Life skills & RAK (Day 1 & 2)
Before the beginning of the session, we were wondering about what service is, what actions are actually kind……….
The first day, when we entered for the session, we were asked what service means to us and which experience touched our heart? All of us thought about it and came up with multiple definitions of service…. We were curious to know all the answers and we all held our answers for the most awaited session led by Parag Sir.
The discussion about service was introspected by what it actually meant to us. All of us had different opinions about service- like service is a selfless action, service gives inner peace, service is giving things to needy etc… Finally Parag sir shared his experience by saying, “Service should be unplanned and without expectations, doing without thinking, service comes naturally once you adopt it as a nature.”
He too shared multiple experiences of different people but one thing touched my heart when he gave us an example of his friend Mr Jayesh. He said, “One day, he was travelling with his friend by car and they stopped at the signal. A young beggar came towards them. Mr Jayesh rolled down the window and spoke to him inquiring about his name and education. Also, he turned the louvers of the AC towards the young boy to make him feel better under the hot sun. When the signal was about to turn green, he shook hands with the young boy and gave him money. Parag Sir asked his friend surprisingly, “What kind of act is this?” He explained that he tried to befriend a young boy in order to develop equality between them. We were amazed to listen to the friend’s reply.
At the end of the session, we got a clear understanding that seva is not giving materialistic things but giving your time, listening to others, helping others by extending yourself is the real seva.
Ashwin bhai, the school electrician, explained us how we can save electricity, how to read an electricity bill. We learnt the important lesson of switching off the power after charging the phone. We have now become responsible about electricity conservation.
In one of the sessions, we began our day by helping the kitchen staff. We took up different roles like peeling, chopping, cooking, making tea/lemonade, serving. By the end of the day, we realised how difficult it is to be in the kitchen for such long hours and to cook for 2500 people daily. We have decided to appreciate the hard work done by kitchen staff and not to crib about small things. All the male members of the group decided to appreciate their wives/mother who cook for them.
“WE PAY FOR THEIR TIME, NOT FOR THE SERVICE THEY PROVIDE”
Dimple Topiwala, Jimmi Lineswala, Priyanka Patel, Dharmesh Patel, Hitesh Surti