Common Purpose – Adieu’

I guess I was a bit ambitious or maybe it was a sudden burst of inspiration on meeting Devi Shetty in the second session of Common Purpose that I thought I will write one pager on every single “Common Purpose” session which I attend. I had kept all the notes I had made in a file thinking one day I will just write … that was end of Jan and this is end June, unfortunately time is still a scarce commodity. With 2 kids at home & 2 unfinished projects at office some ball had to drop and the easiest one was obviously my writing – common purpose was subset of my overall ambit of my writing – something I am most passionate about.

The paragraph above symbolizes a similar pang which many of us felt on our ride back from the common purpose sessions. Although I am generalizing at this point, if the remaining 49 participants’ did not then “God Bless” because then all of you are able to put your hand – feet – mouth – mind where your soul is.

What did common purpose journey mean to me? Did it make any difference? Yes, It did. There are many training programs I attend and many I conduct and the only measure for any programme is the lasting impact the program can have on someone’s mind. Common Purpose is a program whose impact in my mind will be everlasting – I can relate it to the 5000+ saplings & around 4000+ DVD’s of “Inconvenient Truth” we distributed across India on the environment Day & the 20 odd young minds that assembled in my balcony to see the same movie, discuss it and make a resolution and make their entire family live by it.

Will the tree be planted? Will the tree survive? Will it bear fruits? Will the 20 kids remember their resolution? Will it make the world a better place to live in? I do not know & I never will but I know I could do something and I did….I think that has been my biggest learning across all common purpose sessions.

Believe in the purpose – Means will follow.

Historical Fiction

I started the year with Kiran Nagarkar’s “Cuckold” and last month I finished “Raider’s from the North” by Alex Rutherford. Both of them were fictionalized history. I have never enjoyed reading history so much.

Growing up I hated history and kept it away from me till 2 days before the exam. History was equal to until the bell stuck for the exam to start and your teacher warned “If you do not put the put the book down we will not allow you inside the exam room”. It was also about dividing the portion between us or hiding the “nandlal dayaram kunji” – those small books which can disappear between folds of school dress (especially girls) or hidden in the bathrooms or passed around the exam room. God bless the publishers we managed to pass Xth and after that I never looked back literally at the past. Yes, It’s funny but the kind of pressure which we kids used to go through was traumatic.

But reading these books and few others which I read some time back gave a new dimension to history. If I could turn back the clock I would have dropped Science and chosen History. The past always appeared to be a mystery to me and as I grew up there were so many bubbling questions in my mind – How did the civilizations form? Where did the kings & queens disappear? Why do we have war? Even today the various cultural and historical aspect of various countries fascinate me and I love seeing movies from across the world or reading books by authors across the world because they unravel the mystery.

Reading these 2 books, made me realize how fascinating Indian history can be and how interesting it can be made for our children. Although teaching is my wife’s department – for a change I looked at my 6^th graders history book and saw 5 to 7 pages devoted to each civilization – starting from mesopatamian Civilization and ending with South Indian Kingdoms….On enquiring I was told that we will do only Harappan Culture (skipping Mesopatamian & Egyptian) this term and I could see scribbles & open and close brackets across the chapter with no’s written against each of them – which means only one thing that they are the answers of some specific questions. I guess that’s the only take away for my daughter.

Which makes me realize that things haven’t changed much since 19 81 = almost 30 yrs back, but then there are so many other things which have got added in their plate – Shiamak Davar classes, games in ipod, swimming (we never had a pool), Farmville, movies & TV time …….Will Harappan Culture hold forth…Sigh! Let me give it a shot.