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What is it, that makes every person smile although he know he has suffered a lot in past, although he knows, it is not going to be easy again in the future. I really admire people pulling carts loaded with nearly hundred kgs of weights on the busy streets of Bhendibazar in Mumbai in scorching afternoon heat. I really appreciate the courage of people travelling around 50-60 km from Kalyan and other parts to Mumbai to earn their living, in local trains so crowded that barely one can breath properly. How does an auto rickshaw manages to wake up early in the morning, ride an auto in crowded and inhospitable streets of Mumbai for 10-11 hours a day. Where does they bring so much of energy? What motivation do they have to survive in such an arduous journey?
Can't we do anything for them? Can't we bring any change in their lives? No.. I am not talking about charity. Giving something free is not always good. It kills the societal spirit. But that's not the point I am making here.
I have done my Civil Engineering graduation from Government College of Engineering, Karad and presently doing my M. Tech at IIT Bombay. Both the colleges being government institutes, students here are typically hardworking. One of my classmate here in IIT Bombay is working in his lab continuously for one and half year, from morning 9 to evening 6 or 7. Yeah, literally, even more than that, many times. I don't remember, last time when was he absent in the lab, chilling out in hostel playing snooker or chess. And there are many more similar stories in my batch of just 15. I really adore them, respect them. But, when it comes to me...no man, I am simply a lackadaisical or even something more. Same or slightly different words were said to me by a professor at Government College of Engineering, Karad after she took my viva during my 6th semester exam. Looking at the toppers in the class, I just never understood, why do they work so hard. Just for grades! I thought, I would never work so hard in my life. Never ever.
Many times, you misunderstand your own personality, leave about understanding others. Just one year later, I was studying civil engineering, to reach acme of it's knowledge. I really started my IES preparation from scratch. I was waking inches towards miles. I did not knew, that would I be able to reach the target of clearing IES exam. I never even thought, what would be the consequences if 'I Fail'.
After the second semesters were over, during my M. Techs here, I worked like a hell for the IES written examination. Day and night. The time was getting escaped just too fast. Whether is was morning or a dark mid night hardly affected me. I was just laboring over the civil engineering syllabus for IES. In any case I didn't wanted to give any chance for failure. Finally the written exams were over and we breathed an easy air. Afterwards the days past and also the energy we had.
Now the next target was to reinvigorate my M. Tech project. My project topic was "Air quality management related to vehicular traffic". Few months were spent figuring out, what is really 'air quality management'. Like any other M. Techs or PhDs entering in IIT or any other premiere college in the work, I was like,
Leave about the whimsical part of joke in the above meme, I wanted to do in my M. Tech project, atleast something which will useful to someone, somewhere in the world and not only the librarian in the institute.
In third semester during M. Tech, I with my friends wanted to some good courses in Economics and Management. But we failed to enroll ourselfs in any such course of the institute due to non- availability of the seats. Finally we enrolled ourselfs in a course named 'Ecology and Environment' offered by CTARA(Centre for Technology Alternative for Rural Areas) department of IIT B. This department was working in a rural areas. They organised a compulsory field trip during one of the weekends to a tribal village named Aghane, in the mountains of Bhimashankar wild life sanctuary. Initially, we were reluctant to go. But the visit was compulsory and we had to go.
The journey started at around 5.30 AM from IIT Bombay. Being a study tour, we were damn sure, it has to be boring. We were well prepared for that. We traveled along Mumbai-Pune expressway upto Talegaon and headed towards Manchar, a dusty town of around 40000 population.
The guy to the left in the photograph joined us in Manchar. Initially, we were least interested to know about him, as we were busy in our cheers. The we headed towards backwaters of the Dimbhe dam. The dam is located in Ambegaon tehsil. Wait, but where is this Ambegaon town on the earth. It is submerged under this dam's backwaters. Alas, thousands of families displaced. Where did these families go? Now let me introduce these guy. The on the left on the photograph is Mr. Anand Kapoor, IIT Kharagpur B. Tech, 1974. Co-founder of Shashwat, an NGO which has significantly changed this area. Shocked? Left his highly paying job to work for the tribal people displaced during the construction and commissioning of Dimbhe dam. He has almost laid his entire life for the the upliftment and betterment of Mahadeo Koli, Kathkari and Thakars tribal of the Bhimashankar wild life sanctuary area.
When a town or village is submerged, they usually prefer shifting their houses on the upper stretches of the mountains. These people lack access to roads, education and many other basic amenities. They become landless. Here they started cage farming. The Dimbhe Jalashay Shramik Adivasi Machhimar Sahakari Society Maryadit, Digad was set up in 2006, to bring together all the tribal people and cooperatively earn their living.
