Photos: Bangalore

I went to Bangalore for the first time to see what they hype was about... all of our students dream of working there.  Here are some photos:

Photo's from Bangalore

My favourite:

A picture is worth a 1000 words...

Set up a Flickr Web Album to share my pictures with you all. Please click on this link:

Pramal's Flickr Photo Albums


Enjoy.

Food for thought

"We have stolen this food from a hungry family", he said, as he walked around the classroom with a plate heaped with left-over's. Faces of the students began to turn in disgust, as the strong smell and messy pile of wasted food was taken in front of each seat. Just moments before entering the classroom, the same person had rolled his sleeves up and started collecting the wasted food deposited in large plastic box used for finished plates. Whilst wiping each of the 40 plus students' remnants onto one large dish, bewildered catering staff tried to stop him from this insane act. Several students who were passing by on route to class were equally shocked to see this formally dressed Westerner getting his hands dirty in 'waste'.

I thought the creative sign I put up in the dining hall would stop the wastage. I thought the polite warning in class would work. And still, there was food being thrown away. Having read up on Indian development, I became aware that some 400,000,000 Indians are living below the poverty line, i.e. they do not have enough food to eat or other basic needs met. Given the relative economic hardship of the students concerned, I figured they would understand - yet they did not.

Out of my desperation to communicate this message, I decided to roll my sleeves up and take action.

In subsequent days, the students did dramatically reduce the amount of wasted food. How long into the future they will continue – I don't know. I came here to be part of a project that not only secured employment for economically disadvantaged graduates, but transformed them into role model citizens. Value-based education is required for these degree holders to turn them into employable meaningful Graduates.

It was through the desire to create community that resulted in the above crazy act. I did not plan to do such a thing; however, it was all that came to mind and that to coming from a space of family rather than anger or disrespect. I genuinely wanted each individual to feel responsible and accountable for each other, from which they could develop a sense moral responsibility for the wider people of this nation. The search continues to understand how we can create this sense of oneness amongst our people – after all, "The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems" - it just requires us, all of us, to actual want to bring about change.

Simple livin’

Life is driven by the choices we make. How we make these choices is based on the years of information and experiences we have stored deep inside our heart and mind. Time has taught me that even an instance that was experienced many years ago can influence my decisions today. After all, who I am is merely a collection of experiences, in the form of thoughts, sitting in my cerebral matter, right?

As an Indicorps Fellow, we join (at least for one year) a collection of people who live by simplicity. Gandhi said: "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed". As you walk out of your room leaving the fan and light on, a studious child in the slums of Mumbai reads in earnest under dim candle-light to remove the poverty of his family situation. As you let the tap run whilst you brush your teeth or wash your dirty clothes, just think about the 1.1 billion people in the world who do not have such clean water to even drink.

To be placed in a community so different from home and to engage with them requires empathy and understanding. It requires connection and trust. Every action is preceded by a choice, which non-verbally communicates what my values are and what I stand for. Going to the local supermarket and casually bringing chocolates / fizzy drinks to an office where students would only buy those on special occasions creates one more unit of distance between us.

Whether my shirt is hand-washed or machine-washed, the people around me will merely see me in a clean shirt. The shift occurs in my thinking, or rather my feeling, to know that I cleaned this myself. To feel empowered simply by washing my own clothes was not something I expected, but it's very much present. Self reliance by doing things yourself makes you realise that you possess most of the attributes you need to live life. Many people will say that it is not in these 'material pleasures' that you find true happiness – however, it has only been when I've completely cut them all out I see the deeper joys of the not-so-material way of living.

This is certainly a year of introspection, which hopefully leads one to become closer to ones 'true self' – whatever that may be. It is my personal belief that when we are living as an expression of our true self, it is when we shall be at our best and most happy. The challenge is to allow our false self; what we think is our real state, to get out of the way, to be silenced, so that who we truly are can finally emanate into reality.

"People say that these small tools of ours will not work in this machine age. But we gave them a trial and found by experience that they do work even in this machine age. We plied the spinning wheel and the hand mill and we found that, in spite of the machine age, the wheel gave us the yarn and the hand mill the flour." – Vinoba