Life is long and full of challenges. Most of those challenges are internal, and depend on how WE choose to accept and interpret them. Our lives can take very different paths, depending on what we do and how we look at what happens to us along the way. Here are 10 points of advice that if followed, will guarantee a better life – one that brings with it true peace of mind.
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Srikanth Bolla (pictured below) is standing tall living by his conviction that if the “world looks at me and says, ‘Srikanth, you can do nothing,’ I look back at the world and say ‘I can do anything’.”
When he was born, neighbours in the village suggested that his parents smother him.
It was better than the pain they would have to go through their lifetime, some said.
He is a “useless” baby without eyes… being born blind is a sin, others added.
Twenty-three years later, Srikanth Bolla is standing tall living by his conviction that if the “world looks at me and says, ‘Srikanth, you can do nothing,’ I look back at the world and say ‘I can do anything’.”
Srikanth is the CEO of Hyderabad-based Bollant Industries, an organisation that employs uneducated disabled employees to manufacture eco-friendly, disposable consumer packaging solutions, which is worth Rs 50 crores.
He considers himself the luckiest man alive, not because he is now a millionaire, but because his uneducated parents, who earned Rs 20,000 a year, did not heed any of the ‘advice’ they received and raised him with love and affection.
“They are the richest people I know,” says Srikanth.
Underdog success story
What is it about stories like Srikanth’s that so inspire and fill one with hope?
Could it be the multiple zeroes after a dollar sign or the belief that you and I can achieve similar success if we set our minds and hearts to it?
Underdog success stories touch a raw nerve. After all, everyone faces adversity, they dream, and they work hard.
It is another matter that only a few cross the threshold of limits set by society.
In Srikanth’s case, it is his sheer tenacity that shines through the dark clouds of his misfortune.
Being born blind was just one part of the story. He was also born poor. And you know what that means in a society like ours.
In school, he was pushed to the back bench and not allowed to play.
The little village school had no way of knowing what inclusion meant.
When he wanted to take up science after his class X, he was denied the option because of his disability.
All of 18, Srikanth not only fought the system but went on to become the first international blind student to be admitted to the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.
As author Paulo Coelho says, “We warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know the Universe is conspiring in our favour, even though we may not understand how.”
Today, Srikanth has four production plants, one each in Hubli (Karnataka) and Nizamabad (Telangana), and two in Hyderabad (Telangana). Another plant, which will be one hundred percent solar
operated, is coming up in Sri City, an integrated business city in Andhra Pradesh, 55 kms from Chennai.
Angel investor Ravi Mantha, who met Srikanth about two years ago, was so impressed with his business acumen and vision for his company that he not only decided to mentor him but also invested in Srikanth’s company.
It was a small, tin-roof shack in an industrial area near Hyderabad. There were eight employees and three machines under the shed. I expected him to talk about how he wanted to make a social impact, but was surprised by the business clarity and technical knowhow in someone so young,” Ravi says.
They are raising $2-million (around Rs 13 crores) in funding and have already raised Rs 9 crores.
According to Ravi, his personal goal is to “take the company to IPO.”
A vision to build a sustainable company with a workforce comprising 70 percent people with disability is no mean task.
“Srikanth’s vision is inbuilt in the company. It is not just a lip service to CSR,” adds Ravi.
Isolation a big curse
“The isolation of differently-abled people starts at birth,” Srikanth said in his first public speech on the INKTalks stage in Mumbai last month. According to him, “Compassion is a way of showing someone to live; to give someone an opportunity to thrive and make them rich. Richness does not come from money, it comes from happiness.”
When Srikanth was growing up, his father, a farmer, would take him to the fields but the little boy couldn’t be of any help.
His father then decided that he might as well study.
“In my parent’s entrepreneurship model, I was a failure. In entrepreneurship, we have a lean business model where we evaluate an enterprise and say how quickly it fails.”
Since the nearest school in his village was five kilometres away, he had to make his way there mostly on foot. He did this for two years.
“No one acknowledged my presence. I was put in the last bench. I could not participate in the PT class.
That was the time in my life I thought I was the poorest child in the world. It was not because of lack of money but because of loneliness.”
When his father realised that the child was not learning anything, he admitted Srikanth to a special needs school in Hyderabad.
The boy thrived in the compassion he was shown there. He not only learnt to play chess and cricket but excelled in them. He topped his class, even embracing an opportunity to work with late President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in the Lead India project.
