Love only on February 14. And charity...?

My frequent visits to government schools, communities (slums / jhuggi) and meetings with under-privileged children and families have led me to a new question these days. What to donate, when to donate and how much to donate!

The general idea of donating or doing charity, on the basis of my observation, is that people donate on special days (in remembrance of someone, on their special days or on organisation's special days / mention). They mostly donate eatables (meal, junk food like samosas, wafers etc sweets, chocolates etc), appliances (fan, water cooler or purifier, computer which is rare), clothes (warmers, raincoats, pajamas etc), miscellaneous (stationary, funding education, funding meal, a picnic or a day-trip etc) and of course money!
How much to donate is mostly subjective as it majorly depends on an individual's financial capacity.

Before working with Eklavya, I used to visit orphanages, old-age homes, government or semi-government schools for special children. Whenever I thought of charity, I thought of special meals or sweets etc which I thought was a rarity in their routine life. However, now I realize how wrong I was.

Donating special things to these children or people, to me, is like making a joke of their situation. Children lack basic things, they do not have two square meals a day, they do not have under wears to wear (leave aside sweaters or jackets or warm pajamas in winters etc), they do not have clean water, they do not have band aids or ointments, crape bandage for first aid, they do not have story / poem books, newspaper subscription (people donate notebooks / drawing books, sketch pens, pencils etc more); and these are the things which are not usually donated! And trust me, it is a very heart-wrenching situation when you are covered with thermal wear, jackets, scarf etc on a particular chilling morning with cold breeze and you see children between three to six age group with unfit / short frocks with torn under wear inside. And not everyday can you give your pieces of warmers to children, after all how many can you give - three to four, whatever you are wearing and there is a group of eight to fifteen needy children in front of you.

We, the outside world wait for our lives' special days to donate, eventually making a random day special for these children. Any random day will anyway become special for these children when they get things they need, disregarding if it is a special day of the giver or not. Secondly, every weather needs specific things, like along with sweaters in winters, there is also a need to cover legs so pajamas are important, dry fruits instead of wafers or cakes. In monsoon, umbrellas and rain coats are of course  needed, what is also needed is plastic sandals or shoes instead of canvas shoes, mosquito repellant, mosquito nets, or basic medicines. In summers, earthen pots (mitti ka matka / ghadaa) for cool water, coolers and not just fans, cotton clothes, juicy fruits instead of chocolates or cold drinks or sweets.

In short, my friends, what I am trying to say is we need so many things, basic things, every day of our life. And there is not a special day for need-based things. They are required daily. So any day is a good day to donate / do charity.

We have to internalise the fact that we all are same. Like us, these children / families / communities also need basic things. We just have to observe our daily routine and understand that  these should be available to everyone. And if we have them spare or if we buy additional (in case we can afford to buy more), other people like us, can also have them. We have been hearing from our parents, dry fruits are good in winters, easily digested and give enough warmth to remain fit the entire season. The giver anyway will spend some money to buy eatables, why not buy them a monthly quota of dry fruits to these children!


Think before you discard anything. If you are discarding it just to have a change, or a new one with latest features / design or re-selling to get some fake discount; spread the word if it is still usable. There could be an organisation, genuine one, which is in need of providing essentials to needy children, communities or schools.

So do we wait for 14th Feb to share love, a basic emotion of mankind? Why wait for charity? It for basic requirements, do it today, any day.

Meeting v/s partying

A mail of around 17 lines was drafted and sent across the Bhopal Centre of office. After two replies, there was a pin drop silence. Then after a day or two, again two three more mails came as replies. And then what followed was a lambi khamoshi. Later, some people probably out of courtesy thought of replying. In total, there were 16 mails that were exchanged.

It is important to share this data of this particular mail because the subject line was "party time". The occasion was new year eve.

On the contrary, there was yet another reason to share another mail across group. This was for the group meeting to be held at Hoshangabad for two days. This mail had 26 replies from Bhopal centre only on the commuting part of the whole logistics.
In 10 years of professional life across five companies / organisations, I had zero experience of this kind. I had always seen people getting hyper about a picnic / excursion / party plan as compared to anything formal or work-related.

I do not know the reason yet, but I am in the process of knowing what goes on in their heads to react so differently. Will share as soon as I get to know.Till then, in Eklavya's words (do not misunderstand it as a politically correct conclusion, they are vociferous about their opinions) it is a "dilchasp" (meaning interesting) phenomenon!

