Give me a city I can Trust!

Give me a city I can Trust!

A city where I can walk with freedom
Where I feel safe to walk the streets
Where I am not killed because of my gender
Where I can be fearless and alive

Give me a city I can trust
Where I know I will be taken care of
protected and loved
Where I can trust my fellow humans
and not fear dark corners or shadows in the night

Give me a city I can trust
Where I can play in parks
Breathe clean air
Care for stray dogs and cats
smell the earth
Fly kites and dance in the rain
pluck fruits from trees
and wake up to chirping of birds

Give me a city
Where love, care and empathy
for all humans, creatures and nature
are the basic tenets of society
and we are the care-takers.

Give me a city I can trust
Where I can make friends with strangers and neighbours
without feeling nervous or fearful
Where I get the respect I deserve
for being who I am.

Give me a city
Where I have a say!
Where I can discover and nurture my dreams!
Where I can explore in wonder
the beauty of our world
and feel proud to be a child
born in this city.

I urge you!
Give me a city I want to be born in!

~ An unborn child

A City our Children can Trust

At a Creative Dialogue a few weeks back, I coined a new vision for myself,  “A City our Children can Trust”. As I began thinking about it an inspiring imagery overtook my senses and I began to articulate my vision. What is a city? It is a community defined by a geographical boundary. It is made up of elements of governance, private and common spaces but more importantly it is made up a people who can feel a sense of ownership, pride, responsibility and accountability for this space. In my vision, the city can also be a country and can also be the world we all live in and make together.

Is it really possible for individuals to look beyond me, myself, home, family, work and everything else that we define as my space in our life? I realized it had become possible for me to think of such a vision. If we define this space in the context of the children who become a part of this space in the future, it makes up for a powerful vision of the future.

Who and what do we Trust? Why do we Trust? What comes to our mind when we hear the word Trust? For me, Trust is like a parent’s love – firm, rock solid, unconditional and ever-present. It immediately makes me feel loved and cared for. It is like familiarity. It is something I can come home too. It is a friend’s warm hug and it is a family’s sweet banter. It is where I feel I can go to anytime and all the time. It is assurance and reassurance. It is a space for freedom and expression.

A city our children can trust. What does that mean?

For me, it’s a space. A space where a child can walk and be fearless. A space where a child can walk the streets and still feel secure and protected. It is boundary-less. It is safety – physical, mental and emotional. In every aspect of the city, a child feels love and care.  The roads are clean and pollution free. There are green spaces that live in an awesome interconnectedness with development. There are spaces to play, to jump, to dance, to scream and to sing. A place for freedom!

For me, its people, who are looking after the city as something that they are care-takers of, for their children. 

They are working to make the city work for the children. They don’t own it but they take full accountability for it. It is people for whom the city is as much important as their own homes and they protect and care for it like their own home. There is mutual respect and support for each other. It is people who through values of care, support, empathy, tolerance and humility are true role models of the innate humaneness that is us.

It is a space that engages children as equal stakeholders and treats them as human beings who have a voice and an understanding of what they wish to make of this city. It is space that provides for all children without prejudice – water, food, education, healthcare. It enables children to discover their own dreams and passion and supports them to achieve it. A city that protects children from violence and abuse and upholds all their rights. It is a city that understands and respects the interconnectedness and interdependence of all universe. All creatures living in harmony.

It is a co-created space with leadership from the community and leadership understood as a responsibility, to be treated with honour and to be delivered with service.

A city our children can trust will be a space where we take challenges head-on and solve them as communities where each individual is equally important.

We know, in the current reality, we will be leaving our children a city, a world filled with challenges. Lack of resources like water and food. Spaces that are polluted and spaces that have eaten into the very fabric of human empathy. It is a reality we cannot escape. We have been irresponsible. We will be responsible for pushing our children to fight for survival. We are sowing the seeds of resentment, deceit and violence into our future. It looks bleak.

However, in this city our children can trust, it will not be the maxim of “survival of the fittest” but a maxim of let’s work together to find our solutions. Find solutions that bring us together, that create a supportive caring community. It is a space where survival is not based on wealth but on a shared ethos of love and care.

When a city like Bangalore runs out of water in 5 years, are we going to have our children fight with each other and kill each other to survive or would we like our children to respect every human being and work together to find common innovative solutions for everyone. Can we build a sense of resilience in our children that they will find hope in hopelessness and even in the toughest of times, find a way to keep their innate humaneness alive.

