At Ground Zero!

It is 10 days up away from home, already. Waiting for the day to come, to start travelling wiser from nearly two months, got a meaning when I came here. It has been exciting from the start of this journey. Its a new life for sure. Whenever I am able to get an access to the internet and read about what is happening in my earlier world, I realize that I have surely got myself living a different life now. Well away from the corporate world for the moment and seeing life as it is around me, has been a fascinating experience. The future still stands tall carrying with it a big question mark though. 

When I see people around working for their livelihoods as they work for people who are deeply underprivileged brings in me a hope to go the distance in what I think is of real value. It will be very premature to ascertain my work here at this point. I am just gearing up to work with people. One thing i have clearly understood coming here and to which i am really glad is that, the dynamics of working with people and for people is a different ball game altogether. It is easy to arrange a few volunteers and present a rosy picture of the little impact being done to get a funding and then feel satisfied back in the city. If I have to step it up a bit and work for their rights and dues at the policy levels, things change drastically. 

Villagers and tribals are people with fire in them. And sometimes submissive to those who seem to help them. Its a framework that needs to be clearly understood before entering into it, leave apart changing it. To become a part of this network takes a lot of effort and showcase of trust from one's side. Leveraging on the network already built and gaining the trust of people through the face of one big man here, who has spent his life working for them, I was able to make a few friends already. 

It all started in the month of October 2012, when i first visited a tribal settlement in the Western Ghats called Deriya. Seeing people not so different than i was in anatomy, just that they had to sweat more for a day's food for them and their family, living in the most tough conditions of security and threat to life and with a future that had no hope; made me think about my own life for the first time. The big question about the purpose attached to my life still remain from October 2012; the fog ahead might have just passed, but the answer still looks faded. 

I am 25 and half way through to 26 now. I am in a way happy about all the travelling I have done till now. I have seen life in all possible ways. I have also experienced most of it myself now. Enjoying the lavishness of a Star hotel accommodation in South Mumbai  to staying in a small hut made out of mud inside the thick forests with a family of four. Enjoying the more-than-required services inside an aircraft to travelling standing in a auto holding onto some bar for more than 50 kms with around 8 people jammed up inside. Eating the amazing food in the best restaurants to drinking rice water for dinner with the poorest families inside the forests. This explanation does not suffice the kind of experiences I had last three years. Looking back at it, sitting where I am sitting today, makes me feel happy about where I think I am headed to. 

Lot of decisions were intuitive. Some of them were a big time failure. And I am aware that people around me were aware of it too and that they didn't remind me of it. May be they knew that I was aware of it. Although I was cautioned, I knew it before hand that this is going to be the biggest turn I would ever take in my life. And I took it. Coming here, it made me believe more in what I believed all these days. It just made my life more exciting now. 

Its as Christopher McCandles says "If we admit that the human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed". I just went through his quotes coming here and it did help me put a smile on all the intuitive decisions I took all these years. Well, that has what brought me here today. I really cant complain. Although I don't think I will ever take that approach in life from now on, I have got nothing to complain or crib about what happened last few years. The platform is laid out well now. Happiness, Pain, Anger, Tension, Excitement, Solitude, Adventure, Mistakes, Blunders, Love, Care, Romance, Fear, Obsessions, Habits and what not. To put all these in one single word, it was a great Learning. 

Home away from Home

I am thinking, quitting my job last August was one of the best intuitive decisions I made. I am now standing at ground zero, with borrowed money and a lot of hope to start well and learn well on this new journey of mine.