Training with TFI has officially begun. And one of our very first activities was to travel to a low-income community and "connect with a child". No further instructions. For me, the thought was terrifying - what am I supposed to say to a random child that would help us connect - and in one hour?!
As I walked around the narrow streets, I found myself too nervous to approach any child, so for a while I busied myself with just looking at the surroundings. I have never been in a slum before - seen them from outside, from my so-called real world, but never, physically, entered one. What appeared to be one single lane slowly ended up being a maze of small lanes, packed with one-room houses on either side. The heat drove everyone outside, and the people were sitting outside their houses and chatting with each other, looking at us visitors with unhidden curiosity. At every few steps was a barrier on the road - whether in the form of a woman was washing her clothes, or a 2-year old boy sitting naked while a man squirted water on him frome a hose-pipe, or a group of children who were playing cricket with some of our TFI fellows.
Yet their hospitality could put us so-called "hospitable Indian" to shame; as I offered some crayons and a paper to a 4-year-old boy named akaash, his mother invited me inside their home and offered lunch to me several times. How many of us would smilingly open doors (assuming we have them) to strangers trying to talk to our children, and how many of us would slam the door and call the police?
As I sat with Akaash and his sister Aarti watching them draw and colour, I realized I didn't know how to take the conversation further. Around me, other fellows were swarmed with children as they laughed, chatted, and played, and here I was, at a loss for words, unable to ask their mother questions that I was craving to know the answers of. But I didn't know what would be insensitive - that pre-conditioned sense of "appropriate versus inappropriate" kept nagging me, preventing me to speak up and ask about their family's situation and try to understand their lifestyle.
And so, while the clock moved all too fast for the other fellows, for me, it moved all too slowly. And that scared me. The whole journey back, I was naged with doubts in my head, questioning whether I would always be like this with children, questioning my decision to spend the next two years of my life with people whom I can't seem to talk to.
But in the evening, as we sat in a huge auditorium for our opening ceremony as TFI Fellows 2011, someone from last year's batch said two things that completely stood out to me - belief and push. Belief in ourselves, that each and every one of us can do what we have set out to do, and the willingness to constantly push ourselves more and more, bringing us closer each day to achieving our goal - our mission.
I hope the believing and the pushing begin today.
As I walked around the narrow streets, I found myself too nervous to approach any child, so for a while I busied myself with just looking at the surroundings. I have never been in a slum before - seen them from outside, from my so-called real world, but never, physically, entered one. What appeared to be one single lane slowly ended up being a maze of small lanes, packed with one-room houses on either side. The heat drove everyone outside, and the people were sitting outside their houses and chatting with each other, looking at us visitors with unhidden curiosity. At every few steps was a barrier on the road - whether in the form of a woman was washing her clothes, or a 2-year old boy sitting naked while a man squirted water on him frome a hose-pipe, or a group of children who were playing cricket with some of our TFI fellows.
Yet their hospitality could put us so-called "hospitable Indian" to shame; as I offered some crayons and a paper to a 4-year-old boy named akaash, his mother invited me inside their home and offered lunch to me several times. How many of us would smilingly open doors (assuming we have them) to strangers trying to talk to our children, and how many of us would slam the door and call the police?
As I sat with Akaash and his sister Aarti watching them draw and colour, I realized I didn't know how to take the conversation further. Around me, other fellows were swarmed with children as they laughed, chatted, and played, and here I was, at a loss for words, unable to ask their mother questions that I was craving to know the answers of. But I didn't know what would be insensitive - that pre-conditioned sense of "appropriate versus inappropriate" kept nagging me, preventing me to speak up and ask about their family's situation and try to understand their lifestyle.
And so, while the clock moved all too fast for the other fellows, for me, it moved all too slowly. And that scared me. The whole journey back, I was naged with doubts in my head, questioning whether I would always be like this with children, questioning my decision to spend the next two years of my life with people whom I can't seem to talk to.
But in the evening, as we sat in a huge auditorium for our opening ceremony as TFI Fellows 2011, someone from last year's batch said two things that completely stood out to me - belief and push. Belief in ourselves, that each and every one of us can do what we have set out to do, and the willingness to constantly push ourselves more and more, bringing us closer each day to achieving our goal - our mission.
I hope the believing and the pushing begin today.
Awwwww!!! I LOVEE IT RUCHH PUCH!!... ull get there.. its all a part of the journey and this is the process is the funnest part. Two years from noe, you will look at this day and see the long leaps and distances that you have crossed and achieved your goals!! Its not so far, its just a matter of time. and true BELIEVE IN URESELF! Its the simplest and strongest advice anyone can give you! So very very proud of you! miss you much!!
ReplyDeleteKnowing you the way I do ... probably the kid would have had more confidence in asking you questions ... but don't worry, I am getting a strong feeling that this job is going to make a very strong and confident "random-stranger" out of you, so much so that I can totally picture you as a Sales-Representative in some detergent company, going door-to-door selling "Washing Powder Nirma" and singing "Doodh ki safedi Nirma se aaey. Rangeen kapra bhi khil khil jaey, Sub ki pasand Nirmaaaaa." In other words, you'll start giving me COMPETITION.
ReplyDelete:P