I am reminded of this moral dilemma in Batman when the joker has planted a bomb on two ships. One ship that has all the hardened criminals and other that has the  richest elite from Gotham city. He gives them the ultimate challenge of human empathy. He gives the bomb remotes to each ship for the other ship. The ship that would use the bomb first would stay alive while killing the other. The joker’s belief was that people will kill to survive and stay alive. A sadistic moral dilemma. The people in both ships had their own moral arguments. The rich said, anyway the other ship has hardened criminals, the filth of our city, killing them would only mean we are cleansing the city. No one wants them anyway. The criminals thought this is their opportunity to take revenge of all their hardships. This is their time to take over. Yet, when the clock struck the people in both ships chose not to press the trigger. They chose to appeal to their innate goodness and decided to sacrifice their lives because their humaneness did not allow them to kill the other.

Don’t we see that we, the humans of the present, have become the Joker for our children. We are forcing our children to make such inhumane choices in their future. In the name of economic resources, growth, development, greed, justice we are already making these calls and with each such action, forgetting our very soul of being human.

Will our children press the remote button or reach deep inside their souls to protect, care and support each other. The survival of our city would depend on these complex moral dilemmas. In the city our children can trust, the foundation of dealing with such dilemmas would be the values we impart today – not just as parents and teachers but as communities that make up our city.

Do we have the courage to look beyond ourselves, let go of our need to hoard and control and find our deep sense of love, care and support to build a City that our children can truly Trust! It is in our hands today. It will require us to unlearn everything we have known. Can we? Do we want to?

I believe we can! 

Ishwar

"Oye Tik Tik Tik Tik, Oye Oye Tik Tik Tik Tik!"

For many years, this sound has created an excitement and flutter in my heart and made me run out onto my balcony. I could hear it from many blocks away and then wait eagerly hoping that Ishwar would come into our lane today.

Ishwar has been selling Chaat (A sweet and savoury evening snack in India) on his cart from the time I can remember. He would make his trademark sound "Oye Tik Tik Tik Tik" and kids and adults alike would come out of their homes to taste his delicious Bhel Puri, Sev Puri, Nippat Masala, Tomato Masala amongst other delicacies. I never really noticed him but as a child I wondered where he came from, where he lived, how could he make such delicious snacks but never bothered to find out.

Last year, as I started wondering about the Invisible people in my life who have made my life comfortable or enriched my life with something they gave me, I thought of Ishwar. I, ofcourse, didn't know his name then. I once saw him pushing his cart from a slum near our office and moving towards the neighbourhood I lived in. It was a good 4-5 Km distance and I wondered if he ever got tired?

Recently, I found the courage to talk to him and ask him his name and where he lived and opened a whole new world for me. I could see how the years had caught up on his face and body. He looked pale and old and yet I could see his eyes twinkle as he spoke about his life, his family and his children.

I had finally seen Ishwar and all his humaneness.

I saw how much he loved his work and how passionately he continued to work. He remembered my family and had vague recollections of me as a child and he said he would like to keep selling Chaat as long as he could. I asked him why? He said because his customers wanted it. He said many a times, they have come looking for him. Sometimes they call him and ask him when he will be coming to their neighbourhood.

I saw how he had integrated his life's purpose with the people he fed. I sensed pride and love in his work and realized how much his work meant to him and how he had positively impacted the lives of thousands through his food.

He shared with me that he had four sons. Two were married. Two worked as engineers, one was a driver and another one I don't remember. Yet, he worked with pride and love and care on his art and his passion in life - To make delicious snacks and feed them to people. I saw how much people had loved him and his art and his life became complete with it.

I felt loved and grateful when I got to know Ishwar as he was! 

Freedom!

I see it in a distance
It seems elusive
I know its real!
Vivid in my dreams
Clear in my childhood
I know it exists!

As a child,
I have tasted it
Feel cheated by what I know
Hopeful of the unknown

Here it comes fast,
Loud, rumbling like a Revolution!
I smell it sweet and bloody.

I need it
I want it
Freedom!

The Pigeon with closed eyes

It is said that when a pigeon sees a cat, it closes its eyes. That way, It assumes that since the pigeon can't see the cat, the cat does not exist and that is its folly. I sometimes feel like the Pigeon who has closed its eyes to escape accepting the inevitable.

