3rd Feb to 17th Feb

Last week of the unit so trying to finish syllabus. Teaching bones, muscles and joints with sticks, cello tapes and sticks. A lot of talking with Aniket and school team related to BTCP finalisation. Time at Urban Ashram was also good. Spirited talk by Shilpa on gratitude and last bonfire on terrace of Urban Ashram. Unit test and parent teacher meeting on Saturday. Well I would say the parent teacher meeting with highest turnout. It went also good. Asked Dudhbhate and Pranav to come for conference. Sunday the 12th was overall good. Kids pulled it up good, Dudhbhate started crying there which made me nervous like anything, so lessened my expectation. Session by Gio was good on remediation and open forum was fantabulous. I think the open forum also had the highest turnouts and specially 10ers were waiting because of the Namrata's case. Many valid points were raised but city team didn't reply anything owing to a legal advice to remain silent. Then Nikhil considering the importance of the open forum also got a minutes made as city team didn't but Shaheen
(who was not even there in meeting) just bluntly said that the facts in the minute were wrong, but personally speaking I could remember everything written happened in the open forum. Like I don't know , the mail just opened my eyes, that yes professional life has to be full of lies. Someone not being present decides that real events testified by eye witnesses did not happen. What the hell!!!

Hm. Then Namrata got reinstated. This Wednesday was also very good. Laughter on the swing. This week we had holidays on Wednesday to Friday due to elections and I had a real calm time. I also got to know today that the reliance prepaid number I am using since last 5 months is being registered in the Reliance system as someone else's postpaid number since 2 years. Whatt??? Then today, i.e. Friday we(Surya, Neha, me and Sheetal) went to Vaswani mission, there we got to know that Jahan bhai's family were also coming. The show was purely phenomenal. Then we went for dinner at Supriya. The food was really great. Wonderful day. Then just came back around an hour back and am on net.

30th Dec to 2nd Feb

30th Dec: Reached Mumbai. Had Birthday celebration in train itself with Arnav and Neha. Missed Borivali station so got down at Dadar. Freshened up at Neha's place and slept. :D Wow amazing birthday going on. Slept from 9 to 11 AM. Wow. :D :D Then bought some spices and went to orphanage, where a couple had come to celebrate birthday of their 1 year old kid. Then played with kids for around an hour and came back home. Then again slept. Wow. Sleeping birthday. Then Sathya came and we ate in a nearby restaraunt. Tried making ticket to come back to Pune but unsuccessful. Sathya gave me an amazing book as gift, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" and "Emotional Intelligence" to Neha.
31st Dec: Woke up at 4:30, freshened up and left for station. Got the bus of 6:45 and reached Pune at 10:20. Rushed back home to go to school that 5 kids came. WHAT????? I did so much running for 5 kids to teach for an hour? Rubbish. Spent new year eve by sleeping 9 to 9.
1st Jan to 2nd Feb: Well went all through in just trying the normal routine stuff. Time at Urban Ashram became amazing. Once, when I was really pissed at how things were going, Sheetal gave me 3 Tsunamika and Khushmita gave me a brownie. We also had a bonfire and Shilpa introduced me to EFT. It was a good day. Class wise just some new kids started a new misbehavior streak. I attended a session by K B Jinan on how to handle kids. It was good. Also started loving books of J P Vaswani. Got the food from Anwesha. Wowoo, the food mom sent is just so yummy.

Ahmedabad Retreat

It started with session with Jeet and Geet Sethi. The main points included the necessity of Consistency, Compassion and humility. The example of Prakash Padukone and the Billiards player who won an amazing game just after the news of death of his father was inspiring to me.

Then I had a feelings map with Jeet Patel, who coordinated a very good time. He shared and set the tone for sharing. People truly shared their struggles and successes. Then I got to know the work of Aanganwadi through Neeta Behen. The slow and steady work of Manav Sadhna had really showed  fruits. Well what impressed me most was the truth and commitment I could see in her eyes and voice. Then there was a dance performance by Ekatva kids. Purely amazing and marvellous.

2^nd day was for Flow with Love project. I met a man who was running a small(may be micro will be correct word) NGO as he used to go to village with few friends to help people. I suggested that he might like to join some NGO which he was not ready as he was assured of all NGO’s being corrupt or having to bribe hugely to get donations. This made me realize how many people are cynical.  Then I roamed around Ahmedabad talking and asking for shelter with people. After I lost hope I decided to show some love to beggars, and sit and care for them. So sat and cleaned beggars and saw the insult and poor health and hygiene beggars face.  One beggar was physically handicapped and so became a postmaster due to quota but was suspended 2 years back due to manipulation and cheating by juniors. Unable to find any other job and been in the lifestyle of 26000 per month, he resorted to begging, hiding from his family what he really does and lies that he works in a private company. This made me realize how small I am and how much more of world I have left to see. How hard it is to be not able to share with anyone in your own family what you do for a living. How lonely a person can get in a quest to support the same family. How prejudiced our minds are towards who don’t look good.

Last day was almost to relax. Nothing important happened.