Yuva Ekta: It's time to erase the divide between 'Them' & 'Us'

Have you ever inhaled and exhaled like you’ve never tasted the air before?
Enveloped young fingers into the earth’s soil,
Seen a seed nurture into a miraculous bloom,
Spread your spirit through forest laden trails,
Lived a moment when a five year old spelt his / her name for the first time,
Recited a poem with phrases that thanked the mighty one, for the food that we ate, the clothes that we wore, for eyes to see and a vision to frame a concrete future,
Have you ever just listened, to the sound of the plough, as it tears the earth’s breast to give life to a new universe?
Have you witnessed small hands fold and unfold pieces of paper, to give shape to a dream?
What were the farmer’s hands made off, when he labored through the day?
Why did a girl suffer her unequal existence? Was she not human enough?

How many of us think we’ve seen it all, know it all?

In Bharat the truth stood naked, but the citizens of India preferred it with clothes on.
Is the Indian adolescent just branded, stuffed with high-sounding phrases, grand glutinous words. Are all of us whitewashed?

The 25 of us from Bluebells School International, along with my colleagues from The Tehelka Foundation, lived through a million ‘humane’ experiences during our week’s stay at CHIRAG. Experiences that seeped through the pores of our minds and our spirits; and opened up new horizons to our disillusioned lives.

Some of us might be too naive to acknowledge this, but I personally have realized how I went there in search of answers and solutions for the lives of the people who lived in these rural communities.
Instead, I found answers and solutions for my own existence.

In the words of Jean Paul Sartre, “On the other side of the ocean....there was a race of less than humans who, thanks to us, might reach our status a 1000 years hence........when one day our human kind becomes full grown....its not defined as the sum total of the whole world's inhabitants.......but as the infinite unity of their mutual needs.....”

My friends, I request you to question what is put before us.
I also request you to find answers to any / all of the above mentioned experiences, or even add a dash of your own.

Remember, it is important for us to keep asking……..Why?


- Gauri Rishi
Program Officer
The Tehelka Foundation