“Trust the vibes you get, energy doesn’t lie” – These are the words, I, earlier thought, played no part in my life and that every decision that I take in my life is a thoughtful one and not an intuitive one. However, what I didn’t know was that I was subconsciously living by these words. This realization came to me only a while back.
You might wonder what made me realize this. So, what happened one day, it suddenly struck to me that all the decisions that I have taken so far in my life and that too, the big ones, have always been intuitive, in the sense that I have always followed what my heart and my instinct says. Be it anything, from as small as a decision about choosing an ice cream flavor at an ice cream parlour or be it choosing my stream for higher studies, I have always followed my intuition. I still remember how I wanted to study Science all my life and did take that up in Class XI, but suddenly changed it to Commerce just the day before when classes were to begin. For graduation, I initially opted B.Com (H) till the 4
th list of Delhi University that came, changing colleges in every list and suddenly I don’t know why and how I changed my subject course to Economics before I took admission in Ramjas. My life decisions, whether personal or academic related have always been like that. But obviously, I do keep in mind that these decisions only affect me and nobody else.
I even do my shopping this way. Just when I was to join MDI, Gurgaon here for my postgraduation, I wanted to change my wardrobe. That’s when ABG came to my rescue. I chose to go to PANTALOONS. And never have I ever felt disappointed and came empty handed after visiting this place. It has always served me, fully satisfied. It has all kind of stuff that I need, be it clothes (Indian, Western, Indo-western, formals, semi formals), footwear, bags, wallets, everything. You name it and they have it. And the best part about it is that they offer the best prices without any compromise in their quality. Next, I visited VanHeusen for my formal stuff. That is also another amazing place, the best place when you want to suit up. They have the best quality formals at best prices. And now, it has almost been 1 month here in MDI and I can feel the level of comfort my clothes provide me. It gives me much more confidence as well.
Just like these intuitive decisions, another intuitive decision i.e. me joining CRY NGO, proved to be one of the best decisions of my life, best in the sense that I got to learn a great deal from my experience over there. I volunteered with the NGO for a period of 9 months and I used to visit there every Sunday for a minimum of 3 hours. So, there, we (me and my two friends along with our other co-volunteers) were required to visit the slums since, the NGO (in the form of a school) was located in the slums itself, so that, the kids in the slums find it easy to visit it. The first time we visited there, we were appalled to see the dilapidated and unhygienic condition of the slum. But when we met the kids there, so innocent, so pure and completely unbothered and unconstrained by their condition, all our disappointments and worries went away. They all seemed so happy, so contended with what they have and had these big dreams of becoming a Doctor, Pilot, Teacher, Chef, Police officer and what not. You know, seeing them this happy sometimes makes you realize how blessed you are and we need not crib for anything that we don’t have and be grateful and make use of the opportunities that we do have.
However, my journey there was not all rosy. Firstly, I had to convince my Parents very hard, who were not very keen on me joining the NGO because the area in which the slum was located was one of the worst crime zones of Delhi. So, I had to convince my parents that I really wanted to do this. Secondly, I didn’t let the irregularity of other volunteers coming to the NGO affect my regularity of going to the NGO because I very well understood that it might not be good for the kids who would have to see new faces every week and try making an effort to be comfortable with them.
Moreover, there was this one time when we were asked by the higher authority to show results in terms of not just the interactive sessions we used to carry out, but also in terms of improvement in their academics. So, I initiated this idea of how we can segregate kids into groups according to their current academic level, irrespective of their age, with each volunteer taking up one group. This idea proved to be very helpful and actually the result was visible. We were even appreciated by one of the Performance Monitoring and Evaluating visitor who visited the NGO. We were happy to have been able to make an impact.
But most importantly, what I realized from my experience over there was that how so many kids like those are deprived of the opportunity they have a right on. How we as a society need to come together to pull up those who cannot pull themselves up because we have the resources to do so. It is our responsibility to do so.
Therefore, I want to add value to the society so that kids like these can also suit up like me in a VanHeusen suit, can shop their heart out at PANTALOONS, can talk their heart out using VODAFONE-IDEA and most importantly, build their houses and their dreams, as strong as UltraTech CEMENT.