Partners of “Khushi” Meet - Role of Government – People – Corporate the need of hour

Partners of “KHUSHI” had their first meeting on 5^th May 2012.  The agenda was to enhance “KHUSHIs” reach and bring out effective creative campaigns.  The brainstorming resulted in churning out creative campaigns like spreading awareness through ‘Street Plays’, inter-school ‘Debate Competitions', ‘Organizing Workshops in the Slums’,  and ‘Painting Competitions for the Under-Privileged Children’ to generate curiosity amongst these children.

A unanimous thinking was that "KHUSHI" needs the active involvement of Government – People - Corporate Houses to create larger awareness.

I Am Teaching Computer To My Milkman's Son

I work for an IT firm and into software development.  I came to know about the “Khushi” initiative through a friend of mine in Mumbai who is also into software development.  First and the foremost, I must congratulate the effort, and I think it is the first time some one has come forward to put-in such an initiative. So Congratulations !!!

Now, I think some times we do certain things in enthusiasm and not realize our own efforts. I believe in appreciating efforts that we also put-in to make others happy.

At home, when back from office,  I am mostly in office mails and my pending work.  This is also the time when the milk-man would visit.  I was watching this for over a month that the 12 years old son of my ‘Milkman' used to see how I work on my computer.  When his father is busy pouring milk from the container, his attention never got away from my computer. I used to notice this quite often, smile to see his interest, but never thought of asking him.  Once I read this blog and also how much important are small efforts, I decided to address his curiosity.

He informed me that, he has computers as part of his studies but he is unable to learn much as the number of students in his class are quite high and the computers are not sufficient and thus teacher gives quite less time to each student.  Result,  he is unable to cope-up in the class.

I could not believe when he also informed me that he comes with his father only to see how I work on computer and one day he would ask me for help.

His innocence did not allow me to say NO or I am Busy.  I agreed to give him 1 hour of my time, 2 days in a week and asked him to bring his text-book.  I have had five class with him so far, which is on basics and I am quite amazed to see his grasping power.

If 'Each One Can Teach One' in spare time, I am sure we would be able to address a whole lot of education in under-privileged children in India.

For once I decided to take the responsibility on my shoulder, my contribution to the society. It has given me an immense innner satisfaction.

I must admit, the blog “Khushi” made me conscious and I could not ignore the curiosity of this child.  I feel happy that some thing inspired me to do a nice work.

Good work Vedanta Group. Keep it up !!!

Shaunak, Software Engineer from Chennai

'Eagle Group' Spreads "Khushi" Amongst Orphanage Kids

In this materialistic world almost all of us have had a wild goose chase for something known as “KHUSHI”, the pursuit for happiness is never ending. Again when I try to define what is happiness it gets difficult. Is a state of mind when u r satisfied, or let say feeling after u achieve something, “success”.

Well if that is it I had my encounters with these feelings but nothing really can be called a state of total happiness and then I had these strange/unknown feeling when I try to help someone. "Wo kehte hain na ki joy of living is in giving” when u help someone the feeling though transient is unique in its way. Yes this is what I say KHUSHI is,” Khushi baatne se Khushi badhti hai”. I am here to share one such experience when we shared  khushi with some under privileged children in “ THAKURBABA ORPHANAGE”. I have been associated with a free-lancer group of young, energetic & dedicated guys from Vedanta Aluminium Limited, who believe in “Service to mankind as service to god”.

We call it as Eagle Group, founded with the sole motto of serving humanity and spreading happiness. On the auspicious occasion of Republic day we decided to pay a visit to nearby orphanage in Belpahar. Thakurbaba aashram as it is called is an orphanage with strength of around 45 kids aged between 3-17yrs, mostly females. We arranged for some gifts, pen, copies, toffies,sports accessories etc. and had a plan of having lunch with them. When we arrived we were mesmerized by the environment and scenic beauty around but more beautiful were the kids talking wonderfully as they greeted us on arrival.

We arranged some programs like Quizzes, dancing, singing, and mimicry and distributed prizes among all participants. Some of them were extra talented like one 12 yr. girl getting almost 12 prizes alone. We distributed gifts, candies and sweets among them, and had our lunch only after all of them were served.Though I had night shift the day before but I was not at all tired, the best part of all of it was that we spent all day talking and playing with the kids, I would like to mention a touching statement by a girl in 7th standard when talked about her family she said “puri duniya ke log apni family hi to hai” the conceptual “VASUDEB KUTUMBKAM” & yet they are alone in every manner.

It seemed like more than money they needed our love and affection. I felt as if I was helpless, whatever we could have done means nothing, it was too little. The Staff of Aashram has taken well care of the kids and they have some help from different groups but still looking after this population & at the same time providing them with better education and more importantly a hope for better future require attention of more peoples to come forward and help nourish the future of tomorrow.

I don’t know whether I was happy or sad but satisfied by my efforts, somewhere deep in my soul I felt peace and today I am posting this to encourage one and all to serve the unprivileged children and spread KHUSHI around their lips, hearts and souls.

Rakesh Kumar Sahoo