So it is 2 O’ Clock in the night and I just woke up yet again from a “half awake” sleep. I have a weird ability (call it ability or unnatural behavior) to wake up in the middle of the night and pen or key down my thoughts. Nearly 90% of my poetry, writings and blog posts have materialized in the height of the nocturnal.

I like writing. I like it a lot, but the devil of procrastination and laid back attitude always muffles the inner voice. May be I too need a trip to Mecca to throw a few stones at the Satan :)
Well, today I am going to write about something which should have been here a long ago. Anyway, it’s never too late. Oh yes! Let me just put forth a quote I wrote a few weeks back to excuse my long sleeping hours. “It does not matter how long you sleep; what is more important is what you do after you wake up”
Gosh! Ignorance is bliss, certainly!

My experiences with We Volunteer, a place, haven, incorporation, dance floor, coffee shop, evolution, idea, movement, coterie, I have so many different perceptions of it. It was the January of 2007 and I had just returned from the New Year trip to “Vaishno Devi”. The trip was important and memorable for so many reasons. One, it was going to be the last trip with a couple of very very close friends and second, I was just zapped after completing a “pain in the ass” application procedure for the graduate program that I am into right now. But I think that period while I was running around for my applications were just a mere façade with respect to the current picture. But I sure don’t want to go back :)
So I had some six months at hand before crossing the border. When a person enters college, he/she always breeds a desire to work over some social aspect in life. I had them too. But the undergraduate years were just too involving for me in terms of searching for things which now seem to be irrelevant. Yeh! Wasted a lot of time. So I decided to join some organization which was into social work, during the time I had before starting the MS. O! hail Google. I jotted down a few numbers and office addresses I managed to gather from some websites.

The first place where I went was the AIDS awareness society of Chandigarh. It is a very active organization in the city and it was the first choice because I had always carried an AID awareness symbol on my bike’s number plate. The office was under some kind of renovation and I was guided to some other location. But the devil of procrastination crept in and I thought of making a call to some other organization. I called up at Preet’s number and obviously he answered the call :) I went to meet him at Stuce PU that day. The meeting was fine, though I don’t really recall much of it. Anyways, I joined the group at their next weekend event. It was Saturday I think and the event took place at Pustak, a school run by an NGO named YTTS for the slum children in sector 25, chandigarh. I participated in all the future events that took place at Pustak. They were fun in so many different ways. First, it brings you in direct contact with the kids which just gives you a high:)

Second, you tend to learn from the kids, but you don’t…lol
As my association with We Volunteer continued, a strange thing happened; so many people took a step back and were never to be seen again for any of the events and meetings. I can state the reasons very bluntly here :). But I would just keep mum and give a nice, diplomatic reason. Since all the people in the organization, are and were, students, they have their constraints. Duh! I wana throw it out at being so humble…lol. Anyways, let’s not waste characters on them. Infact, now the real roller coaster ride starts. We started a couple new projects, beggar rescue and alternate source of income (which kaval was taking good care of). Both the projects went well. Infact these two would actually become the pillars of We Volunteer at a later stage.
The hand bags that Kaval and company made sold pretty well. This made my belief stronger, girls purchase anything. We once made Paper Bags on a Saturday morning and sold them to a boutique for 500 bucks.

By the time it was April, We Volunteer was reduced to three people :). Me, Preet and Kaval. But, as they(I) say, “a tripod is worth a hundred”. From here on began a new journey, a dedicated effort towards a single focal point “Child Beggars”. Sector 17 shopping plaza became our second office. We sat around with child beggars at the plaza, interacted with them, told and listened to stories, their childish lies, their bollywood names, their unique games and playing toys, rowdy fights, energy and lack of patience and from here only started my affair with Pooja…hehehee.

One thing I hated to see was people stopping by and just gawking at us idly while we were sitting along with the kids at the plaza. They had nothing to say, nothing to do, nothing to offer, they just “Looked”. Why? Is there some show going on?
So this group of kids ultimately became our very first students. The class was held at around noon until 1:30, 5 days a week. We were not able to teach the kids much, but they sure taught us more :). There were so many challenges, for the kids as well as for us and I think me on my personal perspective, failed at delivering much. Kudos to Navnee and Ankita, who dared to make it to the class in the sweltering heat to take the class. The sessions continued for more than two months and then it crashed all of a sudden due to an event which took place hundreds of miles away from Chandigarh.

But then you can’t stop the river from flowing. With time, newer members joined in with a few old ones too, rejuvenating their spirits. And, a new child was born, “Yuva Parliament”. I won’t say that this was the most successful project that we undertook because all the things we did no matter how miniscule their impact was it gave us more confidence and questions to ponder over. But Yuva Parliament in its identity is a majestic and grand way of doing things the youthful way. Yuva Parliament has been into three sessions until now.
Once I had an essay to write on the topic, “If I you were the Prime Minister of India”. I was clueless on what to write. I think I have the answer now.

hazaaron khwahishen aisi, ki har khwahish par dum nikle.