I read about the murder of a couple in broad daylight as front page news. I read about 650 Million people living in a blackout for many hours. I hear about the many men and women who are fasting for a corrupt free India. I read about how a group of men harassed and molested young men and women who were celebrating a birthday. I see a beautiful tree being cut outside our office because it was mingling with the power lines and causing power outages. I reluctantly fight with our builder everyday who has scant respect for keeping his word or being accountable. I face challenges with labour at our apartment everyday who promise to come but don't land up.

Yet, every morning, I find my way to office to work on a vision of a society which is based on values of dignity, respect and accountability. I make myself believe that if I continue doing this, someday the above issues will disappear.

I feel and act like the pigeon that ignores the impending doom, the hopeless situation and closes its eyes to believe that there is indeed no danger. I wonder, if I live in hopelessness waiting for the inevitable to happen or I live in hope that things will indeed change. I wonder if it is innate motivation that makes me do what I do or its just a shrugged acceptance of the reality and I use my passion for a cause as a distraction from the inevitable hopelessness of our times.

I wonder!

The Power of THE TEAM

I have wanted to pen my thoughts for quite sometime now but just wasn’t getting the flow so decided to just write it out as the thoughts flow. Its been on my mind to reflect on how 2011 was and the big changes it brought into my life and at Dream A Dream.

As I look back, 2011 has been a fascinating year of surprises and contrasts for me but most importantly the one word that definitely describes it was “Reflective”. It was a year that has challenged me to go deep within myself and find my inner core of strength, faith and belief in myself. 

From the initial months where I went through days of self-doubt on my abilities as a leader to the high of the year-end where I was respected and appreciated for the way I handled the year at Dream A Dream. The loss of faith at the beginning of the year, paved the way for a more strengthened sense of self by the end of the year and an almost undefinable calm and peace in my mind and heart.

After having built the organization over the last 9-11 years, I felt for the first time, I didn’t know what to do in the crisis of trust that emerged from within the ranks of the organization. In retrospect, I know now that the winds of change had gathered speed and had even picked me up in their stride. What happened was meant to happen. The change was finally happening, the seeds of which, I had sowed when I first started articulating the vision of the world for myself as a young 21-year old. I realized for the first time, late last year, that I had never wanted to built an institution, that I had always wanted the change to come from within people and the innate courage that each one of us hold within us. I had always believed in people and wanted to build a vision on ownership, vision and accountability. I had lost track of this vision in the years when building an institution became more important.

As I started sharing the vision of a Dream A Dream which is a “Community of Changemakers” – I didn’t realize that any change is gut-wrenching and difficult and I was caught in its storm too.

The imagery that has struck in my head and heart from this experience in early 2011 has been the immense support I received from my loved ones and people who cared for me – people in the team who stood by the organization in arguably one of its most difficult phases and people who stood by me and continued to trust me. Coupled with the crisis of trust was the huge financial crunch that the organization also underwent during those times. We had wiped out our entire corpus built painstakingly over 7 years and we were staring at a bankruptcy in less than 2-months.

In this crisis, I found the opportunity to restore faith and trust in the organization and its integrity, reputation and faith built over the years. We managed to raise Rs. 1.3 Crores (USD 290,000) in 6 weeks reaching out to the faith that our supporters had in us and more importantly believing in the work we do. There has been no looking back since then. The team stood by solidly believing in the dream and the organization and we slowly started the process of rebuilding the organization with a new vision of “Scaling our Impact” to thousands more children and truly believing that our existence was important.  What emerged was the leadership of every single person within the team and most importantly the leadership of Bobbymon and Suchetha who took on the bigger challenges of building and holding the team together, giving me the space to bring in the supporters and rebuild the tainted reputation of the organization.

And, what a phenomenal team has emerged from this experience.

Today, as I walk into office every single day I see an unprecedented energy and passion in the team. I feel honoured and proud to be working with this team as they challenge and support and scale new heights every single day. Today, the vision of building a “Community of Changemakers” is well on its course as each of us believe that “We are the change we wish to see in the world!”.  The energy and enthusiasm is palpable, the drive to achieve is visible, the belief that this is my vision, my idea and my cause can be seen in how the team rallies behind each other and gives it all with passion and commitment. The accountability to goals is unrelenting and the passion for excellence is truly inspiring. It’s a team that is willing to challenge convention and believes everything is possible. It’s a team that is unafraid and ready to explore the unknown. It’s a team that is commitment to creating a world where each individual is respected & appreciated for who they are.

For me, Its been an year that I would not substitute for anything else in my life as it has restored my faith in myself, my dream, my vision and in the innate humaneness in all of us.