But none of this mattered much because Srikanth was denied admission to the science stream in class XI.
He cleared the Andhra Pradesh class X state board exams with over 90 percent marks, but the board said he could only take Arts subjects after that.
“Was it because I was born blind? No. I was made blind by the perceptions of the people.”
Having been denied the opportunity, Srikanth decided to fight for it.
“I sued the government and fought for six months. In the end, I got a government order that said I could take the science subjects but at my ‘own risk’. ”
Thus not ‘risking’ anything to chance, Srikanth did whatever he could to prove them wrong.
He got all the textbooks converted to audio books, worked day and night to complete the course and managed to secure 98 percent in the XII board exams.
Fortune favours the brave
Sometimes, life mimics a steeplechase. Especially when it comes to those it has big plans for.
It did not give Srikanth enough time to bask in his victory when it threw another spanner in the works. He applied for IIT, BITSPilani, and other top engineering colleges, but did not get a hall ticket.
Instead, “I got a letter saying ‘you are blind, hence you are not allowed to apply for competitive exams.’ If IIT did not want me, I did not want IIT either. How long can you fight?”
He chose his battles carefully and did his homework searching the Internet to find the best engineering programme for someone like himself. He applied to schools in the US and got into the top four — MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon.
He went to MIT (with a scholarship) as the first international blind student in the school’s history.
It wasn’t easy adjusting to life there, but by and by he started to do well.
Towards the end of his bachelor’s course when the ‘what next’ question came up, it brought him back to where he had started.
“Many questions bothered me. Why should a disabled child be pushed to the back row in the class? Why should the 10 percent of the disabled population of India be left out of the Indian economy?
Why can’t they make a living like everyone else with dignity?”
He decided to give up the ‘golden’ opportunity in corporate America and came back to India in search of answers to his questions. He set up a support service platform to rehabilitate, nurture and integrate differently-abled people in society.
“We helped about 3000 students in acquiring an education and vocational rehabilitation. But then I thought what about their employment? So I built this company and now employ 150 differently-abled people.”
Good always rebounds
Entrepreneur bravehearts like the warriors of Paulo Coelho always find one unflinching support, an anchor to keep them afloat. In Srikanth’s case, it is his co-founder Swarnalatha.
“She was his special needs teacher in school. She has been his mentor and guide through all these years. She trains all the employees with disabilities at Bollant thereby creating a strong community where they feel valued,” says Ravi, adding, “Srikanth is a true source of my inspiration. He is not only my young friend and protégé but is also my mentor who teaches me daily that anything is possible if you set your mind to it.”
The boy who was born blind is today showing many the path to real happiness.
He says his three most important life lessons are: “Show compassion and make people rich. Include people in your life and remove loneliness, and lastly, do something good; it will come back to you.”
Lead image: Kind courtesy INKTalks
source….Dipti Nair in http://www.rediff.com
Natarajan”
Embodiments of Divine Love! Wherever you may be, never give room for any differences. Everyone must get rid of all selfishness, self-interest and self-centeredness. Mutual regard (Mamatha), equipoise (Samatha) and forbearance (kshamatha) are basic qualities necessary for every human being. Hence develop love, forbearance and compassion. Realise that love is present in everyone. Get rid of all differences and adhere to your faith and traditions. Learn to live in love and harmony with all the members of your society. When differences of all kinds are given up, love will grow in you and you can have a direct vision of God. Without love, verbal prayers are of no avail. Divine love is the only unifier, motivator and harbinger of joy to everyone. God is love and God can be realised only through love. All saints and religions have emphasized the greatness of love, truth, sacrifice and unity. Therefore cultivate love.
What does it mean when you say God descends as an Avatar?God out of His love, affection and compassion, comes down to the level of a human being and arouses the Divine Consciousness in humankind. When God finds that many people are desperately searching outside of themselves for God, He makes you aware of God within yourself. God is in fact the core in everyone. This chance, to realize God within, has been granted to you as a reward for merit acquired by you in many previous lives, so as to reach the highest goal of merging with the absolute. Every bird needs two wings to fly; a cart needs two wheels to be pulled along. To journey towards the highest goal, you need both faith and steadfastness – spiritual learning (vidya) and penance(tapas). Bhagavad Gita states, Knowledge of the Self (Atma Vidya) is the holiest. Knowledge (Vidya) shows the way, and the penance (tapas) makes you reach the goal. Both are necessary to attain the Ultimate.
