Summary From Awakin Talks With Ravi Gulati
ServiceSpace
--Jignasha Pandya
6 minute read
Jun 28, 2021

 

Last Sunday we had the opportunity of hosting Awakin Talks with Ravi Gulati in conversation with Prof. Anil Gupta & Sachi Maniar.

The conversation with Ravi was like constant movement into the unknown spaces that life offers and how creativity and saying 'Yes' allows for some of the most unimaginable things to happen. Below is an attempt to capture some of those moments.

Manzil not a destination but a journey ...
Family was the foundation, they tilled the soil so that the seed could sprout. An older sister who was mentally challenged and her coming into our family was a special thing, it changed many things.



Inequality and people having different starting lines bothered me. If capitalism is a merit based system then why do we have inheritance at all?

Choosing a different career path ...
Learnt about the existence of NGOs in 1990 from a college senior. I was nervous as it was an untested thought. There was just so much out there and as a 20 year old. A two month summer training at a non-profit had a huge influence on my life. What you read in books and the reality out there were very different.



Manzil was not planned it happened ...
I was just responding to what was happening to me. While I was planning to move to the mountains to start farming, my mother asked me to help two kids from the neighborhood with Math. I got excited to help.



Like Fukuoka says, ‘growing crops, is tending to the soil, not the crops’. So, education was about tending relationships. That is where it started. They (the two kids) started to bring their friends. The ideas came as I was responding to that situation in a very living organic ‘sahaj’ way.

Values are not taught, they are lived ...
My father gave up his bed if someone came home and slept on the ground. I have never had private space in my house growing up. This was natural to us. There was difficulty sometimes of running (Manzil) from our house. There were sometimes 50 kids in our small house. While Sonia (sister) could be very affectionate and loving, she can also be jealous and would want my attention. It was all there out in the open and we were managing it with the children.



Integrating special needs children in regular schools ...
Integrating special needs children with other children is important. It’s challenging but makes sense. It slows people down, but I feel we are worshiping speed unnecessarily, in human society.

Music and the student teacher chain at Manzil ...
There are about 10 bands now that have come out of Manzil. I asked the children what were they excited to learn about. And, they said music. We started with learning from each other. Serendipity happens, a volunteer drops in and decided to teach music for an entire year.



The first song they recorded was ‘Jeetenge Baazi Ekdin’ and eventually they called themselves Ekam Satyam, followed Neeraj Arya’s Kabir Cafe, Manzil Mystics and many others. Today, at any given time we have about hundred guitarist available for us. It started with one kid and now there are generations of students and teachers. It has been 23 years and is still going on.

Seeds of empathy sprout ...
The very basic is to see how they (students) are ready to share their learning. Unfortunately in our Indian homes it is a binary that if you are a student you cannot be a teacher. If you see the music bands, they are all competing for the same pie. But they are there for each other, they are caring for each other that is generally higher then what we see around us.



Manzil Mystics have started this entire program around learning through music in government schools. So many people are involved and so much good music is produced. Their latest is a song called Umeed Hai.

Example of multidimensional non traceable giving ...
We are doing a project currently with Micheal and Susan Dell Foundation along with Manzil Mystics. We are making a lab where this kind of music can be created in house and we do not need to go and hire a studio, people can get trained, even work and jobs. That was a great place and a confluence of two very different worlds, that do not meet normally unless somebody creates that context or platform. I think that kind of bringing together will enrich both the lives, because there are resources in one place that can help the other thrive and there is enrichment, intangible, soul fulfilling stuff here that you can’t buy with money.

Other seedling from Manzil ...
Interestingly a lot of it is around arts. All women group worked on quilling art and started craftkari.in. Dance kabila an organization built around dance. Travel company started by Pradeep Delhi By Locals and a Manzil like learning space called Learning By Locals. Film Art which makes films led by Lalit and they are making some very sensitive beautiful films. Art Bucket which does graphic design.

Unlearning and relationship with money ...
For me at one time I felt I could just travel and it would feed my soul. But then when I read Fukuoka's book I felt if would become a farmer, that would feed my soul. And then when the children came I knew this would feed my soul. So, money became just an instrument to allow that to happen. And, therefore I never had that comparison or confusion. I just needed a path forward to do what I wanted to do.

I also lost the fear of – what will happen in the future, because I saw that it actually does not take so much to survive. These are all notions in our head.

Message to youth on sustenance and listening to the heart ...
We have to take care of our needs. But needs have a way to creep. We start calling other things also as needs. The more boundary we have the better.



You can do a lot with less money, you just have to get creative. And that gives you the freedom. If someone says money gives you freedom, I beg to differ. Being creative with less money and less needs gives you freedom.


Do not stop following your heart. Because if you are not alive, what is the point of anything.

Thoughts on scale ...
I guess in the beginning I was defensive about us remaining small. Overtime I have realized that, that defensiveness is not required. It is more to do with my nature (swabhav). We are human beings with limits, dispositions, tendencies, strengths, weakness. My tendency is that I always see so much improvement that has to be done, in what I am already doing.



In a beautiful way, there is scaling which is more nature like, which is the scaling of the seeds. One of my inspirations, Vishweshwar Dutt Saklani for 60 years single handedly planted more then 50 lac trees around his village in Uttarakhand. He would always say that if just one chana dal (chickpea) seed remained on the earth and that was planted, soon we would get a fistful of it. In a very short time it would be feeding the world again.

Personal practice and conflict resolution ...
There are always many perspectives to anything and as humans we are conditioned to automatically react in one way. Each one may be different. So, when we look at conflict, we have to slow down and suspend our favored way of looking at it.



If we slow it down and go deeper, very often we find that it is the same common humanity expressing itself in different forms. If we can really listen to each other then we can find resonance in what the other person is saying and something will get resolved. Often it takes time. But it is worth putting that time.

Advise to adults about understanding children...
Sometimes parents say, ‘my child is so responsible, he is so obedient’. Now, to me that strikes as a complete contradiction. How can obedience be a sign of responsibility. It cannot, they are opposites.



Closing thoughts ...
My one learning from life is that – Whatever you value, just offer it. The Buddha has called it wise selfishness.



The binary difference of selfishness and selflessness does not work. It is too over simplified. If we go deeper we will see that actually what we give away is actually not giving away. It comes multiplied many folds.

 

Posted by Jignasha Pandya on Jun 28, 2021


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