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WHEN I TAKE AN INITIATIVE
A
talk by - ANSHU K. GUPTA |
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At - India International Centre, New
Delhi
On - 18/10/04
Organised by – Foundation for Universal Responsibility
of H. H. The Dalai Lama & The India International Centre
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I
am standing here today to talk about taking initiative. I
repeat - standing because this would have never happened if
I had not taken an initiative 17 years back. I met with an
accident, was on the bed for a year, was admitted thrice in
the hospital. In fact every time I went to the hospital with
a hope that my doctor would now allow me to walk, he would
admit me. There came a time when the doctors told my father-
" He’ll never be able to walk on his own ! Buy
him crutches ! I refused…I was 17 that time ! I didn’t
want crutches. I told the doctor " crutches to me means
dependence .. .. it means that I may be able to do a lot of
important work but sooner or later I would become dependent
on them and then I would never make an attempt to walk myself.."
The
doctor was actually angry with me. I was very popular among
fellow patients and nurses because I never complained about
my pain and my bed used to be a place for playing cards, where
many patients walking with crutches used to come to enjoy
themselves. But the doctor never liked me because my father
never bribed him. In Dehra Doon hospital his rate was Rs.
400/- to do a correct operation. He didn’t get that
money and my foot is working incorrectly - till date..
I
was forced to leave my science studies as I was unable to
attend classes but never wanted to waste my one year so I
prepared for BA, sitting on the bed and got the permission
to appear in the examination. For that I had to walk, I had
to go to the college to write my examination. On April 13th
1988 I filled up an old socks with a lot of cotton, tied that
to the foot to make it walkable, I took a hocky stick and
tried to walk, I fell and got up a number of times but three
days later with my brother’s support - I was walking.
I appeared for the exam and got about 61%. NOT bad.. the doctor
was wrong. .I recollect this as my first major initiative,
which really shaped up my life. About 6 years back one of
the 32 senior doctors of Delhi, whom I’ve met for my
foot, told me that your foot has a life of maximum three years,
my mother, my father, my wife were sad - somewhere me too
- but I didn’t believe him that time and I have no reason
to believe him today.. the first initiative for walking on
my own has made me like this..
It
was an initiative I took against all odds. That to me is the
very basis of taking an initiative, that one needs to go beyond
conventional logic and rationale and believe in one’s
own power to change things.
I
belong to a middle class family. My father used to work with
Military Engineering Service (MES) infamously called the Money
Earning Services. So obviously his values, and ethics were
never liked by most of his colleagues. He was always a barrier
in the cycle of corruption and scientific distribution of
commission and cuts. So life was never smooth for us. He was
on a good post but in a huge family being the eldest one he
had more responsibilities than resources. When I was about
ten years old we went through the toughest phase of our lives.
Even at that age I knew it was tough because when you count
your chappaties before eating…what else do you call
that. There was a brief phase when even while living in a
big city we had to buy wood for cooking and that too on a
per meal basis. I remember bringing a kg of wood for 35 paisa
and running fast so that the neighbors didn’t come to
know about this. My mother is here, the greatest source of
inspiration, the proud women that she is, I remember her efforts
to make sure that the smoke didn’t go out. That was
a question of dignity and self-respect. She has always taught
us that these are the biggest assets of a middle class family.
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From a very early age my father trusted me a lot, he used to
say “my father was honest, I might be 5 % corrupt
and you can’t be more than 10% I k, now it. Try not
to be even this much. A great thought, a trust with flexibility
but with an outer limit. Most of us have to marry values
and practicality in our day to day living, whether its about
teaching your child to tell the truth or dealing with corruption
in public offices. I guess this was my father’s way
of dealing with life.
It
started quite early in my life as well. I have often been
asked why and how did I decide to give up a corporate job
and start a voluntary organisation. Why do an impractical
thing like this?. I guess an initiative begins with one’s
need to figure out a way to deal with the basics of how you
define life. Whether you are going to take the path which
your parents, friends and everyone else around you has taken,
or want to deal with things a bit differently. It’s
not as heroic as it sounds. It begins with day to day things,
whether you want to pull up your car window when a beggar
comes close to your car. Whether you are happy to see your
house spic and span but walk on the badly littered roads crowded
with homeless people.