Follow at least one of the nine modes of devotion (Sravanam, kirtanam, etc.). It doesn’t matter how wealthy or learned you are; God is concerned only with the sincerity and purity of your mind and heart and the wholeheartedness and genuine nature of your love. Valmiki was a hunter. Nandanar was of a low caste. Kuchela was a poor man. Dhruva and Prahlada were five-year-old lads. Sabari was a tribal woman, illiterate and uncivilized. But all of them won God’s Grace in abundance, because of their wholehearted devotion, love and surrender. Follow Sabari’s example, who always thought of Sri Rama and His happiness, and dedicated all her thoughts, words, and deeds to Him alone, such that her every action was transformed and sublimated into the highest penance (tapas).Meditation does not mean sitting idle in a particular posture, like posing for a photograph. Like Sabari’s life, your life must become a continuous meditation wherever you are, and whatever you do.
Temple worship, company of sages, adoration of the Lord and recital of His name – these are external sources of light. Meditation, austerity and reflection (dhyana, tapas andmanana) — these are sources of inner illumination. Devoid of both, how can you experience the vision of divine glory? Once Tulsidas Goswami declared, “Do you require light inside the house as well as outside? If yes, then place the lamp on the doorstep!” So too, if you desire to experience the illumination of peace (shanti) within you and also spread it out, then place the name of the Lord on the tongue, which is the doorstep of your personality! The lamp on the tongue will not flicker, fade, or be put out by any storm. It will confer peace on you as well as on all whom you meet – in fact, the entire world.” Therefore, for your salvation, evoke the vision of the form with the Lord’s name on your tongue.
The attitude of the worshiper and the worshiped is the seed of devotion (bhakthi). First, the worshiper’s mind is attracted by the special qualities of the object of worship. The worshiper tries to acquire these special qualities. This is spiritual discipline (sadhana). In the early stages of spiritual discipline, the distinction between worshiper and worshiped is full, but as the spiritual discipline progresses, this feeling diminishes and, when attainment is reached, there is no distinction whatsoever. Irrespective of the object of worship one has grasped, loved and sought by spiritual discipline, one should have firm faith that the individual self(jivatma) is the supreme Lord (Paramatma). There is only one wish fit to be entertained by the aspirant: the realisation of the Lord (Iswara Sakshatkara). There is no room in the mind for any other wish.
This cleanliness warrior resigned from his job to take the battle against garbage to cars, autorickshaws, buses, and other vehicles. His car trash bins will give income to slum dwellers while helping keep our roads clean.
India is developing fast — roads are jammed with cars, cellphones are ubiquitous, and there is talk of smart cities emerging all over the country.
But are we behaviourally developed as a nation? We still lack civic sense and spit on walls, we don’t show up for our appointments on time, we deface our historical landmarks, we rarely stick to queues when waiting, and we litter our streets indiscriminately.
Abhishek Marwaha
He then started making a conscious effort to keep his surroundings clean. His friends made fun of him when he kept dumping used tissues in his pockets or in car back pockets while travelling, instead of throwing them outside the window.
“I used to work in a travel technology firm and travelling to different countries used to be part of my job profile. I realized that we are more conscious of our habits when abroad (like littering, spitting, honking, etc.) but we tend to be careless when we are here in India. So all we need to do is one simple thing to bring a wave of change. Let’s behave in our own country the way we behave in any other foreign country,” says Abhishek.
One day, while having lunch, he found that his lunch bag was worn and could be used as a trash bin in his car. The idea stayed with him and he began to design a trash bin that is easily accessible in a car or any vehicle, even while driving. Once the design was ready, he started making cheap trash bins in bulk and contacting vendors.
This mission to keep India clean has today resulted in the launch of Abhishek’s online store, ujosho.com, which sells the first ever car trash bins in India.
Swachh bin for cars
“There are an estimated 25 million cars in any Tier 1 city in India. The problem of garbage will continue to haunt us as the trash thrown from cars chokes the roadside drains and contributes to water logging and floods during rains. There is an immediate need to educate and encourage people to use this simple trash bin in their cars so that many of these issues can be resolved without intervention of civic authorities and with proper and positive participation from each one of us,” adds Abhishek
The car trash bins that Abhishek sells are not machine made. He aims to provide earnings to slum dwellers by getting them to make these trash bins by hand in bulk.
