Be the CHANGE

Earlier last week the principal of our college asked me to interview the Chief Justice of Lokayukta, Karnataka-Justice N. Santosh Hegde for the college magazine. In the course of the interview that lasted for an hour, I asked him many questions on his life, what makes him happy, what makes him sad, how he handles the power that is given to him… One thing that left an impression on me and I thought it cleared one of my greatest misconceptions was that when he told me “Safal, I always believed that I will change this world, I will change the society and make our society free of corruption, but when I sat on this chair (referring to his position in the law which gives him power to question even the chief minister) contrary to my belief I realized that I can never ever change the society. All I can do is bring a change in my ownself”

It is very true. I have grown up believing that one day I am going to change the world, I will change the whole system of working. Probably writing on mool-dhara was a step in that direction and aiming to appear in civil services exam also stemmed out of it. But that interview made me realize that I can never change the society or the system. All I can do is do my own little good for the society sans any expectations that the entire world will change for good. And it is not only applied to me, but to everyone who reads this blog (or will never read it). Be it any issues of the world, it is the duty of every individual to take up the cause of the change he or she wants to see in this world. Be it global warming, corruption in the government offices, bad politics or be it anything else. If you believe in a cause, take up that cause-preach and practice it.

A few days back, I used to think like George W Bush ”Global warming? Huh.. where is global warming.. I don’t see it.” I still don’t know how true this whole fuss about global warming is, but my sister who is working for TERI (The Energy and Research Institute headed by the famous environmentalist Dr. R. K Pachauri) got this worm of ‘save the planet’ injected in me. I may never stop eating non-vegetarian food (for those who are new to this topic; according to a famous research done, eating beef and chicken adds heavily to global warming as it reduces the carbon credits from earth) but I make sure I compensate that by switching off lights and other electrical appliances as soon as they are not in use, whether I am in home or in college. I go walking to my college (this helps me cut down my growing paunch too!!!), I celebrate every earth hour in my PG-we have a badminton championship for an hour under the street lights during earth hour. With requests I have convinced my landlord to keep two separate bins-one for the material that can be recycled and other for non recycled material. I have subscribed to e-bill for my post paid mobile connection as well instead of a paper bill. All thanks to my “green” sister.

A friend of mine feels sympathy for the way Muslims are viewed with suspicion around the world, so he has taken up this cause on facebook. Another friend of mine, who himself hails from New Delhi and was barred from voting, made sure all his eligible friends in Bangalore vote at the recently held city municipality elections. Our college never had a tech fest organized in 10 years of its existence. Recently a group of students from 2^nd year Computer Science department came up with the idea of a fest. They did the requisite homework and convinced the management with their hard work and determination and organized Agam 2010 that too successfully.

All of us have a cause inside us. Some may feel bad for the poor children who are not fortunate enough to go to schools, rather that cursing the government they themselves can take up the charge of teaching them at home. You don’t need to take up the responsibility of 1.3 million destitute of India, teach 2-3 of them that will make the difference. If you feel the heat of corruption, make sure you never give that extra currency notes to make your job done at your will or you may complain to organizations like lokayukta as well. If you hate the concept of quotas-make sure you never demand for any kind of quota anywhere in your life. If you feel sad for inter-caste or inter-community or even inter-religious issues take a one step-making a friend from that community is one of them-to make the change. There is so many resources available in todays world-social networking sites, sms, blog... just share your concern.

I would wind up with the words of wisdom that Justice Hegde gave me:

“I want you to tell you two things. One if you really want to see the change the first thing that you need to have is lot of patience. The change that you want to see may take 5 years or 25 years. Persevere. Two we, in this world, are a part of a rat race, where every single individual wants to outshine the other. If you try and get up the ladder, there will always be more than 100 hands to pull you down. Today everyone wants power, money and fame. So to make sure you do not fall into that trap you need to be self content with whatever you have. That doesn’t mean don’t set goals, you must set high goals and achieve it with passion and not with a hungry madness. But make sure you are the change because it is each one of yours collective effort that will bring the change.