Friday, September 18, 2015

THE TURNING POINT - My Fellowship Journey


                                                             THE TURNING POINT 
Mentor : Bani Sodhi, BA (Hons) Political Science, Miranda House, DU
Mentee : Nargis, Student Class XII
According to Mahabharata, " There is nothing humility cannot accomplish". SEWA Bharat's Youth Connect has been such a humbling experience for both me and my mentee Nargis. More than anything else it has acted as a catalyst of sorts in connecting girls from different backgrounds to achieve a substantively benevolent purpose. The journey has been long and beautiful, having given us a myriad of opportunities to discover not only tangible aspects of life but also the intangibles. I am very proud to say that throughout my mentoring journey, Nargis and me connected on an emotional level as well which is what makes it very difficult for me to narrow down to one incident that we could coin as the 'turning point' in our journey.
As Lord Krishna says, " The senses are higher than the body, the mind higher than the senses; above the mind is the intellect, and above the intellect is the Atman. Thus, knowing that which is supreme, let the Atman rule the ego. Use your mighty arms to slay the fierce enemy that is selfish desire". This has been one of my primary stances throughout my mentoring journey. I wanted it to be a self introspecting, self realization journey for my mentee. Hence through out our meetings we endeavored to reflect upon our being and state of mind and perhaps try and alter the thought process.
Each meeting or interaction as me and Nargis call it, was about introspecting our reactions to situations, deliberating on them and sieving out the 'perceived right reactions, that consequentially led to the ' certainly right RESPONSES' . This not only enhanced our thought process but also our way of living. I made conscious efforts to develop the attribute of 'Emotional Intelligence in my mentee'.
It was all about giving yourself time to reflect on the nuances of a situation before taking a step, though it seemed a little tedious at first, since having to think and choose rational responses for every situation in life is humanly not possible, but well this journey for me was all about developing this as a way of life for my mentee.
It was only when 'IMPULSE' was eradicated, the path for ' RATIONAL CONSEQUENTIAL THINKING' was paved which definitely was the crux of our entire mentor-mentee journey.
I will forever be indebted to SEWA Bharat, for giving me such an exquisite opportunity of mentoring, and in all my humility would like to believe of having made a positive impact in the life of a young girl, who is endeavoring to do the same in her household, in her community and her country.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Tanvee Ma'am for the constant support and adding bundles of cheer to our journeys :)