Same words, new meanings

I have encountered few words which are commonly used in this office. Some of them are from the education sector, obviously (Eklavya works in the education sector ) and some are hot favourites for people here, I guess! They are in Hindi too.
In a discussion about life in general, one gets to hear "internalise" too often. I did not know there are hazaar things to internalise in this world.
In a program meeting, "pedagogy" is chanted like a mantra. It sounds so heavy and has such a frequently-used synonym - method!
During a team chat, which gets directed to work on it's own, words like "reflection", "synopsis", "note" and "report" jump in. Not just words, they eventually become the agenda of a day / week.
"Avlokan", "Vishleshan" and few other similar sounding Hindi words come up in inter group meeting and I along with one colleague get confused as to what they mean!
There is a phrase which I repeat often after coming here, "there's so much to learn". I realize I know so less.
And the favourite word, for now, is "tolerance". In a one-to-one discussion with one of my colleagues, it came out that to love oneself does not only imply "pampering oneself".
It means to tolerate your nonsense to such an extent that you acknowledge and then accept it. And still love yourself. I had never thought of loving myself means so deep.
In her words, it is like, how you love your child. It explained everything.

It's a new world

It rained yesterday, heavily, after every hour during the day. The office terrace overlooked a clean, wet tar road, few apartments' windows and few pedestrians looking for shelter to avoid getting drenched in the sudden rains. The apartment opposite the office building had its terrace full of clothes hung to get dried. Women rushed to the terrace to collect them, people were avoiding the sudden turn of weather and saving themselves or their clothes from getting wet for that scheduled meeting or visit to a doctor or relative or to a movie or just to remain in the cozy warmth of their room.
And here I was, sitting under the partial shade of the office terrace reading the book I had to present in the coming week to my team. My concentration took a break and wandered across my new office, Eklavya and people in Eklavya. Most of them do not avoid weather or rather nature. In winters, a big group sits on a huge mat spread on the terrace floor to have their lunch. Some of them who cannot sit on floor have the option of sitting on a stool / chair (a table is kept too on the terrace) to join for lunch. After lunch people who like to take a stroll or a nap are free to do so. A group walks in the surrounding lanes and some take that nap on the mat in sun or on single beds kept in office rooms or on their chairs! (The official lunch hour is of one hour).
If someone has to do a non-tech work, they go out in the open. They may read, write or discuss or even conduct meeting (with laptops) there - in garden, on terrace or in balcony. These places have big mats to be used at such times. People may lie down and attend meeting if they want to. The idea is to be mentally present in meetings or discussions, your way of sitting or attending is least important.
Almost everyone supports a cause, sometimes two or more than two. AND supporting a cause does not imply donating money. Some of them make posters, some sing songs, some click photographs, some prepare poems, some arrange logistics, some help in providing food and other amenities and some sit for hours to show they are there. There are few in the office who are moved by every cause and extend their support by doing what maximum (not minimum) they can do for it.
These are art lovers too. Again, almost everyone loves almost every form of art. Mostly all of them love or appreciate paintings, writing stories, poems, songs, photographing, dancing, playing with children, theatre, reading, walking, trekking, traveling etc. Some may be more passionate about a specific art, and yet they attend or acknowledge other forms of art too with zest.
The management world probably got into knowledge sharing too late. People associated with Eklavya have been sharing knowledge (includes data, information and all the jargon created by the management) through resource people, agencies, contacts, references, friends etc. No one believes in keeping knowledge to themselves, they share. And mutually enrich. According to me, this happens when one is secure, feels no competition and there is no performance pressure. Everyone realizes his / her responsibility and completes his / her work.
There lies a deep insight, strong belief and determination within most of them. Everything mentioned above may seen superficial.And yet, talking (one-to-one) to some of them makes one realize there is a philosophy by each one functions. The places, the people I was with before joining Eklavya were completely opposite (nothing wrong about it!)(posh, agreeing to what the bosses say, sitting on chair instead of folding legs on the floor, eating with fork, talking in slang, full of I me myself, spending more on personal luxuries than on needy's needs, visiting places for entertainment than to learn / knowledge and many more) to this clan. 
I don't intend to say that they are wrong (Eklavya members have this infinite tolerance too to accept that there are people who think unlike them). What I intend to say is I have many around me who seem to be like me. Here I am comfortably myself.