That
practical formulae about honesty apart, there was one other
key thing my parents ingrained in me. I don’t remember
any incident in my life when my father or mother said- Ye
nahi ho sakta ( It’s not possible or it can not happen)
. But I believe in this…I firmly believe that when the
attitude is positive you take initiatives..
If
everyone begins with ‘This can’t happen’
or ‘this is not possible’, then how will anything
ever begin. Going back to the example of my foot, I remember
that even after almost six months of operation there was a
wound in my foot and the moment I used to put it down, blood
used to ooze out…all the doctors had given up.. my father
was not ready to believe that I’ll never walk.. he used
to make attempts…one day he decided to experiment by
putting some urine on the wound and that worked, that really
stopped the blood . It was his relentless efforts and a belief
that Anshu has to walk…it was his positive attitude..
Goonj
is alive and running for the last six years, without an organised
structure of funds. I have been told time and again by funding
agencies that my concept is interesting but it goes outside
the realm of their funding norms. I can tell you categorically,
it is running purely because we never said or thought "
that it is not possible "
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In
my work I am often asked why work on clothes? Clothes I think
is a person’s dignity. I’ve closley experienced
typical middle class dignity issues, I can imagine what dignity
means for the people who do not possess much wealth. I know
my mother’s thoughts on dignity while taking care of
the smoke in the kitchen, I know my father’s fighter
attitude while dealing with my injury. I feel its important
to talk about these things when I am talking about initiative
because its these small instances which taught me to take
care of the smallest possible details while taking an initiative
called GOONJ..
Today
when we teach people who give material that only the good
and wearable clothes should go to the beneficiaries or when
we pay close attention to the attire, culture and habits of
people while distributing material, the lesson about dignity
is always in my mind. I strongly believe that being needy
doesn’t mean being a beggar. Starting an initiative
is not enough, one has to struggle constantly to keep the
momentum and the focus in mind.
It’s easy and I dare say rather common place to see
people taking initiatives for themselves. We all do, for our
survival and progress. What I want to talk about is, taking
an initiative for others. That is a real test of your commitment.
That is when you need to have a basic understanding of attitudes,
problems and circumstances which may be very different from
your own.
It
is initiative taking in the public domain, which I think is
the life force of any society. We need more and more people
to take initiatives for others. The society is full of people
who will pay 500 rupees to find out the status of their file
but you need a person who takes an initiative for talking
about right to information. We all criticize haphazard progress
but you need someone who takes an initiative to organise people
and oppose big dams. A big part of our rural population go
miles to fetch water from the dried rivers but when a person
takes an initiative to make small check dams, it benefits
lakhs of people. You need more Aruna Roy’s, Medha Patkar
and Rajendra Singh’s in this world.
All
of them started on a small level but have created an impact,
have been able to touch the lives of lakhs of people, people
who might not be in a position to take initiatives but are
the one’s who urgently need a helping hand. And believe
me these are the people who later work as your force and help
you turn your initiative into a success.
Understand
your value. You are not just an individual. There are thousands
of people with you. It’s a net where every thread matters.
If you don’t vote and go on a picnic on the day of voting,
please understand it matters because you are not the only
one, lakhs of other threads are also like you and are damaging
the net.
Let
me give you an example- A dalit person somehow gets a chance
to study and he becomes a scientist. He goes back to his village
as a part of the national literacy mission. He feels bad and
thinks that his education has changed him, he is the most
privileged one now, but why can’t more people from his
village benefit similarly. He leaves his job, goes through
the opposition and alienation, which is the first stage of
taking an initiative. In a few years he has reached the final
stage where people are replicating his work, where not only,
every single child of his village is going to a school but
all the streets have lights and the village boasts of self
sufficient industries. Kutambakam village of Tamilnadu and
the panchayat leader Elango Rangaswamy are now a role model
for lakhs of villages and hundreds of panchayat leaders who
are trying to replicate this success story, once an initiative
by an individual..
So
why don’t we see more and more people taking initiatives?
I feel taking up an initiative, involves a cost- of owning
the cause, of becoming accountable for its success and failures
and the entire struggle in between. Early on in GOONJ.. when
I used to go door to door to collect material, I was asked
many questions – about my intentions, my personal life,
my objectives. In short my entire credibility was put through
the scanner and here I thought I was trying to do a good deed.
