Okay my story is not going to be like Cristiano Ronaldo’s who was the unwanted child of the family.His parents had gone to the extent of considering abortion. Today he is the best footballer in the world which makes his mom always wonder what if she had taken the ‘other’ decision. My story is quite a simple one, Since I was a kid, I had this quality of always giving it back to the society. I don’t know from where it came, or how it was transferred into my hard drive, but this has always been there. I am generally a kind, caring and independent person who is always willing to go that extra mile to do something that anyone can benefit from. The first instance was when I was cleaning my cupboard to find out clothes which didn’t fit me because of over-eating.
Of course my Peter England shirts and Louis Philippe suits is what I was going to keep with me at B-school. This gave me a different feeling, made me feel special the way it did on the first day when I bought it and the memories associated with it will always be cherished. Also, some of my clothes had become smaller due to which I had planned to visit Pantaloons with checklist. On my way, I began to wonder as everyone gets older, what do they do with their clothes? This quickly prompted me to run just a google form survey to know what the best ways were which they would think of in re-using the clothes if not throw them. To my surprise the latter one turned out to be the case. With the help of Youth 4 Youth, I started collecting clothes from various houses in my society and other societies. So much that I could provide clothes to 200 families if distributed. I started giving off clothes to the needy people of the society. I started to feel like I was making a small difference if not significant.
ABG works in 5000 villages, has reached out to 7.5 million people, treated over a million patients, runs 5000 medical camps and 20 hospitals, immunized 70 million children against polio, operates 56 schools for 46,500 students, provided solar lamps for 450,000 school children to name a few which is just mind blowing to know the quantum and their reach which has no limits. These mind-boggling stats are something which has inspired me to look up and stay updated with the work they do.
The next instance was in Surat, Gujarat when I, as a representative of L&T CSR Team utilized my weekend. We planned a detailed visit to Old Age home and spent quality times with the seniors. We played a Gujarati show for an hour long and then a dinner session with them. We spent some quality time with seniors to know about the medicines they didn’t have or were over or needed to be changed. So, with a further prospect of holding a medical camp we left for the day and organized it later to address all the medical issues they were facing. I wish to continue doing the little things I can as individual, with a bigger platform I will be proud to be the reason to have a smile on a larger crowd.
Being a Non-resident Indian always enlightened me to visit India in my vacations. Having spent 18 years in Muscat, Oman and being able to have the wonderful opportunity to go to an Indian School abroad with people from states varying from Kerala to Kashmir. I further went on to spend another 4 years of my life for Mechanical Engineering in College of Engineering, Pune and bagged a job from L&T Heavy Engineering. I was motivated in developing real life skills and it was a time I needed industry experience. Out of the total 24 years lived, last 2 years of my life has taken a complete turn and shaped my personality to what I am today. Right from the third day, I began to work in night shift in my manufacturing shop floor. This is when it was going to get difficult. Being an entry level graduate, from day 1 I was asked to lead a team of 20 highly skilled workmen who would line up in a semi-circle in front of me at the start of the shift with the look on their faces ‘Who are you to give work to me’? This was a really hard time. The age of the workmen would range from 35 years to 58 years old.
I was working in 3 different shifts which would change weekly. The workmen were basically highly skilled in welding, fabrication and machining activities which required at least experience of 5 years for a workman to develop skill of such high magnitude. I had zero ground knowledge and understanding the work was one thing, and then the methodology and skill required to do it was another task all together. I was expected to learn the things how they work, get work out of the skilled workmen, depute the right man for the right job, look after the allowances and leaves of these workman, handle grievances and issues between workmen who were possibly equal to if not older than my father’s age. I had to learn Gujarati to dwell within the them as this was the only mode of communication in shop floor. It was very difficult to get the required output from them as they had this ego clash of what an entry level graduate was doing being their boss.
I started off by speaking properly, being genuinely nice and humble to everyone and regretted it within three days when I would make the shift report at the end of the shift only to know the required work was not completed. Just like how a class has some backbenchers, there were rotten tomatoes who needed to be treated differently.
Few of them who were much senior needed to be scolded and given warnings to an extent. At one point of time I would give them suggestions of possible career paths for their kids who were my age and then at once I would find myself totally taking strict actions and in heavy arguments with them. I had to first understand the technical manufacturing processes, then understand the Gujarati language as this was the only language means to communicate with the workmen. As time passed by, I started to discover various ways to get to them listen to me. With the senior’s workmen, It was important that I listen to them and appreciate their feedback with regard to improvements on shop floor. To gain the trust and respect was of utmost importance. They needed a reason to call me ‘Sir’ and this was my only turn to prove it to them why I was capable. I started with WHY-HOW-WHAT logic with the work I allotted them as opposed to earlier means which were WHAT-HOW-WHY.
I started sharing a lot of insights of working in a team and the benefits. In case of other union issues, I raised it to the representative of the workmen known as the ‘JMC’: Joint Management Council member who would have to be handed tactically. There was a Union Leader who would look after the factory law, rules, grievances and issues of the workmen in the factory along with them doing the work. All in all, I took roughly a month or so to be equipped with the language and to not have random workmen but a community working in line with the company’s objectives. Somewhere in the second month, one of my senior workmen called me 'Sahab' and this feeling was completely different. I felt I was moving ahead 😊