chandrasekhar Yadala Memorial Scholarship
This scholarship is in memory of our departed student Chandrasekhar who died of cardiac arrest soon after leaving his MTech program and joining job. This scholarship is funded by faculty and fellow students of his laboratory at IIT Kharagpur. It was bolt from a blue to all those who knew Chandrasekhar, a very jovial and warm person, good at extra-curriculars too. The NSS function saw the award of late Chandrasekhar Yadala Memorial Scholarship to six high school students of neighboring villages of IIT Kharagpur (video link). There was a slide show where we remembered beautiful moments of Chandrasekhar's stay here.
Candle March
There was also a candle march scheduled on 12th April and it started from Gymkhana later in the evening. It was the last event of the 'Reach Out Week' (April 09-12) and was in memory of two departing souls, who we lost recently. It was a silent procession with candles in hand. The evening was quite windy. People reached out to each other to keep the respective flame burning during the march, whenever it was getting extinguished due to wind (video link). One of the student who I took help from most of the times, was a wing-mate of one of those two boys. There was no apparent reason - he was good in academics, sports and games; probably it was due to overpowering emotion - he was a sensitive boy.
The Substrate
I saw the poster in Students Welfare Group's facebook page that says, "Never make permanent decisions on temporary feelings." During our walk, we discussed what I wrote in earlier posts - the amount of effort we give to gain control of external world and not a fraction of it for control over internal world. There is knowledge abound on this in this country. We need to take some amount of our attention away from single-minded pursuit of material wealth and glory and build the aadhar, the substrate - that is me. Else, where will we put all those medals? Also, it will help us to know which are the medals to go after.
Taekwondo
Does talking about inner development sound out-of-fashion? Does it sound like prabachan (sermon) which is not meant for youngsters? Well, how about martial art? That probably is fashionable! And one would not feel shy or ashamed to take lesson on that! The other day I was going through basic tenet of Korean martial art Taekwondo (Link). They are: Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self-control, Indomitable spirit, Community service, Love. We got to acquire these character qualities.
Making Choices
Each of us is a leader. Someone or the other always looks up to me. We need to know how to lead. It first starts with how to lead oneself. There is no choice but to make choices on what we take as input, what we cultivate within and what we place before others. We have to make choices on our input - the company we keep, the material we go through. We have to make choices on what to cultivate, of various inputs that we receive. Finally, we have to see if what we give back to society, has gone through a value addition, if we are contributing to the making of a better society, and a better tomorrow. It starts from self. Then if we get an organizational responsibility, there too we have to make choices. There is no escape from it. But we always have to ask ourselves, our conscience this question - what are we trying to achieve by making this choice.
Endnote
Every action has a reaction. A leader has the strength and ability, will and resolve to withstand it. It is easier if sufficient contemplation is done, if the decision is for the greater good. To lead is to sacrifice. Sacrifice gives moral strength to the leader, earns him / her respect. That is the real power. Rest is only supplementary. We have to sacrifice many of our smaller propensities to lead ourselves to our greater selves. We should not be afraid of sacrifice. Let me end with a famous quote of Vivekananda, "Sacrifice in the past has been the Law, it will be, alas, for ages to come. The earth’s bravest and best will have to sacrifice themselves for the good of many, for the welfare of all."
1 comment:
The most unfortunate thing in our life is that we do not listen our inner voice.
The inner voice always admonishes us not to deviate from original path of our life.
The high intensity sounds of the external materialistic world suppress our inner voice that is always looking for the spiritual souls where mind, body and spirit can function in harmony.
The true leadership really requires sacrifice. Leadership emerges with idea of selflessness and it sustains with the power of sacrifices and dedication.
The divine reality in the form of self -sacrifice should be the ultimate goal our lives. The divinity of self- sacrifice make our life more meaningful rather than a narcissistic, reactive, and self-possessed struggle for the ultimate survival.
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