Long back a friend of mine repeated something he has heard from his Guru (Sathya Sai baba), "Just have nobel intention or Sadsankalpa in you; rest of the things will happen on its own".
Time and again this has been shown to be true in my life till date. I shall discuss three of the many such incidents that has happened.
I joined IIT Guwahati in 2006 (as an academic). After joining I wanted to get active and "do something". Never knew what. Never knew how. I will tell you three interesting that happened during my stay in Guwahati.
There were few tribal (Bodo) villages just next to IIT campus and they had no electricity. I always felt bad. Inside campus we were enjoying an almost developed-country standard of living with uninterrupted power supply. And just outside are these villages with no power at all. I was back in India after three years (in the UK) and that too in North East. I never knew whom to talk about this. By some coincidence there was a meeting in the state power ministry. The professor who was invited from IIT asked me "why don’t you come along as well?” I was happy to accompany. Before proceeding further I will like to talk a little about this particular professor. He was an extremely knowledgeable person, very rich and the brother of the then chief minister of the state. Still, on meeting him one can never tell this all. He had this enchanting perennial smile which will make your mood lighter and your day brighter. He is one of the nicest and most down-to-earth persons I have ever met. Anyway, in the meeting I knew no one and all were very senior officers. Just as a curiosity, over the tea break, I mentioned the power-less villages to one under-secretary. He told it is a state government policy that all the villages are to be given electricity within next few months and he will check if I am right about what I say. And within next few months those villages got electricity! This was very encouraging. First of all it proved that government officials are not all corrupt. In fact majority are sincere persons who mean all good. And secondly, again, if you have good intentions then things just happen.
The second incident was even more interesting. I had a desire to donate blood. When I was in the UK, they made me wait for ever and tested my blood two times. Finally they told that I have malaria antibodies in my blood. Hence it is not safe for a common British person. This one time I thought it will be nice to donate blood, now that I am back in India. And almost like a miracle one student approached me within few days. He had this idea of organising a blood donation camp and seeked my help and guidance. The process took a few months. And most of the work was done by that student. I just was there like a figurehead. Anyone from the campus community (including the security guards) were allowed to donate blood. I remember one funny incident. A security guard came to my office and told he wanted to donate blood as well. He told he got too much blood and that is why he gets angry so often. The Assamese word for blood is Tej which also means valour. And he wanted to donate some blood and hence make his head calm! Anyway, the camp was organised with help from all quarters, starting from our campus dispensary doctors to the Guwahati Medical College blood bank. And it was told to me later that that was the largest blood donation camp (in terms of number of units collected) in the whole of North East India till that time!
The last story I will tell you is even more exciting. The usual thing that happens on Republic Day (26th Jan) and Independence Day (15 Aug) in IIT was a morning parade and free snacks. I was not happy with this. So during my second event (i.e. Independence Day 2007) I thought of having a discussion forum. I advertised it in all hostels. What I got was just 15-20 students. Still we had a vibrant discussion. Lot of energy and new ideas. Few days later one of those students knocked my door. He is a guy who is always full of enthusiasm. Full of energy. I still remember his first line. Without much ado he just told “Rocky sir, such karma he” (Rocky sir (that was what most students used to call me because of my ponytail) we need to do something). Then we discussed a bit. I had this idea for long that we are not utilising our resources wisely. We have an IIT in this region and the campus is full of some of the brightest kids of the nation. And just outside the campus the village schools do not have teachers! We thought may be we can start having tutorial sessions for the village kids inside IIT. IIT campuses have one school (Kendriya Vidyalaya). The then principal of the school was a very enthusiastic guy from Punjab. He was all supportive. He allowed us to use the IIT school classrooms to teach the village kids. I must mention here that not many school principals would have allowed this. Then within few weeks we had a group of volunteers and then started the programme which we called Zero Illiteracy Zone (ZIZ). We would have classes on Saturday afternoons. It was all organised by that student. Once again I was just a figurehead. ZIZ ran years after that student graduated. Through it I have met some amazing students who have stayed on as my friends. And within few years the village schools had some history. For the first time their students cleared the matriculation exams.
It is really humbling to see how it all happened. I did almost nothing. The only thing I did was “sadsankalpa” and everything else just happened. Like some divine miracle. Or as they say the universe conspires to make them happen.
