YPower

The journey from Mumbai to Douala would take us about 2.5 days from point to point. It was normally Ethiopian Airways, via Adis Ababa or Kenyan Airways via Nairobi. One trip was quite nightmarish for my Mother, in the wake of two young children in tow, lots of luggage, no cell phones, and a missed connection between Nairobi and Douala. The family in India had informed my Father that we had safely boarded the flight on time. So, he waited at Douala airport at the stipulated arrival time, only to be informed that the flight had arrived, but without his wife and children. Our connecting flight from Nairobi had been rescheduled resulting in an early departure - before we landed in Nairobi. My Mother, nervous and scared, gathered her wits, sat in the terminal in the middle of the night manned by two burlesque men in arms, insisting on being escorted by security and accommodated in a hotel, after ensuring tickets were reissued to us for the first flight to Douala. That was incidentally only two days later. All hell had broken loose by then between the two ends of family, clueless. Despite sparse and spotty phone connections, my Mother managed to connect with my Father several hours later, safely ensconced in the privacy of our hotel room. She narrated the episode, informed him of the steps she had taken to get us out of Nairobi, and then laughed loudly. I remember her laughing.

Today, it sounds like a normal episode in a traveller’s life, a small inconvenience and nothing worth stressing over. But, for a young woman who had led a relatively sheltered life as the pampered younger sister growing up in the periphery of Girgaon and Marine Drive and always being attended to, being stranded alone in an unknown unfriendly country with the responsibility of restless toddlers was rather overwhelming. More so when the stories of crime and horror were frequent and warnings for personal safety were always riding high. In an era when travelling to Africa was comparatively uncommon, when telephone conversations were an ordeal to organize, when passengers were at the mercy of airlines and when information was not available to the common man, my Mother had shown remarkable spirit and mettle. Several years later when I asked her what had kept her so calm, steady and determined and why she was not carried away, she replied that her children were the reason why she kept going.

Adi Shankaracharya spoke of two boys who lived in a village suffering from sadness and desperation. Sorrow and misery were permanent residents and all the villagers had complete desolation written on their faces, in their conversations and in their actions. There was no hope whatsoever in any form which they knew of or could feel. One day, one of the boys was playing with a ball, when it was tossed over a long and high wall segregating the village from a large barren space, assumed to be the unknown land, one which the villagers had to stay away from lest they be dragged away by the evil residing there. No-one had ever dared to look over the wall, and the children were warned not to venture anywhere close to it. One of the boys wanted the ball and so he climbed over the shoulders of his friend and peeped over the wall precariously. The minute he looked over the wall to the other side, he could not believe his eyes. There was a celebration of sorts, with people laughing and dancing and singing. Children were dressed in colorful clothes and were playing with each other. Adults were engaged in conversations with smiles on their faces, they were hugging each other, patting their backs, and there was music. There was so much joy and happiness, it felt unreal to the young boy, so much so he felt his heart skip a beat, his face break into a smile, his eyes glaze over with happiness. It was magical! “You won’t believe this” he whispered to his friend on whose shoulders he was perched on, “there is magic on the other side.” It is fabulous, he continued, so much better than this side. They are wearing the same clothes as us, eating the same things as we are, they even look like us, but they have magic there. They have something we do not. Let us go there. And saying that he got off his friend’s shoulder, urging him to look himself. His friend curious to see this magic,took his turn to get onto the shoulders of his friend and peeped over the wall. He was mesmerized as well. You are right, he said, this is amazing. In a rush to abandon the misery that was their village, the two boys decided to hop across the wall before darkness enveloped them. One of the boys, who had seen the magic first, hopped across. Just as his friend was about to place his foot across the wall, a thought crossed his mind. He pondered over his village shrouded in misery without apparent reason. He thought of the daily tasks and the way people interacted with each other, and the fact that though they had musicians, they never had music, and though they had food, they never ate together. He realized that the villagers probably did not know the path to happiness and joy. They could experience happiness too, he thought, if someone told them about it. And with that, Adi Shankaracharya narrated, the young boy stayed in his village. If he left, the villagers would never know that there was a path to happiness and positivity, a path they too could follow. I must stay and show them the light, this young boy said, so that all of us could be happy. It is my responsibility, and that was what kept him from going. 

Giles Duley was a fashion and music photographer for 10 years. He had a lot of fun, but always wanted to do something more with his work. Storytelling was always something he wanted to do and so he set out to travel the world, to go and photograph other people in their situations and to record their stories, to bring them back, so that other people might understand. In 2011, while on foot patrol with US soldiers in Afghanistan, the British documentary photographer stepped on a pressure plate buried beneath the road, triggering an improvised explosive device. He lost three limbs. At first, he was devastated by what had happened, obviously and thought his work was over. Nothing made sense to him. And then he realized that he had never set out to take photographs. He had set out because he wanted to make change, to tell stories, and photography happened to be his tool. He became aware that his body was, in many ways, a living example of what war does to somebody. And soon realized he could use his own experience, his own body, to tell that story. The storyteller became the story. And that is how he continued going.

A young woman’s children became her driving force; a young boy’s sense of responsibility became his driving force, and a young man’s passion became his driving force. One continued to go on, another chose not to continue and stay, and yet another continued even when he could not continue in the same way, changing the path itself. I reflect on what must have pivoted each of these individuals, propelled them, centred them in their pursuit-through crises, through temptation and through the jaws of death. Emerging, surviving, thriving. Purpose.

As I ponder over these difficult and trying times, I cannot but help think of how we can feel the power of our Purpose, even more through the waves of this disaster. There are indeed many heroic efforts fuelled by the power of their purpose, by individuals and organizations both. The Mahindras, the Tatas, Patagonia, Unilever, Dabur, Microsoft, the list is long. The Tata’s endless belief in integrity and responsibility towards every stakeholder, Mahindra’s Rise to Alternativism, Unilever’s highest standards of corporate behavior towards everyone, Dabur’s dedication to the health and well-being of every household, Patagonia’s being in business to save our home planet, Microsoft empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more; Each one reflective of the power of their purpose in spirit and action. It makes me believe in the magnificence of this power in the new reality and our world of tomorrow, sans crises. A world led by purpose, people living with purpose, humans being with purpose. A world driven by the answers to the WHY.  

One man, for 22 years, single-handedly, with a hammer and a chisel dug a tunnel 110 meters long and 7.7 meters wide. Dashrath Manjhi. Why? Driven by the loss of his wife, driven by the desire to bring medical aid to his village. I wonder how powerful a nation we would become, a formidable race we would become, a responsible generation we would become, if we could harness the power which Dashrath showed, which Giles showed, which the Tatas and the Mahindras are showing, in each one of us. Incredible! Our combined YPower. The Power of WHY.

In the words of Friedrich Nietzsche:

 “He who has a way to live for can bear almost any how.”

What is your why?