Ramblings of a Feisty Spirit

If I met a Genie today, and she were to grant me 10 wishes, I would ask for —

1. I wanna Holiday far far away, right now, where there is no mobile network and no cable network (IPL is on…)
2. I want a back Massage..sigh.. I have s****ed up my Back again… so quite in pain!.. actually a Day at the Spa will do too! 😛
3. I would love to go to Delhi, to my parents for a week.. and do nothing but eat yummyummm “mamma ke haath ka khana”.. sniff sniff..
4. I wanna Shop! Like Really.. not ‘recession’ shopping..but ShopShop.. coz i have a list, hon! 😉
5. A Holiday…i know i know.. again.. now u know how ‘desperate’ i am for it. But this time, I wanna go to Brisbane.. Coz its beautiful.. its happening.. and my Sister is there.. hehe.. So i wanna Party Party Party..and Shop Shop Shop.. 😀
6. I wanna eat carb-loaded food — and not put on an ounce of weight! Thats Right.. we wanna eat yumm too!
7. I wanna be Appreciated at Work.. Ya i know i am being ‘wanting/greedy/immodest’.. but wat the hell!.. i am working my a** off here… and unlike the ‘project guys’ who get appreciated for coding some code and doing extra hours.. us marketing ppl get nothing.. Coz we are ‘supposed to work’ and thats just normal!! &%^&&$&*$^*$*…..uffff
8. I want to run away somewhere with my S, and not be found for a weekend.. i swear… I soooo wanna do that!!
9. I want a Good Young Leader to be chosen for our country.. not to sound all-blahblah.. but honestly, i cant have another 80+ neta enforcing his stupid outdated rules and blah at us.. not again!
10. I want to crib less in my life…about my life.. Coz what i am not realizing is that.. I am wasting and ruining my present..coz I ‘want this and want that’! So, I promise to S.. babe, I officially quit Cribbing from Today! :D.. pomishhh!!

Last week i got my opportunity. So, you may have heard of the Teach India Foundation. I applied for that months ago. They replied in January, asking me to report to an organization called “Youth For Seva“. They run schools all across Bangalore where they teach underprivileged children. Its an organization started by an IT fellow 2 yrs ago and now has grown crazy big. I couldn’t go for the orientation (my parents were here)… and then work took a monster turn and i found myself with no time to breathe. 

Then, they came up with a “Sponsor A Child” program. I decided that the least i could do was this. So i sent them a mail that i would love to Sponsor a Child and in case they want me to be a ‘Coordinator‘ for any building (they needed those too), i could find time for that too. Last week, i got a call from a  volunteer, telling me about the process of Sponsoring a Child. After he was done, he asked me where i worked. When i told him Oracle, he said “me too”… which building (we have over 10 buildings in Bangalore)… and before i knew it.. he had made me the ‘Coordinator for Youth For Seva Of Oracle *My Building*‘! I was thrilled.. This was it.. this was my chance to do my bit for the kids!!

And so, now i am making my plan to promote the cause in my office, telling people about Youth For Seva (and how its not a fraud)… how extraordinary and different the Sponsor Program is..and how they can see where their money is going. Its 500/- a month, you can make a 5-year plan for your sponsored child, you can ‘choose’ the child you want to sponsor, you need only 2-3 hours a week to spend with the child, meet his/her family and be completely involved!!! I love this! 🙂

I am glad, that finally, i am involved in something that i am passionate about. Infact, in my first job in a PR agency, one of my clients was ‘Christel House‘, an international NGO/World-class school for underprivileged children in Bangalore. May i confess, i worked hardest on this client, i didn’t miss an opportunity to visit the school and meet the children, the children who used to greet me every time they saw me — “good morning Didi”.. filled up my eyes… 

A small incident that i remember which shudders me up till today. I was at Christel House one morning and visiting the ‘Sick Room’! In the room, i found a little 10-yr old boy and a 9-yr old girl, talking to the ‘Lady Doctor’ there… They were talking in Kannada and the girl was crying.. i sat there, like a stone, coz i knew something was wrong and i wanted to know wat it was. When the kids left, i asked the lady, wat the problem was. She said, “The boy and the girl are in the same class. The girl always gets tiffin for the boy. But given any opportunity, the boy hits the girl, mostly for no reason. The girl cries, but then goes back to the boy and gets him tiffin the next day again. The girl doesn’t break the friendship and the boy continues to hit her.” I was shocked to hear that and wanted to go hit the boy myself. The lady said, “Tanu, do you know the reason behind this? The boy has seen his father, hit his mother, for no reason. The girl has seen her mother being hit by her father for no reason, and the mother still feeds the father after all the atrocities. This is what we are dealing with, Tanu.” I had nothing to say, i sat there dumbstruck, till it hit me — these people are not only giving knowledge to the kids, they are also teaching them valuable social and life lessons! 2 months later i returned to the school, spotted the girl and the boy, they were walking to the playground hand-in-hand. I went and asked the ‘Lady Doctor’ as to how the situation was, she said that the boy had written a ‘sorry‘ card to the girl and now they were best friends. No one hit Anyone! 🙂

What i did for Christel House was coz it was my job.. Wat i am trying to begin with Youth For Seva, is a passion. A friend asked me “do you have time for this?”.. i say – Hell yeah!… I will make time to promote this cause…and i will ensure that maximum people from my office sponsor a child.. 

Guys, come on, its a small little opportunity that make a huge difference in the life of a child! And all it takes is 500/- a month!!