Police and rulers can overcome only external foes; they have no power to destroy the internal enemies. The internal foes, the six enemies(arishadvarga) that operate inside a person, can be uprooted only by the teachings of the Lord, love of God, and the company of the holy and the great. The world suffers harm at the hands of wicked people when the police and the authorities fail in their duties. Similarly, the world is enveloped in darker ignorance when ‘great’ spiritual aspirants give up the path of world welfare, become victims of sense enjoyment and nurture ambition to earn name and fame. Spiritual elders are the rulers of the internal state; administrative authorities are the rulers of the external state. The whole world will bask in peace and joy only when worldly authorities and spiritual aspirants realise their duties and perform them with the right attitudes, with the welfare of all at heart, remembering the omnipotence of the Lord.
Righteousness (Dharma) is eternal, it is same for everyone everywhere. It expresses the significance of one’s inner Divinity (Atma). The birth place of righteousness (dharma) is your heart. What emanates from the heart as a pure idea, when translated into action is called dharma. If this is to be explained in a manner that all can understand, you can say, “Do unto others as you want them to do unto you”! Dharma also consists in avoiding actions which would hurt others. If anyone does things that causes happiness to you, then you in turn, should do such things that will cause happiness to others. When we recognise that certain acts others do cause difficulties, and when we too do the same deeds, that clearly isadharma! Sometimes, and under some circumstances, an individual who commits a wrong must be told in very clear terms that he has done something wrong, so that he improves.
More than 30 young people were assembled on the banks of the Adyar River next to Surya Nagar in Kotturpuram early in the morning on March 2. Armed with orange gloves and white rags, they were on a cleaning mission as part of the Chennai Trekking Club’s efforts to clear the area of all non-biodegradable waste.
According to Peter Van Geit (44), the founder of the Chennai Trekking Club, “This is the 14th session of the cleanliness drive that we are carrying out in the city. The waste that is seen on these banks has not been dumped by the locals but has been washed in during the floods. There were thick layers of garbage here but now it has reduced as we have been cleaning this place for the past two weeks.”
On the other side of the river, heaps of garbage still dot the bank, and the river runs an alarming black colour. “We can reach the other side of the river but the land is too steep for us to clean it up. The water is black in color as many illegal sewage connections are connected to the river,” said Peter.
Most of the waste that can be seen on the slope consist of cloth, glass bottles, plastic bags and other household trash. Peter and his team of volunteers have been gathering together all the non-biodegradable waste for transportation to the common dumping ground in Pallikaranai by trucks of the Chennai Corporation. –
The Chennai Trekking Club began the cleaning drive in the city two months ago, in the aftermath of the Chennai floods. “We started the relief work in different places like Cuddalore and Pulicat. Many slums were in a very bad condition and all the drainage water was inside their homes. We were helping them out in Cuddalore and Pulicat. Later, we decided to start cleaning near the Adyar and Cooum rivers in Chennai.”
The cleaning drive came about as a result of a shared passion among the club’s members for the environment, says Peter. “The Chennai Trekking club carries out trekking trips to beautiful natural locations like virgin forests, mountain ranges, rivers or lakes. Nature is very close to our hearts. So that’s where we started. It also helps to create awareness and reach out to thousands of people and sensitizing people about the issues.”
Building awareness, Peter feels, is an urgent task, as waste disposal is a crucial problem for Chennai. “There are 6000 tonnes of garbage which leaves the city every single day. Most of it ends up in water bodies, rivers and the ocean, which are our lifelines. Chennai has the highest per capita waste generation in the country. There is no segregation of waste in the city and all of it is accumulated in Pallikaranai, one of the few wetlands remaining in India. 90% of our garbage footprint can be reduced immediately by segregating dry (recyclable) and wet (compostable) waste at our home.” –
For the volunteers, many different reasons have drawn them to the initiative. Roopa, a doctor said, “I joined this initiative to help people in cleaning the place but it has changed many things for me. Now, I go home and try keeping the place clean and segregate the waste.”
Bensh, an engineer, said that he comes from an agriculture background and was drawn to an earlier tree plantation initiative. He later joined the cleanliness drive as he thinks it is the social responsibility of the people to do such things. For Mohan, it is about making new friends and enjoying time spent usefully in cleaning such places.
In the past, the group has carried out cleanliness drives in Chitra Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur, Pallaikarnai and few tree parks.
Peter Van Geit began the Chennai Trekking Club about eight years ago. “I’m a very active person in sports. I wanted a platform to connect. I set up a website and started sharing stories and images of trips and in some time people started joining me for cycling, swimming, running and trekking trips.” Now, the Chennai Trekking Club has more than 27000 members.
Besides their current cleanliness drives, the Club also carries out tree-planting initiatives, an annual coastal clean-up drive, workshops on nature, restoration of historical sites and organic farming. It also organizes trekking trips on weekends, swimming classes, triathlons and marathons.
Inspired by their example? Surely a task as large as cleaning up the city could use many more volunteers.