When you work for others, everybody questions you. You question
yourself- Why am I doing this? For money, for fame? Because
I am frustrated, because I can make a difference. Even the
people for whom you take an initiative want to ask- Why? What
is your motive behind doing this? You have questions from
every where- Even today I am held to account for every material
which people were going to throw out of their homes anyway.
My experience around starting GOONJ.. has shown me that when
one goes against the wind, its not only lonely but its also
frustrating when your own friends and family sometimes don’t
understand. You have to be really restless with a passion,
to take up an initiative.
There
are three stages around taking up any kind of initiative,
however big or small……each of these I have faced
thoroughly in my personal life and in the cycle of GOONJ..
The
first stage is of opposing - is the toughest where
almost everybody opposes you, criticize you, doubts you, discourages
you, advises you against what you are doing, your integrity
is at stake and you spoil your personal life… people
pretend but don’t always come with you except one or
two very rare true friends. Initiative almost always begins
alone.
The
second stage is of silence - People try to understand
what are you upto… it starts making some sense, instead
of opposing they come in observing mode and some time in suggestion
mode…may be the easiest of the three stages
The
third stage when they come with you - this success
of an initiative.. it takes time to reach here but you reach
here if you are determined, committed, trust yourself and
others, learn from mistakes, believe in your idea and are
open to criticism.. All these are important components of
success. And I feel success is when people try to replicate
your work and the idea..
It’s
not easy to become a thinker but certainly becoming a doer
is tougher.. because when you add Action to a thought it becomes
an initiative.. so you put in some extra efforts..
6
years back I left Escorts as Manager corporate communication
and then decided not to go for a job and initiated GOONJ..
I experienced almost every aspect of the first stage I just
mentioned. It came from people who said "if I have to
work for people I should rather do some GOOD work- instead
of distributing cloth." Good work meant education, providing
food, running for AIDS awareness but not cloth distribution.
Some friends commented- " to tune bhi shuru kar diya
" because most people think that NGO means money. Someone
commented on my nice cotton shirt- " ye dekho NGO wala
ja raha hai " because only Corporate guys are supposed
to wear Allen Solly. My mother was surprised to see the piles
and piles of old clothes some in very dirty and torn shape
in our house. My father was trying to understand why he spent
so much money & energy in supporting me for studying mass
communication twice & a Post graduation in economics.
My father in law was worried because he married his daughter
to a manager in Escorts but now his son in law dealt with
old clothes and foot wears of people. I remember my father
often suggesting me to pick up a job and continue my work
in GOONJ.. side by side. I remember my Father
in law coming with marked advertisement of big corporate companies
for the positions in corporate communication. It was tough
to say no to the people who trust you and love you so much
but I didn’t give myself any other option. In this phase
of initiative I spoke about friends. Yes I had them. Meenakshi
my wife, a support I can’t explain and a friend Ajay,
my parents too, who trusted me, made suggestions but never
opposed.. not a typical parental act.
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We sold
a double bed and converted a bed room into a store cum office,
we used to wash the collected clothes in the evening, we used
to go and collect them from all over Delhi. Imagine the initiative
started with 67 clothes, now talks about thousands of KGs.
But
there was a second stage, which thankfully came a bit early
in my work. I found people observing and suggesting and some
of them even tried to join the initiative..
It’s
my third stage today, being called for this talk is a proof
of that. When a 65 years old retired Railway Board member
started taking care of GOONJ’s Gurgaon
operation without even a single penny of help or when a volunteer
moved to Bangalore and started operations there in a major
manner on her own. It’s not only a success of an initiative
called GOONJ.., its more a success of these
people. Thousands of people know GOONJ..
in Gurgaon today but you need one person to take an initiative
to make it happen, others join and in the chain you get more
people to take initiatives.
Back in my childhood days we had a student parliament in our
school. I was all set to become the Prime Minister in class
8th. A teacher suddenly changed the rules and said this year
the selection will be on the basis of a debate. I participated
and got a standing applause but lost.. I knew I would loose.
I knew that when you try to point out mistakes of your teachers
it is something unfortunately most of them do not accept.