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| Cage farming practiced at Digad. Source: http://www.indiawaterportal.org/articles/farming-fishing-journey-tribals-dhimbe |
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| Cage farming explained by local people |
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| Ornamental fishes nurtured in the farm |
They started 'Padkai Cultivation', that is cultivation of paddy crops on the steps of the mountains as the dam backwater recedes. This was done by 'Shramdan', which mean volunteer labour. This increased their food production. From building schools to building housed to the oustees. One man has changed the face to the area to such an extent that it was really impossible to imagine the life of these tribal people without this one man.
After visiting many such projects by Shashwat and attending Gram Sabhas, we headed towards the Aghane village where we had to stay overnight. While on the way to Aghane, we came to know that a truck was broken down on the way and the road was blocked. So we had to walk a few kilometers before we reached a school run by Shashwat at Aghane. It was a primary residential school, the only one school for 10-12 villages in the mountains. We had a chance to interact the school children and learn many things from them.
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| School children from Vanadev Vidhyalay, Aghane |
After a long day, we had chance to have informal discussion on various issues with Smt. Kusum Karnik (Kusum Tai, Founder of Shashwat NGO and wife of Anand Kapoor.) Then we returned IIT, late night.
The next day I found myself changed. I remember, just few days after, we were celebrating our classmate's birthday. A new fad getting common among people is applying cake over the face of the birthday boy/girl. Same happened then, and I was so heartbroken that I started thinking, ' Oh god what kind of people are these. There, people don't have proper food to eat and these stupids are wasting food for just no reason.'
I started reasoning each and every activity of mine as what do I do that can be used for the benefit of common people. The only thing I could do was that with my M. Tech project. Later in few months, I was developing a machine which would purify Ambient air. This machine was take up the air in the atmosphere, purify it and leave it back back in the atmosphere. We started it from the scratch.
This was from trying new filters, trying different sizes of pipes, different position of pumps with respect to filters, thermal oxidizers etc.
We tried and failed hundred times. Finally we came up with a structure something like this.
Then after measuring some vital parameters of the systems, we finalized the design and then gave it an industrial look.
Then comes name of the unit. The name and the logo of the machine designed by me was somewhat like this
Finally the WAYU is
Then we started testing this machine on a busy road just outside the IIT campus. We were working day and night to find the influence of the WAYU on air quality. We were working so hard for the last six days, that today on 31st May, 2015, two of our teammates are unwell. But nevertheless, we are resuming our work tomorrow morning 8 A M, at IIT Main gate area.
Yesterday, 30th May, 2015, we were visited by NDTV reporters while we were working. They came to know about our work from NEERI, Worli office, Mumbai. They interviewed us, filmed us while doing the experimental work with the machine and also learned the principle on which the machine works.
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| Me (center) with the NDTV crew. |
Recently, I have also cleared UPSC IES exam, with all India rank 59. The department allocation is yet to be declared by Ministry of Railways, but most probably, I would get my first preference i.e., Indian Railway Services of Engineers (IRSE). After joining this service, I will be undergoing 1.5 years of training. After the training part is complete, on first posting of an IRSE batch officer, the work jurisdiction will be about 400-600 km of railway track and around 800-1000 technical and non-technical staff will be reporting him.
Sources:
1. IRSE: Wikipedia
2. Blog written by railway engineers
3. Quora answer on job profile of IRSE officer
I remember, the day I started preparing for IES, my first motive was to train myself to work harder, more and more harder...till such time my body gives up. To learn to push myself to the limits of nature. I totally forgot, what I was. If I were a cool dude, if I were good looking or not, if I were intelligent or not. I just knew, I am nothing, I want to achieve perfection. Day and night, awake or asleep, a single thought that occupied whole of my mind, "I want to achieve perfection, at whatever cost". In the course of time, I forgot that at some point of the time, I hated studying. Yeah, but never to ignore, I was ready to fail. Rather in different words, I had lot to lot to gain, but nothing to loose.
I remember a very famous quote of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Really, the first and most important thing before you choose to do anything, under the sun, you need to trust yourself. Just trust yourself that, you can work very hard and achieve whatever you want. Each and every word in the meme above is highly relevant to all of us.
The last blog post, I have written, about my IES preparation in detail. Not everyone needs to prepare for IES or IAS. It's just okay to have other kind of dreams. That doesn't really matters in your life. What really matters is, how crazy does your ambition makes you. Just have a motive in your life, dream of it, explain it to yourself, why you dream of it, what is that you will feel after you achieve it, why and how does that really matters in your life, how will you able to achieve that and just go for it!. You may share your dream with someone else, but more that you share, more number of naysayers you will come across. Naysayers, they will find every possible way to convince you will not succeed. Just remember, they are naysayer and you are not, that whats different here and this will lead you to success.
Make you own game plan, and start working. Remember, while you plan, consider the fact that 'you can fail'. Many people forget this and they fail. Start working day by day, night by night. Every second you spend, that should be directly, indirectly rooted to your goal.
Lastly, I would say that life is not a rat race, rather it is a chance to explore yourself. Just select any goal, any ambition, push yourself to the limit and then judge yourself.
