I am writing something on my own after a long time I guess. For last one year I wrote various things…articles…reviews…but the driving force was external
And may be because I have a big enough friend circle now with whom I keep talking and discussing…that urge of expressing myself through writing has reduced.
But something that happened recently triggered this urge after a long time. To express. To write. And to share.
As you all know I, Sachin and Sajal are doing Ecological Society’s Post Graduate Diploma in Sustainable Management of Resources & Nature Conservation.
We had a two day field visit of ecological society to see Forest Eco System. We had gone to see Sacred Grove of Bhimashankar.
During this visit we stayed at Kusumtai and Anand Kapoor’s place at Machar. We had heard a lot about Shashwat’s work from Kalyan. So I Sachin and Sajal were keen on meeting them.
At night we reached really late. So couldn’t interact much. In morning however we got some time to talk to them. First we were talking to Anand Kaka. He was asking about our backgrounds and the course we were doing, about the visit etc. After a while Kusumtai joined us. Anand kaka quickly told the various disciplines that we were coming from. Most of us were architect, I- because I have a graduate certificate in Architecture- an Architect (other than this I am pretty much having identity crisis), Sayali- a practicing architect who works with Bamboo, Monali- a practicing architect who wants lean details of ecology, Sachin- chemical engineer, Sajal- bio diversity, Darshan- software engineer (now trying to practice farming, Juilee- physicist (she did not pursue theoretical physics because she could see that it goes far away from daily life and applications). All of us are students of Ecological Society’s course.
Kusumtai asked some details of our visit. What we will be studying in sacred groves etc. Thanks to our coordinators, we didn’t have much idea of the kind of activities we will do in the visit. Then she asked us how we will apply this knowledge…and to her dismay we couldn’t answer to that readily either…
And slowly tone of her talking changed from mockery to contempt to bitterness….
She interacted with us (and thus our present generation) for 15 minutes. In those 15 minutes she accused all of us of following things-
We weren’t serious enough about what we were doing…
For most of us the motive of joining this course was money…
People after doing such courses join organizations like TERI…that just use them…
‘Money’ has become the primary driving force of our lives…
None of leaves our comfort zone and works…
So many people have passed out from this course and yet there is no significant work that has been done in field of ecology…
Sacrifice has no dignity in society….
For girls marriage is the ultimate aim…. We don’t think beyond marriages
Such people wont make any change…
We were ‘cream’ of the society which is being sour…..
We were all dumbstruck….
None of us understood what we had done to receive such bad bashing right at 7.30 in morning… We were just there to see sacred grove…!!! L
It was Sajal, me and Sachins idea to stay at Shashwat.
So I felt we assumed the responsibility of the bashing
Sajal true to his reputation and attitude…didn’t take it in much offensive way
Sachin agreed to her completely
And I…well… I felt bad and angry
I agree most of this is true… No denial. And most of the things she said were not for her own selfish interest
But…
Kusum tai didn’t know any of us
She didn’t know what were the reasons we chose to take up this course
She didn’t know our future plans
Everyone has his or her rationale …for doing things
Everyone’s aspirations are different
Everyone’s nature is different
Everyone has different set of responsibilities
How can she generalize?
What gives her right to say those things?
Why generalize without any prior knowledge?
As far as I am concerned, I am not of activist type. I get scared of activism. But I surely would like to do some constructive work. And about the comfort zone…I agree I have never left it… I am learning little by little to go beyond it… but there are some facts and restrictions that I can’t ignore. Like…being a girl…or coming from upper middle class family…all these things do tend to imprison me… I agree that these restrictions are there because I succumb to them… but I would very much like to have balanced and comfortable life. Not lavish but a comfortable one. I would never like to leave my house and go and stay alone and work…I feel that is imbalance. Is it wrong?
Most of us (students of the course) are having these kinds of problems. The way we are brought up makes it difficult to shrug off that comfort… again is it just excuse?
I feel I know myself best. So no one else but I should decide what is best for me.
And I also feel that work should be fun in all senses. It shouldn’t be a burden…you shouldn’t feel it as burden…be it of your company or of society… your work should give you utmost satisfaction and joy.
If I look at what I am doing right now. When I quit EMC, I changed the direction of my work deliberately….but if I ask myself whether I have found exactly what I want to do…I would say…not completely but I have found the right direction… I am still exploring…and may be a few more years will just explore without much significant results… But again how important are the results? I am having fun in doing whatever I am…doest that count? Or it is ice cream? I feel if I work because I want to change the world the driving force is again external…the world…but if I work because I want joy…the driving force is internal…of course again what is joy?
So if I don’t end up doing any significant magnificent big time work…does that mean I am a failure? What is failure? And is it compulsory to become successful? So what is success?
I remember reading a paragraph in Man’s Search for Meaning which appealed to me very much….
"Again and again I therefore admonish my students in Europe and America: Don't aim at success -- the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run -- in the long-run, I say! -- success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it."
I see one more thing around me. All the big people…they have various approaches that they work with and promote. If we take example of environment- Takalkar sir says CCT is THE thing, Gole sir says Restoration is THE thing, Dilip Kulkarni says quitting everything is THE thig…Arunkaka says quitting cities is THE thing…
Very fine. All these technologies or philosophies are correct. But none of these is THE thing. They have their importance al right. But they aren’t answer to all the problems in society.
People seem to think only what they are doing is right. Fair enough. But does your being right make others wrong? Doest that make you more right?
I see this in Nirman people also…does just mocking others make us great?
I have talked this to PD and Sachin before also…that whatever I am promoting or doing shouldn't stick to me and become my identity. I shouldn’t feel if I stop doing that I am no one… Yes I agree that there should be one thing that you should do whole heartedly but there is a difference in doing it whole heartedly and it becoming my identity… It shouldn’t threaten your existence….
My identity should be beyond all this…
Similar incidence happened when we were going to the sacred grove.One of the coordinators of the visit was talking to one of the girls about Swadhyay. He called all the swadhyayees as dead water like in the dams. (The dam water is called dead because it is too deep to support any aquatic life like streams or river)
He said so because he came to know that 10lakh swadhyayee assembled at Mumbai programme and they had no agenda for changing policies or society or world whatever…
Swadhyay is essesntially swa- adhyay. We are expected to change ourselves. If there is some change is society that’s a by product. And there are many experiments which are done in swadhyay which are socially beneficial. There is Yogeshwar Krushi which is experiment in Farming, there is Vruksha Mandir which is experiment in Tree plantation, there is Matsya Gandha which experiment in Fisheries…and out of 40 lakh swadhyayee at least 1 lakh are part of this even if we take lowest count
I am sure the coordinator doesn’t know any of this… then what gives him right to call swadhyayees dead stock??
I am not saying this because I take every negative comment on swadhyay emotionally but people don’t even try to understand what it is and keep commenting… it just annoys me so much!!!
We keep looking at things from our own frame of reference…we don’t even take pains to understand the frame of reference and logic bubble of person in front…. Everyone is just too much in hurry to say… to comment… to criticise
Do we have to comment and criticize every time? Can we not say…well I don’t know much…so I better don’t say anything?
I feel this is very very important…and a sign of a grown up
At least let’s take care that we don’t end up being like this. At least let us make sure that if we are criticizing something or someone we have some knowledge and we understand it in correct perspective
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