Written by Sagar Mehta

NAMASTE!

Just over a week ago my sewa safar in Bhārat with Samatol Foundation came to an end. My last blog post was 2 weeks ago, and since then I was still involved in the office, doing preparation for the Samaroop (send-off ceremony).

As mentioned my task was to create detailed and informative posters to hang up in the domes at the campsite, that would allow the parents and visitors to gain a depper understanding into the reasons children run away, the law in place to support them, and the work that Samatol does. The Samaroop ceremony was on Saturday 25th August, and the week leading up to that was very hectic in the office. I had many tasks assigned to me, which were all at loose ends, and so it was a matter of bringing all these loose ends together, in time for the Samaroop, and in time for everything to be proofed and printed.

THE SAMAROOP!

The Samaroop was an incredibly unique experience, and one that I will cherish forever. Some of you may have caught it on the Facebook live stream I set up, or watched the recorded video after, however in short, the day was a send-off for most of the children who had been at the campsite for approximately 45 days. This was their time to be reunited with their parents and working from the office during the work I saw the immense amount of preparatory work that went into this. The karyakartas a few weeks prior to this event, began to find details for the children’s parents, so that they could be contacted in a suitable amount of time, so that they could arrive at the Samaroop in a timely manner, or soon thereafter. At the Samaroop around half of the children were reunited with their parents, and the other half’s parents were going to come a few days later due to travel time. At this event, was the showcase of the sangeet I had been teaching the children for the past 6 weeks, along with a dance, and I can definitely say that the I was immensely proud of the children for their performance!

This day was quite obviously emotional, as I cannot imagine being away from my parents for that long as that age and seeing the reaction of some of the children was truly heart-touching. Furthermore speaking to some parents, and other visitors was a great experience as I was able to understand both points of view, and some of the family backgrounds were extremely eye-opening, as to how ‘sheltered’ my life in the UK is. The day was so incredible that it is actually quite hard to express in words, hence why I shared more photos on the Instagram blog, and below, as seeing it will encapsulate all the feeling I had of the day.

CAMP – OFFICE – FIELD

During my final week, I spent some time in the office, but also requested to have some experience on the station doing fieldwork (i.e. actively finding children). This was because I had thus far had experience at the office, and at the campsite, however I wanted to see where it all began, so that my cycle would be complete. My experience at the station was also very unique, and my first observation of it was… oh my gosh… there’s a lot of walking involved! For this I am incredibly inspired by the karykartas who do this work on a daily basis. The station I was based at was Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) and this was one of the oldest stations in Bhārat. It was formerly known as the Victoria Terminus during the British Raj, where Queen Victoria was the presiding monarch over the nation, and this evident in the architecture of the station, reminding me fondly of the UK. As this is one of the busiest stations in Bhārat, and one of the most popular as it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the station is kept very clean, which was something that was very different to most stations in Bhārat, which are dusty, dirty and unkept. Although we did not find a child the days I went, it was nevertheless sa valuable opportunity to see the process ‘hypothetically’.

THE INSIDER’S INSIGHT

Also, for a week between my last 2 weeks, I had the opportunity to stay with a host family to experience that aspect of this process too. This was an amazing experience, and I would recommend anyone to do this if they get the opportunity. Naturally this may seem daunting however, the host family I was assigned to was so lovely, and made me feel so welcome into their family, that I felt incredibly comfortable staying with them. I even had the opportunity to meet their family who has come from Chennai, and the chance to take part in a Ganpati Puja they had held at the house, which really was the cherry on top!

Seeing all the work done by the karyakartas at the campsite, office and on the stations, really makes me very proud to be Indian and to say that my nation has such great individuals who do this sort of work. Whilst there have been many inspiring people I have met along the way, there are way too many to name and give introductions about, however they have all in their own unique ways, developed me as a person, and for that I am incredibly thankful. Also, it has truly opened my eyes to the realities of the world, as in the UK most of us live a very privileged life in comparison, and so seeing and experienced the other side to it has been very humbling. This experience has been unlike any other I have had to date, and will have in the future, and being able to perform sewa and serve others in Bhārat has been incredible!

