Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Dream of Perfection- Nasra

 We live in a society where a lot of importance is given to one’s perfect personality and how one can become an ideal character. People spend all their lives seeking perfection. 
I don’t intend to neglect the importance of perfection in our lives. All I want to state is that we run after perfection all our lives but we don’t even know its real meaning. Perfection is not how we walk, talk, eat or sleep. Neither is it flaunting your 99.9 percentile marks in an MBA entrance exam. I’m not saying that these things are not important but you can’t call a person perfect if he talks really well, is good in studies or walks like a show stopper model. It is about how you take things in real life.
If I put it this way, perfection is a way to live your life while you still care for others around you. Perfection is to make your parents smile even in their hardest of the day; it is to make your elder sister laugh with you even when she wants to scold her naughty sibling. Perfection is the urge to study when the circumstances are not really in your favour; it is the effort you make when even your parents have decided to give up on you finally. Perfection is to convey your message when others are not able to understand you properly.
Here, I’m talking about one sweet little star of our Sarthak family whom we met on the very first day of our project “educaTE A CHild”- Nasra. She is the second youngest child in her family of 5 siblings. Her parents found her a very normal infant until she started speaking. She found it difficult even to speak a small 3 letter word. She used to stammer and her parents tried possible measures for a treatment. But their financial condition didn’t allow them to try hard enough. When we first met Nasra’s Ammi, she was looking as if she had almost given up on her.
Initially it was tough on Nasra to catch up with other kids in our class but gradually she started picking up words. Now after a year and half, with all her efforts and will power, she can speak most of the 4-5 letter words clearly without any hesitation. You can see clear confidence in her eyes which was not present on the day we met her first. Now Nasra shares her mother’s work at home, sometimes goes with her Abbu at work. She plays with her sisters and most of all she’s the one who takes care of her little brother Altaf, most of the time.
We see a perfect and confident lady growing up in Nasra with time. She’s the same shy girl who had never gone to school before and was afraid to speak with anyone. She was afraid that someone would make fun of her stammer. She still stammers now, but the difference is that now she knows that it’s not her fault and she’s working on this. She knows that one day she will get over this.
This is what I call perfection, a perfect combination of confidence, will power, hope, happiness, love, dreams, care and most of all the ability to accept the failure. She may not strike someone as an impressive perfect personality at first but if you go in detail, you will find the meaning of perfection in her. It’s not about how you present yourself to others, it’s only about how you see yourself and utilize your capabilities. 



You can view all my posts on the link below:

www.facebook.com/SarthakFoundation



Thursday, July 24, 2014

Dream- Spread the Smile

A 'Smile' is such a beautiful feature we human have got from the Almighty. A 'Smile' is one thing that can get the stress off anybody with the blink of an eye. A simple but real smile has the ability to win the hearts. Our smiles may have a lot of meanings but it has only one motive, to let others know that we are good.
Everyone appreciates a smiling person and a smiling face, it blossoms the entire surrounding and can lift the bad mood up. Moreover, it takes nothing to smile.

We have one such, ever smiling, little angel Ritika. Very soft spoken, shy to strangers and naughty to friends but ALWAYS smiling (Touch-wood). Ritika lives with her Nani Ma as her parents don't live together. Her father used to beat her mother in front of Ritika and it had become a part of their daily schedule. One day when her poor mother could not take it anymore she left the home with Ritika and now Ritika lives with her Nani. At this tender age of 6, Ritika has already seen a lot but one thing she has always carried with her is her beautiful smile. This is the beauty that even while complaining about anything or anyone in the class, she doesn't lose her smile. She knows very well about her parents and she actually doesn't like them much, may be because her heart as a child has never seen them living happily so she is not very comfortable accepting them as one.

We in our lives can have no better example than Ritika. In spite of all the hurdles, all the problems she never forgets to smile. Smile is something which she carries with herself wherever she goes. She is excellent in studies, stands first in her class, never fights with anyone, is very punctual and diligent when it comes to her homework, but when anyone meets her for the first time, the first thing they get impressed by is her angelic smile.

It takes nothing but a second to smile and all your surroundings get lightened up. People start liking you more and appreciating you more, while all you do is smile. So we'd suggest you to take out some moments off your busy schedule and smile at least twice a day and it will not bite you, trust us! 




