As I grabbed on the rod I was happy I'd gotta place to stand on the door of a crowded local for the next 1 hour. I managed to pass on my bags inside at the expense of some grumbling passengers and then was struggling with my earphones and phone and the rod for support while standing on the door.
Thanks to my latest craze Annie's song by John denver I dont need to shuffle for songs while travelling. Just before I could get started on the song, vikhroli was approaching, I said a small prayer as the train passed by the church besides the railway track and then concentrated on my music. I was happy that now I could manage to sing this song with ease and I'd almost an hour to day dream as I travel back home from work. In between my mind would drift from the song and I would seek help from God for that elusive dream and end up asking for courage to accept his will.
I was blissfully unaware that I'd covered more than half the distance and I was trying to get each line right from Annie's song when the train stopped at Thane. By this time, it was half past 10 there were hardly any people to fight for the door. A guy came up and was happy to stand near the door. But soon another aggressive dude came up, pushed him and took over the door. Thanks to wisdom and probably pleasant weather this did not turn into another local train fight we get to witness every other day.
As the train moved slowly away from the station, my body half outside, I could feel the breeze on my face and darkness all around and the voice of John denver in my ears and suddenly I heard a thud noise. I moved inside and I thought probably it was a bush or something. The guy who had fought aggressively for the door was hit by a thief standing on the nearby pole. He lost his mobile, thankfully he did not lose his balance. Meanwhile the guy who was pushed inside seemed to be delighted and reminded how he was pushed inside in a unfair manner.
For a few moments we sympathised with the guy who lost his phone. I was kinda tempted to ask if the mobile was a costly one or not, but thankfully I could keep my curiosity under check. I could recollect my mom advising every morning not to stand on the footboard which has become a part of my daily travel. I'd read of such incidents in the papers, got to witness one today. I spent some time inside but after a few minutes I was back at the door with John Denver singing Annie's song into my ears for the nth time and as the train reached the destination I pulled of my earphones and plugged into reality.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Volunteering for TFI
The moment I saw Teach for India as one of the citi community initiatives I signed up and the in the next 10 mins 20 seats were filled up. I could not get my friend Sid register for it. We wanted to do it together and so I was wondering whether I should de-register and sign up for some other event. I was browsing the site and I found suddenly the seats had increased to 30. I got Sid to sign up and managed to convince one more friend of mine Megha to sign up.
On the D-day we landed up at Chowpatty we were quite early for the event. CCD was not open and so we decided to walk on the beach. We were quite apprehensive as how we could go back to that college atmosphere and get people to sign up for Teach for India.Our event coordinator Shaheen Mistry CEO of Teach for India and founder of Akansha was a very pleasant lady and she was quite happy to know that we have quite some information about teach for India. But she was slightly disappointed at the turnout, only 10 out of the 30 (who had registered) had turned up for the event.As she explained about the event, this was quite different from Teach for India which was being advertised in the newspapers. They were on the look out for 100 graduates for a 2 year fellowship program who would undergo a rigorous in-house training and then get on to teach in government schools in remote areas of Mumbai and Pune. Since big corporate houses would be involved and they have plans to scale it up in the coming years on the lines of Teach for America, they have a mechanism to pay these fellows a stipend of 15000. But the challenge was to find that 1 percent of crowd who were deeply motivated and committed to spread education in the country. This is where we as employees of citi had to play to a role.
We were split into small groups and were assigned a college in south mumbai. We were supposed to spread information about this new initiative of teach for India and get the contact details of those who might make the cut for this program. I was imagining myself in college and if somebody like this turned up I would have probably not even shown the patience to listen or my notorious friends who would had their dose of fun at the expense of such volunteers.When we landed in Elphinstone we were quite apprehensive , we could not locate our single point of contact Prof. Vyaas. So we decided to stick together and students were looking at our T-shirt
which brightly announced Citi Global Volunteer day. In fact a couple of students stopped us and enquired what we were up to. We explained patiently what this initiative is and they guided us onto our first contact who might be interested or might know somebody is interested. After explaining to this new guy (who was referred to as Bavaji) for around 20 minutes he told us he was not interested, and that hes more of a introvert and that he didnt know anyone out there. So me and Sid had our first experience of what we would have done to such volunteers. But by then Megha had got the permission from the head of IT department to speak to a class.