Amir Hussain Lone was eight year old when he lost his arms in an accident with a bandsaw when he visited his father’s sawmill to deliver lunch to his brother.
Today, at the age of 26, he is the captain of the Jammu and Kashmir state para-cricket team.
“I was taking some food for my brother who worked at my father’s sawmill. I used to play with the sawmill machine, but on this occasion both of my arms got entangled in the machine,” he told Mail Online. Ironically, the sawmill used to manufacture cricket bats.
Amir never let his misfortune come in the way of his dreams. Cricket has been his passion since childhood, and he worked extremely hard to make himself capable of playing. But the journey till here was not an easy one. Amir’s father had to sell his sawmill to arrange the money for his treatment, and the society started treating him like someone who would not be able to achieve anything in life. His treatment took three years and when he resumed school after that, his teachers told him to stay at home. This was when Amir started his journey of becoming self-reliant by selling walnuts to purchase books and by practising his sport. He holds the bat between his neck and shoulder and bowls with his toes.
“When I tried to play cricket for the first time after the accident, people used to make fun of me. Now they are very supportive,” he says.
He wants to play like Sachin Tendulkar one day. Watch Amir’s inspiring journey here:
Sparsh Shah, a 12-year-old singing prodigy who lives in the US, was born with almost 40 fractures. He has given more than 45 performances in just the last year-and-a-half. Read his inspirational story here.
Sparsh (aka Purhythm) has written 10 songs – “This Love Will Never Fade,” “There’s Always Tomorrow,” “Why’d You Have To Leave Me?”, “You Are My Heroes,” “Count on Me,” “A Little Bit of Respect,” “Turn Around,” “Birthday Wishes,” “You’re The One,” and “No One Knows.” He has composed the music for most of them too.
Listen to him pay homage to his favourite Eminem here:
Aren’t you still feeling that beat? Sparsh has been learning Hindustani classical music for the last seven-and-a-half years and American vocal music for the last three years.
Sparsh is multi-talented. He performs at community events and has appeared on local radio stations and television shows, besides hosting shows as an MC.
He has memorized 250 digits of Pi, can say the 12 longest words in the English dictionary in less than 18 seconds, and can speak in four different accents in English. He has written several poems, short stories, motivational/funny speeches (“I am Disabled”), etc., and acted in the developmental reading of a play called The Greatest Choice at the Crossroads theatre in New Jersey. He was able to spell a 45 letter word, “Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,” at the age of 6.
Hiren and Jigisha Shah migrated to the US some 14 years ago. In 2003, when Sparsh was born, they could never have imagined their little boy would touch millions of hearts soon.
Sparsh Shash (Purhythm)
His parents, however, could experience the joy of holding their baby only after six months of his birth – Sparsh had broken 35-40 bones while emerging from his mother’s womb.
Sparsh was born with an incurable disease called Osteogenesis Imperfecta.
This condition makes his bones extremely fragile and brittle – even a hard handshake can break his bones. He cannot bear weight on his hands and legs, so he cannot walk or run like other normal kids. He has had more than 125 fractures in the first 12 years of his life already and the doctors cannot predict how many more are to come.
In April 2015, Sparsh participated in and won the prestigious talent competition Young Voice of NYC,and was honoured to be made the ‘Youth Ambassador’ for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He now supports the hospital in spreading awareness about the fight against pediatric cancer.
Sparsh has been a catalyst in helping raise over half a million dollars for various philanthropic organisations.
Sparsh, at the Chennai floods fund raising programme
Sparsh was also a member of the Watt NXT Robotics team that won at the state and regional levels in the US. He participated in the first World Robotics Championship in St. Louis, MO in 2015. Sparsh won the first prize in the speech competition about Dr.Ambedkar at the Indian Consulate in New York City in November 2015. Sparsh also participated won the Swardhara Singing Competition organized by Marathi Vishwa, New Jersey, in February 2016.
He always thanks his parents and grandparents for his success:
“I don’t see myself as disabled. I just dis the ‘dis’ from disabled. Most people with disability always keep thinking about their disability and that makes others think about it too. I want to be the courage of such people,” says Sparsh with a smile.
When Sparsh was just three years old, he started learning the keyboard and reading books. However, as his bones kept breaking, it was difficult for him to continue to learn the keyboard and he had to stop playing.
Watch him say hello to The Better India readers here. (Thank you Sparsh for this!)
Once, when he was three-and-a-half, his family was travelling in the car and his father switched on the radio. To his parents’ surprise, Sparsh remembered the song that was playing on the radio and started singing along. They thought that he perhaps knew the song because it was a well known one. But then, he sang the second, the third and even the fourth song that was played on the radio. When they asked Sparsh about this, he said his preschool bus driver played the same channel and that is how he had memorized all the songs. This was the beginning of the making of this gifted singer and musician.
“Dreams are not enough, Hard work is what turns them into reality! And so, he makes sure that he works hard enough to make his dreams come true,” says Jigisha Shah, Sparsh’s mother.
Sparsh started learning Indian classical music at the age of 6 and is a student of Pandit Jasraj Institute of Music (PJIM) since 2009. He also learns American vocal music.