Thursday, July 17, 2014

'Priyanka's Dream- A New Life with the same Zeal'


These days, we can easily find ourselves crying over petty issues in our lives. Issues which are actually petty and can easily be ignored but we choose to crib over them ignoring all the fortunate things we have got. Some people have salary issues in their office because the 7 digits salary they get annually is not enough to bear their expenses, some people are tired with their health because of the migraine attacks they get once a week,some are not satisfied with their 3 BHK apartments because their colleague recently bought a 4 BHK apartment, some are frustrated with their relationships because their partner demands too much of their time and this list goes on.
Have we ever thought of the actual problems which a person may have in her/his life? There are numerous people in our country who don’t have enough sources of income, houses to live in, food to feed their children, money to buy medicines and they lack in each and every necessity.

Priyanka, one of the oldest students of our Chinhat center,belongs to one such family. She has 5 siblings (all sisters) who along with their parents and an uncle live together. Her father drives a taxi and this is the only source of income for the family. Still, most of the times, he somehow manages to feed them properly. But lately he has taken ill and has not been able to go to work. This was the start of the real problems in Priyanka’s family.There was no one who could earn for the family. So they had to be dependent on Priyanka’s uncle. He plays Dhol in the wedding bands and doesn't earn much. Though her father is admitted in a government hospital, the family is not able to bear his medical expenses.

With all these problems, the education of 6 girls is neglected, for obvious reasons. They don’t go to school now (previously they attended government school) and they are dependent on our regular classes now. Every single thing they need seems to be out of their reach now, be it proper food, proper residence, proper medicines and even proper education.
After all these problems, the commendable part about this family is that they have not lost their zeal to live. The family doesn't allow their daughters to go and beg like other kids in the locality. Although they have lost everything they had, they still have not lost the hope, the zeal to live and this is what makes them stand together as a family no matter what.
We all should learn from such families around our lives. They do not have enough resources like we do but still they have chosen to live their lives with full optimism than cribbing for what they don’t have. In spite of all the difficulties, they have chosen to live the life to its fullest and make the most out of it and with the dream to have a better life.


Reference: www.facebook.com/sarthakfoundation
Author: Yours Truly :P 

If you want to hear Priyanka's story from her, please leave your footprints on the given link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogP8yt42ppg&feature=youtu.be

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Ascertain your Passion

 I often get to see some posts and pictures on social media about THE killer Monday.  People usually think that they don’t tend to like the beginning of the week. You can easily find Monday hating jokes and posts on twitter and Facebook these days. Some abuse poor Monday, some threaten it to go back and some even pray to God to send the Monday little later. I somehow find such posts hilarious; if not hilarious then at least such posts are idiotic for sure.You don’t like a particular day only because you don’t like your schedule of the day. It’s all about the job and the schedule you follow. However, I also could easily relate to such posts on Facebook because I also never like going to office on Mondays.  But if you sit and think quietly then you’ll get to know that it’s actually the work you’re doing. If you’re not doing a job of your own choice, you’ll never be able to enjoy it. It’s human tendency that if we don’t like something we start running off that. That’s the reason most of the people don’t feel like heading to their offices on Mondays because in the weekend they actually get some time off the work they don’t actually like to do.Back in 2012, when I finally started going to office, I never loved it that much. Initially it was OK. The hatred grew up gradually and now there’re very few things I actually like about my office. I realized I was not meant for this. It is something I just cannot keep doing for all my life long. Then I, along with some of my friends started an NGO last year. We named it Sarthak Foundation and started working for the slum children. (I actually didn't mean to advertise my venture here but this much introduction was required, I felt). But on a serious note, now I feel this is something I would want to keep doing forever.Today, we set up our office and it was our first day officially, though we have been working for it for the last one and a half years now. But today I realized that it’s not about the term ‘office’ we hate, it’s about the ‘work’ we do. We were just not ready to leave ‘our’ office today and all of us were sad that we’ll be able to come next on Saturday which is 6 days away from now.It’s not for us only; it’s for everyone out there who don’t feel like going to office on Monday. Mate, stop cursing poor Monday and start exploring where your passion lies. Put your efforts towards your passion and you will actually start loving your job. I don’t mean to share my Gyan but I think it will actually help. Because, it’s not Monday, It’s your job that sucks!!  :)