I am now at an age where I am at crossroads. Most of my duties as caregiver to my tiny tot, parents and in laws have ebbed off. I can afford 3 or 4 square meals, a roof and a vast of expanse of cloth needed to cover my modesty. So while I make professional appearances and do paid work, I can afford to do pro bono work as well apart from giving to my chosen charity . One such chartiy is in our native place. As any true blooded Indian knows, that is the place your parents or grandparents were born or lived. This village is deep in south India in Tenkasi district of Tamil Nadu. it is called Sri Sai Subramanya Charity trust and they essentially rum remedial or after school tuition classes for a few hundred kids. The mothers of these students mostly roll Beedis and the fathers are agricultural workers. SOme of the kids also do chores and supplement the meagre family income. The trust gives them books, clothes apart from th classes. they also try to expose them by taking them on excursions to waterfalls, Zoos and dams and such places. Visitors who have are educated and exposed to the outside world are encouraged to interact with the students.
I was one such visitor. The founders of this trust Lakshmi Ramakrishnan and her husband Ramakrishnan ( Who is also the founder of Amar Seve Sangam and a receipient of many national and international awards like CNBC Awaaz's Rea Hero Award) asked me to talk to about 40 students of Class 9 and 10 and their teachers about variour career paths in an interactive way. So I asked them to tell me what they wanted to become, what course they would like to do and why were they inspired towards that course,
They talked about wanting to become teachers ( 60% of the girls had that as an aspiration), engineers, police officers, doctors and a couple of lawyers as well. They were encouraged to ask questions and they asked me about my career. i told them that I had done an MBA. They had not heard of this at all. I expanded it and tod them it was a Masters in Business Administration. SO they wanted to know what kind of a skill that was and I gave them some examples. They then wanted to know what inspired me to do MBA. The kids had talked about how they were inspired to see their teachers, how doctors had cured their grandmom and how lawyers would uphold justice etc. MBA seemed a very materialistic choice in comparision. They then interrogated me on my inspiration and I told them that I had met some cool people in my dad's office and I wanted be like them and that is how I found out about this course. Soon enough 2 of the youngsters wanted to do MBA and that did indeed please me.
Many readers of this blog would have heard of Abhijit Bhaduri's book on life as an MBA student, entitled Mediocre But Arrogant where if you are into a management institute , you will surely go out as an MBA. In retrospect basic sciences etc seem so much more scholarly, especially sinceyou will not work under someone who is less qualified than you. Many people who are succcescful do an MBA as a learning. I did as mostly a means of earning. When i started working, the very process of working taught me a lot. So in retrospect, many activities were bogus. and I have almost honed the art of earning through important sounding work and activities.
I an an excellent Master Of Bogus Activities.
I was one such visitor. The founders of this trust Lakshmi Ramakrishnan and her husband Ramakrishnan ( Who is also the founder of Amar Seve Sangam and a receipient of many national and international awards like CNBC Awaaz's Rea Hero Award) asked me to talk to about 40 students of Class 9 and 10 and their teachers about variour career paths in an interactive way. So I asked them to tell me what they wanted to become, what course they would like to do and why were they inspired towards that course,
They talked about wanting to become teachers ( 60% of the girls had that as an aspiration), engineers, police officers, doctors and a couple of lawyers as well. They were encouraged to ask questions and they asked me about my career. i told them that I had done an MBA. They had not heard of this at all. I expanded it and tod them it was a Masters in Business Administration. SO they wanted to know what kind of a skill that was and I gave them some examples. They then wanted to know what inspired me to do MBA. The kids had talked about how they were inspired to see their teachers, how doctors had cured their grandmom and how lawyers would uphold justice etc. MBA seemed a very materialistic choice in comparision. They then interrogated me on my inspiration and I told them that I had met some cool people in my dad's office and I wanted be like them and that is how I found out about this course. Soon enough 2 of the youngsters wanted to do MBA and that did indeed please me.
Many readers of this blog would have heard of Abhijit Bhaduri's book on life as an MBA student, entitled Mediocre But Arrogant where if you are into a management institute , you will surely go out as an MBA. In retrospect basic sciences etc seem so much more scholarly, especially sinceyou will not work under someone who is less qualified than you. Many people who are succcescful do an MBA as a learning. I did as mostly a means of earning. When i started working, the very process of working taught me a lot. So in retrospect, many activities were bogus. and I have almost honed the art of earning through important sounding work and activities.
I an an excellent Master Of Bogus Activities.