“All we tell him is that no matter what situation you have in life, never limit yourself!. We believe that Sparsh is a miracle who has come to this world to do something extra special,” says Hiren Shah (Sparsh’s father)
A 7th grader, Sparsh is also excellent in his studies. He has a 5-year-old brother named Anuj who plays video games with him.
Sparsh with his family.
Sparsh has gone through multiple surgeries for his brittle bones. His parents help him write when he has fractures, or he uses voice to text technology to do his homework.
When asked how he deals with the pain, he says: “There is not much you can do about pain…isn’t it? Crying is just a natural response to pain but you need to smile. This is what my Papa taught me since I was small. He said that I should tell my bones to smile whenever there is a fracture. If I don’t smile at them, they won’t respond to me with a smile. And so, whenever there is an x-ray after a fracture, I look at my bones and say – Smile please bones.”
Sparsh loves rapping as he believes that rap makes even sad songs come alive; rapping keeps the spark going. This huge fan of Eminem also loves Bollywood songs. “Abhi mujh me kahi” by Sonu Nigam is his favourite Hindi song.
He met musician Neel a year-and-a-half ago, at a Karaoke competition. They sang together. Since then, Neel and Sparsh have been inseparable musical buddies and they have written a wonderful motivational duet: “Count On Me.”
Sparsh recently auditioned forAmerica’s Got Talent and is waiting for the results, which will be out by March 2016.
He won the first prize in Gaan Nipun Spardha, a prestigious singing competition organized by PJIM and was awarded a certificate of recognition by none other than the stalwart of Hindustani classical music, Sangeet Martand Pandit Jasraj, on February 27, 2016.
Sparsh, with Pandit Jasraj
Despite all the challenges he has faced, Sparsh’s spirit is unbreakable. He aspires to sing in front of a billion people one day.
“I want to leave the marks of my footprints (aka wheelchair tracks ;)) in the sand of legacy so deep that not even a tsunami can erase them,” concludes Sparsh.
Join this miracle boy’s journey to fame and help him make his dream come true by sharing his latest sensational cover song: “Not Afraid” with all your friends and family members.
To listen to Sparsh’s magical music, log on and subscribe to his YouTube channel. You can also connect with Sparsh and keep updated on his progress by liking his Facebook page or following him on Twitter or Instagram .
The Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft is seen as it lands with Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly of NASA and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov of Roscosmos near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, March 2, 2016 (Kazakh time). Kelly and Kornienko completed an International Space Station record year-long mission to collect valuable data on the effect of long duration weightlessness on the human body that will be used to formulate a human mission to Mars. Volkov returned after spending six months on the station.
Kind-hearted doctors run medical institutions here and there, serve the diseased and cure the afflicted. Similarly if we had ashrams here and there of holy personages who were experts in the treatment and cure of the ‘birth-and-death disease’, then people could be cured of the afflictions of ignorance, untruth, immorality, and self-aggrandisement. Ignorance produces wickedness, and it can be cured only by the medicine of the knowledge of Brahman(Brahma-jnana), with supplementary doses of the drugs like peacefulness, fortitude, self-control (santhi, sama, dama), etc. Instead, the ‘great men’ of today, for the sake of name and fame, give those who approach them the medicines they demand and the drugs their patients relish! The so-called ‘great’, on account of their weakness and foolishness, fall into perdition even before they taste the spiritual bliss themselves! The holy essence has to be experienced and realised. One’s selfish needs have to be sacrificed.
Your mind, destiny, position, and wealth (mati, gati, stiti, andsampatti), are gifts of God. You must use it to develop the qualities of equality, solidarity, integrity, and amity. But people today have changed their mind (mati) into a wicked mind(durmati). It is your mind that makes you a good or bad person. Improper use of mind will make you egoistic. Modern youth and students aspire for wealth, friendship, and high position but not virtues, and indulge in ostentation. Many students waste their time in bad company, bad thoughts, and bad behavior. Brass and gold, both look alike. But a vessel of brass makes much more noise than one made of gold. Students should not indulge in showmanship and tall talk. Always talk sweetly and softly, with humility. You cannot always oblige, but you can always speak obligingly. Always talk lovingly and respectfully, and conduct yourself fittingly as an ideal devotee, an ideal student.
It is said, “The proper study of mankind is man”. You should cultivate the qualities of kindness and compassion. Only then does one deserve the title of human. You are not only people, but humanity! Today people use the word mankind or humanity without understanding its real meaning. One can rise to the level of the divine only if you develop virtues. God is not somewhere else, you are God. You are not different from God if you have a pure heart. God is the eternal charioteer, who is always present in your heart. He is only a charioteer and not the owner; you are the owner. Lord Krishna is called Parthasarathi because He became the charioteer (Sarathi) of Arjuna (Partha).Similarly, when you develop purity of heart and sacred feelings, God will be your charioteer and take you on the right path. Therefore choose God as your charioteer and lead an ideal life.
Take off with Natarajan 