Festival of Giving

Since 2009, the ‘Joy of Giving Week’ is celebrated across India for seven days starting 2 October – the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The initiative is also called ‘Daan Utsav’. The celebration, inherent in a festival happens here as many organisations involve, across the country, in contributing time, skills and resources.

Two years ago, fourteen trainers took part in two free full-day learning events in Goa. Many organisations, institutions and corporates funded the cost of the events. However, we found that most of the ones who attended were ones who could afford to pay for the learning. So, last year, we chose to directly approach the ones who needed the programs but would not afford them. Somu Rao and yours truly conducted training for four sets of such truly needy students.

This year, we widened the circle to reach out to slum children, rural schools and others who are have little opportunity. As of now, we are six trainers who have confirmed plans over all seven days for at least ten events supported by over nine organisations like the Trainers’ Association, Goa Science Forum, Harshada Art Gallery, Rotary, Giants Club, Samraat Club and others.


It is pertinent that Somu, Harshada, yours truly and many others are doing many acts of giving, right through the year. There are many who ‘give’ their time, skills and resources without any expectation. But, often it is an individual initiative. When we collaborate, it is a greater impact… and that is the purpose of the ‘festival of giving’.

We must widen the circle to include more persons. There are many who ‘want to give’ but do not know ‘how and where’. There are many who do not know that the greatest gift is the gift of time. When many get together to give, we create a new festival that all can celebrate, cutting across barriers. And our world needs to celebrate such festivals of giving that spread joy and dignity to all human beings.

Don’t restrict to yourself, widen the team
The ‘Festival of Giving’ is a worthy dream

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Stereotype

‘The single story creates stereotypes. And the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.’ - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In the early 80’s, a single story was told about the Sikhs… that they were violent terrorists deserving to be mowed down. This single story sought to condemn an entire community that has many dimensions of humanism, humour, entrepreneurship and infectious enthusiasm. Today, though that vicious single story of the Sikhs is no longer a part of our consciousness… the actions and attitudes born of it left behind a bloody trail of brutality and killing.

Single stories give rise to stereotypes and prejudices that lead us to opinions ranging from contempt to hatred, from false pride to a negative sense of history, from insensitivity to irrationality. Stories cannot be just painted in black and white. They must reflect the entire assortment of facts, contradictions and possibilities. The hue has to reflect the human diversity in its multiple dimensions and its many stories.

Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, makes the pertinent point that the single, stereotyped story flattens the experience to a singular and dangerously-damaging dimension. She insists that multiple stories matter. And it is multiple stories that can save us from the danger of a single story!

Adichie says in her talk at Ted, ‘Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.’ We must escape the vice of the stereotype by exploring multiple stories that widen our perspective.

Escape the single story hype
Break the damn stereotype!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Stars

The beauty of every star with its simmering light
Can be seen from afar as they gather in the night,
Each has its own spark, yet they glitter as one
Like the colours of the rainbow born of the sun.

Seven colours bind together for the rainbow to emerge…
Would a rainbow ever form, if they chose to diverge?
When people get together, a nation is raised
Differences bring despair and defeat staring in our face

Every drop makes the sea; otherwise what is a sea?
Every act is crucial that carries the value of empathy
Let go of egocentricity, don’t stay aloof and away...
Let’s join hands together to create a beautiful day!

The farmer ploughs the land to reap a golden grain
The cowherd is not rewarded with milk, without any pain
The blacksmith shapes the iron with tools that shine!
The potter shapes the clay with a picture in his mind

All these are faces of effort… a desire to have a say...
With enmity to none… and a dream to seize the day
Deep down we are alike, no one is a stranger,
That is the real truth, stars are meant to be together!

(poem penned in 2005 inspired by ‘Ye tara’ song from movie ‘Swades’)
- Pravin K. Sabnis

Fellowship

Last Thursday - the 98 birth anniversary of poet Vinda Karandikar - brought along a memory (told to me by my father) about the ‘Murgi Club’. Vasant Bapat, Mangesh Padgaonkar, Gangadhar Gadgil, Sadanand Rege, Shri Pu Bhagwat and Vinda met regularly for several years to eat together and spar with wordplay and literary jokes. The ‘Murgi club’ was loosely fashioned after the Algonquin Round Table.

For over ten years from 1919 to 1929, a group of New York City writers, critics, actors, and wits met every day over lunch at the Algonquin Hotel. They engaged in wisecracks, wordplay, and witticisms. Daily association with each other, both at the luncheons and outside of them, inspired members to collaborate creatively.


Many of us are part of such tables of fellowship, where we eat together, engage in wit and wisecracks. But it is pertinent to ponder whether these meetings lead to creative collaborations or empower individual expression triggered by the influence of the collective. Just delicious food and humour cannot be an enduring motivation.