And I was quite known for this so even after giving a good
lecture I had to loose. In class 8th I demanded voting and
I won. It was a good learning process . It taught me the importance
of raising voice, it taught me that you must initiate action
against whatever you don’t think is right.
It happened again when I was in class 11 and tried to correct
my teacher on physics formulas - out of frustration he hit
me - the first and last hit in my life - I told him I’ll
make sure that he was transferred..
Imagine
me a 11th class student, who didn’t even know a Block
development officer, whose career had not even begun, talking
like that. My father was unhappy with the teacher but he was
more unhappy with me. He told me two things, which I remember
till date- First : that a teacher is a teacher, don’t
agree with him on wrong things but while showing displeasure
keep it in mind that he is your teacher and the second : the
more important one, Never say anything which you can’t
do, a great learning. I certainly don’t claim that it
was an initiative against atrocities of a teacher. As a comparatively
matured person today I feel bad for the language I used but
somewhere feel satisfied that I alone raised a voice and pointed
out mistakes which were also affecting 40 other students.
I
wonder why we underestimate ourselves. I wonder why do we
think that in the crowd of crores of people what if we don’t
act, what if we are not present. I wonder why don’t
we understand that we are part of a society, we can and must
play a role.
Gandhi
was one, Vinoba was one, Sardar Patel was one…these
are indeed big names and I have mentioned some names earlier,
they are all individuals…so one matters…that is
the key to taking an initiative, to believe that an individual
does matter.
You
don’t need a degree from IIT or IIM to help people,
never think that the person who calls himself a social worker,
is the only best friend of the society, its only his responsibility
or right to serve people. I strongly believe that helping
people is the only work which anyone can do - education, financial
background, family background, your physique, cast, community,
gender, age all of these may matter for any other work but
not in this.
My
experience of building up GOONJ.. has reaffirmed my belief
in this. I have no trained social worker in my group. None
of my volunteers is an MSW (Master in social Work). There
are school students, housewives, aged people above 65, there
are IIM pass outs, corporate guys who have this pet phrase
" I’m very busy, I don’t have time "
The only common factor among them is that they all take the
initiative for someone else.
We
all know that the society exists and progresses because of
some initiatives taken by a few people. We get to know about
some of them - most are lost in the crowd - there are a lot
of us who want to do some good but are apprehensive, direction
less and desperately looking for a fraternity to do something..
You can begin with yourself - you initiate, they will come
with you - It’s only when you take the initiative that
you find like-minded people who are looking for the right
company to make a start.
When
I talk about beginning with oneself, the truth I think is
that somewhere all of us work towards fulfilling a need for
personal satisfaction and for a feeling of doing something
which is not entirely self centered. If I collect material
and it reaches people in the remotest parts of the country,
more than anything else it makes me feel good about myself.
When you go to a temple and distribute prasad, you get a sound
sleep. When you go to an orphanage and feed children you feel
satisfied that you did something for someone else. We do a
lot for our personal satisfaction. When you see happiness
on the face of people by a simple act of giving it is something
very rare. Somewhere in the last six years I have also benefited
a lot with all the others When a homeless person on the street
screams out in happiness at Nizamuddin on a cold night "
ab hui meri id "after getting an old coat in the night
of id or when a little girl blushes with happiness on getting
a fish shaped pencil box, all these expressions are priceless
earnings. I cherish them.
I
think initiating GOONJ.. has been a gift
I gave myself. I am today a better person than I was six years
ago because I have learnt so much about myself and changed
in so many ways. Initiatives are successful when you constantly
learn from your work and the people who you work with. I am
learning everyday from the lives of the villagers I meet when
I travel, I am constantly observing and learning from the
day to day struggles of people who try to balance between
a corporate job, their personal lives and their commitment
to GOONJ..
Taking
an Initiative does take a heavy toll. Between when you are
alone with your initiative to when people join in, there is
a long lull period, to survive that you need a lot of determination
and faith in yourself. I still have a long way to go but this
early lesson has helped me make some crucial decisions. For
any initiative to succeed you have to believe.
All
of us are living our lives, let us take some initiative for
others and see the impact. It may be a very small act of teaching
a illiterate child or taking responsibility for keeping your
street clean, whatever it is that you are passionately interested
in. I urge you to take an initiative today and change something
for the better.
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