“You don’t have to hold a gun at the border and save the country to be truly patriotic. You can bring about change by changing yourself, your habits and your surroundings. Even if 10% of our population shares this view, it can make a difference. Maybe what I am doing is minuscule, but it will hit the root cause of the trash problem,” Abhishek says with great zeal.
According to Abhishek, installing and using the trash bin in vehicles will be good because:
1) It will help bring about a behavioral change among adults and children with respect to cleanliness, littering and spitting.
2) It will support civic authorities in ensuring optimum use of manpower in cleaning roads.
3) Trash chokes the roadside drains and contributes to water logging and floods during rains. Car trash bins will help prevent that.
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Happy Customers!
“We also encourage people to share their ideas about cleanliness on the ‘Idea’ section of our website. If we are able to make a product from that idea, we will then give royalty on every sale of that product,” says Abhishek
To know more about Abhishek and his products, you can visit www.ujosho.com
Source….Manabhi Katoch in http://www.the betterindia .com
Natarajan
‘Coordination between our 50 teams, each with a strength of 45 men, played a key role in rescuing flood-affected people in Chennai. In all, we succeeded in rescuing over 20,000 people.’
‘The NDRF, an exclusive dedicated standalone multi-disciplinary disaster response force, is the only one of its kind in the world.’
NDRF chief O P Singh on how his organisation helped rescue and relief in flood-ravaged Chennai.
National Disaster Response Force Director General O P Singh refuses to be drawn into any controversy regarding the unprecedented release of over 29,000 cusecs of water from the Chembarambakkam reservoir on the night of December 1, without having alerting the state government, the police or the power utility services.
Water experts believe this release was the main reason for the floods that devastated Chennai with the situation being made worse by the heavy rainfall.
Singh, is a 1983 cadre Indian Police Service officer. As head of the NDRF he was responsible for the rescue of nearly 50,000 civilians during the disastrous flooding of Sringar in September last year. His organisation’s work during the Nepal earthquake earlier this year was much appreciated by the governments of Nepal and India. The NDRF was formed by an Act of Parliament in September 2014.
He spoke exclusively to Rashme Sehgal for Rediff.com
You had 50 NDRF teams working night and day to rescue people through this crisis. What has the NDRF learning curve been from this?
What we witnessed in Chennai is the phenomenon of urban flooding. It is very different from rural floods or floods in semi-urban areas. Its special feature is that as water levels start to rise, the water begins to flow in a very swift manner. This kind of urban flooding we are witness to can be described as a very recent phenomena.
We witnessed it in Mumbai ten years ago. Jammu and Kashmir was our first experience of intense urban flooding.
How did you go about tackling the situation in flood-hit Chennai?
We are the only official disaster response team in the country. We have a strength of 12 batallions of 15,000 men drawn from the Central Reserve Police Force, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, the Border Security Force and the Central Industrial Security Force who join us for a period of deputation lasting five years.
The first two years are spent providing them very intensive and highly professional training in how to handle disaster situations in different areas, whether it be the collapse of structures, search and rescue, deep underwater diving, underwater communication, medical first responder and also how to deal with biological, radiological and nuclear emergencies.
Coordination between our 50 teams, each with a strength of 45 men, played a key role in rescuing the flood-affected people in Chennai.
In all, we succeeded in rescuing over 20,000 people.
If you spend two years training them, then why should they revert back to their earlier cadre three years later? Doesn’t all this intensive training go waste by this kind of reversion?
That is a very valid question. If you permanently keep them (in the NDRF) then they might lose their motivation. We are thinking of keeping them for a longer period and are considering the possibility of extending their deputation from five to ten years.
We are also looking at a possibility of allowing 12 per cent of our force to be kept in the NDRF on a permanent basis.
You need to remember that this is an exclusive dedicated standalone multi-disciplinary disaster response force. It is the only one of its kind in the world. They focus only on disasters and nothing else.
When there are no disasters, we spend our time trying to empower the community because the community is the first responder to a disaster. We also interact closely with the police, the fire brigade and also provide training to organisations like the NCC (National Cadet Corps), the National Service Scheme and the home guards. We are capable of reaching a disaster within 20 minutes.
Were you able to reach Chennai within 20 minutes of the flood occurring?