While the principal purpose is to have a good time with persons who can take and give witticisms, the larger purpose that sustains such groups is the food for thought that gets shared at the fellowship table. Hence it is important for the group to have diversity of capacity and competence and everyone has to respect this diversity.

Fellowship should not be just about a group with a common aim or intent. It should not just be about friendships, relatedness or connection between colleagues in a group. It should move beyond fun to interesting collaborations or it should empower individual contributions triggered by the ideation at the fellowship table.

That fellowship table is the most sought,
Which serves diverse food for thought!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Signals

Imagine a truck traveling up the slopes. The driver notices a red light blinking on the dash board. He ignores the sign of the engine being overheated. Next, he hears some rattling sound. He plays deaf to the signals of alarm.

Still further, he notices in the rear-view mirror, smoke emerging. Yet again, he plays blind to what could be dangerous. There are no prizes for guessing what would be the fate of such a careless driver and his vehicle.


The above analogy connects to a metaphor that is dear… our Mother Earth. Over the years, we have received many signals that project a big disaster. Earthquakes, Tsunami, droughts, floods, landslides, global warming and many other alarms are being ignored by us.

We react in the aftermath but fail to do enough to show that we are really learning anything from successive environmental mishaps. We speak about the tragedy but fail in subsequent action that should ensure that we secure our future.

Environment Awareness should not be just about blank words. The ultimate solution to every environmental problem, from deforestation to pollution lies in each of us taking the responsibility for our own acts. Each time an individual stands up for the environment or acts to improve it, there is a tiny ripple of hope.

Making little lifestyle changes can have a big effect if everyone does it. Whether you take a shower instead of a bath, reduce your energy use or reduce your carbon footprint, the benefits are big. We must inculcate the 4Rs – Reduce, Reuse Recycle and Re-engineer solutions and choices in our actions to save our environment.

Heed signals of the impending devastation
Our environment needs committed action!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Rainbow

Seven colours bind together for the rainbow to emerge…
Would a rainbow ever form, if they chose to diverge?
- From the poem ‘Stars’ by yours truly

The rainbow is my favourite analogy to use during my unlearning workshops. A ray of sunlight passes through a raindrop and breaks into a spectrum of seven colours. It is pertinent to note that seven diverse colours remain united in the alignment arc. If they were to branch off into various directions, the rainbow would not take shape.

This analogy has a deeper dimension as we celebrate our country’s Independence Day. We are a nation of diversity of variety. Languages, customs, attire, beliefs, cuisine, looks… everything is as wide-ranging as it can be. The dissimilarities are obvious and oft result into differences.

Never mind the differences, we must choose to align ourselves to the real spectrum of the diversity of India. To paraphrase Voltaire, we may disagree but not become disagreeable. We may argue but we must not allow the argument to needlessly widen the rift.

So often, so many of us mistakenly insist on uniformity for alignment. But diversity is stifled by uniformity as the rainbow would lose its essence if the seven colours were to turn into a single hue. Acceptance and respect for the different dimensions of ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, physical abilities, ideas, beliefs and ideologies will empower the diversity of our country.

Rainbow is born of alignment not uniformity
We must learn to accept the varied diversity!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Self Control

A Zen story unfolds the exchange between three students who are insisting their master is better than others in terms of self-control. The first one declares, ‘my master can stay for days without eating.’ The second one proclaims, ‘my master is greater… he can stay for weeks without sleep.’ The third calmly stated, ‘my teacher is the best at self-control… he eats when he’s hungry and sleeps when he is tired.’

Like all Zen stories, it holds many lessons… however the most pertinent point is that self-control is not about forceful abstinence but it is about wilful moderation. It is about doing things when needed. It is about doing things at the right time. It is about doing things for the right reason. It is about doing it for the ones that matter.

Let us consider an analogy: three friends speaking about the space in their relationships. One brags, ‘I can stay for days without speaking with my kith and kin.’ The second boasts, ‘I can stay for weeks without meeting them.’ The third wisely states, ‘ I strive to speak to them when I remember them and make efforts to meet them when I miss them.’

So often, so many of us choose to forego our needs… not just the basic ones but the higher ones as well. We must choose to do a little of everything we need to. We must choose to reclaim relationships that have withered with time. We must choose to reconnect with our passion by doing the things that make us happy: hobbies, dreams, discoveries and something new!

Self-control is about doing all the things that matter. Self-control is about doing them regularly in small doses, not in occasional large doses. Self-control is about moderation and walking the middle path between the extremes of over-indulgence and obsessive abstinence.

Between indulgence and abstinence is a middle way
Self-control is doing a little of everything, every day!
- Pravin K. Sabnis