I happened to have a visitor, Mudita, on my blog who left a comment after reading a couple of posts. I just read one of her own posts on the Indian attitude of ‘Sab Chalta hai’ – http://thetimeswelivein.blogspot.com/2009/03/is-it-really-sab-chalta-hai.html.

No doubt, many of us are “Indifferent Indians” in the land of “Incredible India,” but I am an optimist. Over the last one week I have come across a few instances of ‘Concerned Indians’ doing their little bit to make India an Incredible one.

– One example is Mudita herself who has put into practice the resolve of donating blood every three months at a blood bank, as donating blood in India is not welcome socio-culturally. When I donated blood a couple of months ago at a camp, the doctor was sharing about the negative attitude of Indians towards donation while hospitals and blood banks are struggling for blood for needy. Unless a member of ones family needs blood, hardly any Indian donates blood. In such a context, it is a great example set by Mudita by being a regular, as I gather there are very few Indians beyond 40 who are healthy enough to give blood. So, the lesson for me is to be healthy and donate blood regularly for a better nation and world.

– I was talking to a friend of mine, Rakesh, whom I have known for over a decade. We were just sharing our experiences of incorporating healthy practices in life, of being a responsible eater and also being active physically. Then he revealed about his victory over smoking. I have known his struggle to give it up so many times. In his words, “I was at a chemist. After attending to others, the chemist was responding to me. He asked how many cigarettes do I smoke in a day? I responded. He computed and said, ‘sir aap tho mere tankva se jyada karcha cigarette pe kar dete ho! (sir, you spend more on smoking than the salary I earn)’” Rakesh was sharing that this comment really hit him like a bolt and like a typical finance guy, quite a few possibilities of usage of the money he is lighting up every day ran in the head. Rakesh shared that he stopped smoking overnight a year ago and, is healthier and happier these days.

– I happened to be at a couple of education conferences last week, one of which was anchored by Tribal Development department of Gujarat. This department runs quite a few residential schools for tribal children. My experience with this department headed by an IAS, Mr. A M Tiwari and facilitated by a couple of other civil servants, in the last six months has been very inspiring. The focus, the passion with which they are working to enable greater number of tribal children get quality education is amazing to tell the least. If only we could find a dozen such civil servants to occupy significant positions in the educational set up of this country, we will be a very different nation few years down the line.

– The other education conference was a roundtable for principals of schools in Delhi, anchored by two individuals, Sunil and Puneet. The purpose was to initiate the school leaders to acknowledge and work on the shifts they need to make in themselves and in their schools – educational and otherwise to create learner-centric environments. The passion and purposefulness of Sunil, an educationist from the very beginning, and Puneet, an Engineer-MBA corporate person who quit everything to start ‘Atmachetna’ in parents towards creating joyful environment for children, is to be experienced to be believed. I am sure both of them will realize their dreams, in the process nation too would, in the education space.

– Sanjiv Kumar Sinha, the name badge read on the CISF security guard who was frisking the fliers at Ahmedabad airport. His enthusiasm and eagerness was amazing. While standing in the queue for security check, I happened to see his level of involved interaction with every passenger whom he was frisking. He had interesting questions to ask to me too, all of which were genuine. I kept on observing this young man from Madhubani carrying his duty while I was waiting in the lounge. This customer centric approach even while executing customer frisking was a real welcome one, especially with all the indifferent attitude I encountered from CISF personnel elsewhere at the airports, both national and international, and also at the railway stations in the last couple of months. In fact, I have captured on film and also confronted the CISF staff at these places for being very indifferent and callous towards their assignment of taking care of the security needs of the people and the country.

So many examples from my day to day experiences of ‘where there is a will….’ I will end this post by paying tributes to many a mentor and school development team in our IWS school movement, who are moving much beyond their defined ‘job’, contributing to every aspect – original academic research and classroom management, parental interaction and facilitation, outstanding outreach and so on.

Yes, if each one of us is mindful of the context and behaves responsibly towards the immediate environment, if each one of us without any expectations extends a hand to a fellow human being that we come across, we will certainly make our world a great place to be. We will definitely, in the process, realize the dream of ‘incredible India’. Where there is a will….

Looking forward to your comments and inputs.

Love and wishes.

sreeni@careerlauncher.com