In Chennai, our 50 teams flew in from Bhatinda, Guwahati, Patna and Pune. We had already pre-positioned some teams around Chennai and were receiving regular reports from the Indian Meteorological Department.
You had pre-positioned your teams around Chennai prior to the massive flooding?
We had four teams that had been pre-positioned. We had teams in Cuddalore and Kanchipuram and had two teams in Puducherry. Within two to three hours of being informed about the heavy rainfall and about the release of water from the reservoir, our local battalion stationed in Ernakulam was there.
What were the immediate steps you took?
Our first steps were on how to evacuate the people who were marooned. We had to put them in boats and take them to a safer location. For that we needed divers, life jackets and boats.
In some areas there was eight to nine feet of water. Chennai airport was submerged in eight to nine feet of water. Several localities were completely submerged.
The second major problem we faced was the breakdown of power resulting in a major communication failure. People’s mobile phones had gone dead. There was also the apprehension was of people getting electrocuted.
The other problem we faced that even though people were marooned, they were not willing to leave their homes.
Why was that? Did people feel that in their absence, their homes would get looted?
People living in ground floor houses agreed to get evacuated, but those living on the first floor moved to the second floor and then onto the roof.
The settlements along the banks of the river Adyar which were all low lying areas, saw huge amounts of water collect there. Our teams found it very difficult to navigate these areas.
More than 300 people died in these floods.
A large number of these deaths took place in some hospitals because of the power failure. The ICU units in the hospitals were affected because of the lack of power.
Our 50 teams were using Quick Deployable Antennae (for satellite communications) which is a portable system and can be used both in the digital and analogue mode. But this QDA is an internal system that can be used only by us.
But on our helpline, we were getting information via SMS, e-mails and Whatsapp, and also from television channels. I was stationed in Chennai and constantly telling my response team to reach the area from where the alert had been sounded. I was acting as a link between the victim and the parent or others.
Obviously, during the flood, people were on edge, they had become nervous and very jittery. I had to keep assuring the public. It was a huge challenge to communicate and reach out to the people especially since the power facilities were down.
But our men were working round the clock. I would like to cite the example of one rescue mission that my men undertook of a woman called Deepthi who was in her final stages of pregnancy and living in the Ramapuram area. Two NDRF sub-inspectors Bijumon and Satish reached out to her in a boat, but could not load her onto a boat.
She had to finally be rescued by a chopper. The two jawans helped her climb onto a water tank from where they helped her climb her onto an IAF helicopter being flown by a team led by Wing Commander Simon and Squadron Leader Venkatraman.
The lady gave birth the next day to two twin girls and her father Mohan Raj sent me a letter commending the work done by the NDRF and hoping his twin grand-daughters would join the NDRF one day.
The NDRF received praise in Chennai, but the NDRF received criticism for its rescue operation work during the floods that hit Kashmir last year.
No, I don’t think so. The terrain of Srinagar is completely different from the terrain of Chennai. Srinagar is an extremely mountainous area. The Jhelum river had spilled over and mixed with the Dal Lake and the entire area looked like a vast sea.
The current there was very sharp and we had to use choppers. The flood water ended up dividing the old Srinagar city from the Dal Lake area. Our teams ended up rescuing 50,000 people in the operation.
Chennai used to be a dry city. But the incessant rain, unregulated construction and the release of a huge amount of water from the Chembarambakkam reservoir caused this deluge.
To go back to my earlier question, what is your learning from this deluge?
I believe we have to strengthen our response measures to meet disasters. But the long-term strategies would be to pay much greater attention to prevention and mitigation strategies. These will involve flood mapping and satellite imagery. But most important, we need to pay much greater attention to regulate development in our cities.
To take the example of Chennai, which as a city can be divided into three parts. No new construction must be allowed in the vulnerable parts of the city. The state government must take strong measures in this. I believe after witnessing two major floods that all urban construction must be regulated.
In terms of mitigation strategies, we need to construct water channels to drain out the water. More important, we need to revive the water channels that have been destroyed. We need to take very strong steps on this score.
Cities must develop resilience to face heavy rain and for that we need to take institutional measures to ensure that there can be no encroachment on marshlands, our traditional tanks and lakes that have shrunk must be restored and all the waterways that had been constructed to drain excess water must also be restored to ward off future threats.
Source…….Rashme Sehgal in http://www.rediff.com
Natarajan
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Take off with Natarajan 