QUOTES OF THE BLOG:

‘NO ACT OF KINDNESS, NO MATTER HOW SMALL IS WASTED’ – AESOP

‘ I SLEPT AND DREAMT THAT LIFE WAS JOY. I AWOKE AND SAW THAT LIFE WAS SERVICE. I ACTED AND BEHOLD, SERVICE WAS JOY’ – RABINDRANATH TAGORE

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 Written by Ushni Rabadia

Namaste

The countdown is truly emotional to think about so I won’t mention how long exactly… (Less than a week left). I have also tried to grasp on an Indian skill, eating with my hands. Honestly, I don’t know whether my hands are made for this because it is very difficult. They have a skill which I hope to adopt whilst I still have about 3 weeks in India still. It’s like if spoons were not existent then it wouldn’t make a huge difference. Even with Daal, it will be eaten somehow, it amazes me. And the funny thing is that when I try, everything just falls and they know that she needs help and therefore they provide me a spoon.

The Talent Continues…

For the past 2 weeks, I have been introducing the Vamshi/Basaree/Flute (whatever you wish to call it) to the blind students. If you don’t know already, the blind students are extremely talented in Music. Like extremely! They can sing, play tabla and harmonium! So basically Divya Vidyalay has their own unique exclusive band. Anyone is able to sing if they practice, but the difference is how it is sung. All of the songs are sung from the heart and it instantly touches the audience. On Sunday 8th July, Keshav Srushti held a big event where people from the city come to the tribal villages to plant trees. The city people then came to the school, in which the students performed geets and bhajans, which created such an amazing atmosphere where everyone’s eyes were glued to the singers and brought tears to their eyes as it touched everyone because of the sincerity in the voice. Therefore, there is no better place to introduce more talent to the students! I have been teaching 5 students the Vamshi; 2 partially blind and 3 totally blind. I have been learning Vamshi through Samiti for over 5 years now and also have experience in teaching it. We tend to get annoyed at the learners for not doing it right or not picking up the tune quickly. A skill of mine that has been put to the test whilst doing my sessions was patience. In any scenario, anger or annoyance is the first thing that attacks us if it is not going our way, but what I have definitely learnt is that patience is key, and then eventually it will happen. For example, the mobile connection here is not the absolute greatest and definitely no such thing as 4G especially during heavy rainfall. So when wanting to call home, it may take more than 5 calls and 16 different phone placements (move the phone up… a little bit to the left… a bit higher – You get the drill!) for the connection to be great to have a decent phone call. Therefore, in this case I have definitely learnt that eventually with PATIENCE, it will work.

The very first session, I came out thinking this is going to be a challenge, but I also knew it was very possible because if they can play the harmonium perfectly, then Vamshi is a piece of pie. And of course… 4 sessions after, they are able to play the notes. As well as teaching them, it was my time to bond with these 5 students, by asking them “What do you want to be?”, so I can learn more about them. All 5 are amazing singers, so we did small competitions on who can hold a note for the longest – And I like to sing, so being able to sing with them was even better. These students are all around my age or even older, so having that brotherly/sisterly bond was really important for me, and in fact, I aim to have that with all the students and hopefully, they will end up calling me Didi, instead of Madam/Tai.

Happiness, Fun & Laughter

Sundays are the usual days where the students are resting in their rooms especially because of the weather. Therefore, I tend to find Sundays slight harder to keep myself busy and to utilize my time. I have seen the children dance like crazy before and enjoy it so much, so dancing again will just make them even happier. So I thought, I need to do something with the children today, Sunday 15th July… Dancing! I was first thinking the boys won’t join in because it will seem too girly, but as soon as I went into the hall, the boys were jumping about showing me their dance moves. Hopefully majority of you have seen the video, and you can definitely give everyone an A* for participation. I was only going to do it for a short time; instead we ended up doing it for 2 and a half hours! I also witnessed a partially blind student helping a totally blind student with the moves as well, which is incredible that the thought of thinking about others comes into the student’s minds.

The students doing the Gulabi Dance all alone

Every day for the past week, I have had the students come up to me and gesturing a dance move to indicate “Let’s do the dance!”, at least we know this dance will stay with them and they can do it in their own time because they have become experts due to the continuous repetition.

On Friday 20th July, we danced even more and everyone including the teachers got involved which was so fun, that the children had forgotten about dinner and wanted to carry on dancing. We did a lot of Garba, Tarapa (Traditional dance) and also some had extremely unique moves in which are unexplainable. Overall, it was just some light hearted fun and an excuse to get everyone on the dance floor and to see every one go crazy as we have some brilliant dancers at Divya Vidyalay! Definitely need to take the Tarapa dance back to the UK!

Pranaam

“Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.”- Swami Sivananda

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