Suddenly we had to address a entire class and Megha in a quick transformation was speaking loudly somewhat like Hillary Clinton campaigning for the primaries. I was taken aback, there were times I would ask her on why the issue was handled in a particular way it would take quite some time for the sound to travel the half yard distance from her cubicle to mine. I chose to take a back seat because Megha was turning out to be an excellent speaker. I was studying the responses of 60 0dd students in class who were listening quite attentively to Megha. Initially I could see students working on their assignments but as we drilled down the importance of this program the interest levels were growing. When we would pester them to ask questions quite a few enthusiastic students asked questions about the program and how it would help them in the long run. I was afraid to conclude our lecture because we were about to pose that dreaded question how many would be interested to sign up.
As soon as that question was posed I could see hands raised from each row and yes it was a great feeling. We had converted a good number to our cause and even the young teacher was interested. During all of these 45 mins Sid was missing from the scene and when he came back he looked like a man who has won the war. He had a list with him , which had the names and contacts of those students who were good in academics or sports or extra curricular activities -- the focus group for Teach for India.
At the outset we were afraid that whether we could manage even a single contact and by the end we had managed close to 50 students who would be contacted by Teach for India.
On the D-day we landed up at Chowpatty we were quite early for the event. CCD was not open and so we decided to walk on the beach. We were quite apprehensive as how we could go back to that college atmosphere and get people to sign up for Teach for India.Our event coordinator Shaheen Mistry CEO of Teach for India and founder of Akansha was a very pleasant lady and she was quite happy to know that we have quite some information about teach for India. But she was slightly disappointed at the turnout, only 10 out of the 30 (who had registered) had turned up for the event.As she explained about the event, this was quite different from Teach for India which was being advertised in the newspapers. They were on the look out for 100 graduates for a 2 year fellowship program who would undergo a rigorous in-house training and then get on to teach in government schools in remote areas of Mumbai and Pune. Since big corporate houses would be involved and they have plans to scale it up in the coming years on the lines of Teach for America, they have a mechanism to pay these fellows a stipend of 15000. But the challenge was to find that 1 percent of crowd who were deeply motivated and committed to spread education in the country. This is where we as employees of citi had to play to a role.
We were split into small groups and were assigned a college in south mumbai. We were supposed to spread information about this new initiative of teach for India and get the contact details of those who might make the cut for this program. I was imagining myself in college and if somebody like this turned up I would have probably not even shown the patience to listen or my notorious friends who would had their dose of fun at the expense of such volunteers.When we landed in Elphinstone we were quite apprehensive , we could not locate our single point of contact Prof. Vyaas. So we decided to stick together and students were looking at our T-shirt
which brightly announced Citi Global Volunteer day. In fact a couple of students stopped us and enquired what we were up to. We explained patiently what this initiative is and they guided us onto our first contact who might be interested or might know somebody is interested. After explaining to this new guy (who was referred to as Bavaji) for around 20 minutes he told us he was not interested, and that hes more of a introvert and that he didnt know anyone out there. So me and Sid had our first experience of what we would have done to such volunteers. But by then Megha had got the permission from the head of IT department to speak to a class.
Suddenly we had to address a entire class and Megha in a quick transformation was speaking loudly somewhat like Hillary Clinton campaigning for the primaries. I was taken aback, there were times I would ask her on why the issue was handled in a particular way it would take quite some time for the sound to travel the half yard distance from her cubicle to mine. I chose to take a back seat because Megha was turning out to be an excellent speaker. I was studying the responses of 60 0dd students in class who were listening quite attentively to Megha. Initially I could see students working on their assignments but as we drilled down the importance of this program the interest levels were growing. When we would pester them to ask questions quite a few enthusiastic students asked questions about the program and how it would help them in the long run. I was afraid to conclude our lecture because we were about to pose that dreaded question how many would be interested to sign up.
As soon as that question was posed I could see hands raised from each row and yes it was a great feeling. We had converted a good number to our cause and even the young teacher was interested. During all of these 45 mins Sid was missing from the scene and when he came back he looked like a man who has won the war. He had a list with him , which had the names and contacts of those students who were good in academics or sports or extra curricular activities -- the focus group for Teach for India.
At the outset we were afraid that whether we could manage even a single contact and by the end we had managed close to 50 students who would be contacted by Teach for India.
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