They make me happy!

It's human nature to keep searching for happiness and that was how..tired of my mundane life, I decided to join JYOT (an english teaching activity for housekeeping in Infy involving loads of volunteers) about 2 years back. I thought maybe this was one way I could really make a difference to someone's life in a selfish way(selfish - because I wanted to be happy).

My first day started with getting in touch with the supervisors and housekeeping in a meeting to decide their class schedule. It was a real funny start. The housekeeping people stood against two walls and I called out their names to rearrange themselves. Then, before I could even complete calling out names, they started pushing each other to move, just like KG kids do. And how could I miss their side glances which said it all - "Are we really going to study again? I mean, like we are so grown up.huh..". Ohkey, I get the message - "You guys will be tough to deal with!."

Then it all went smooth and having classes with them was really a patience test. You have to make them mug up Alphabets and their pronunciations ( like baccho bolo, firse bolo), then give them homework, check spellings, scold them even when they are so elder than you. Pretty much a job of teaching a kiddo, who had loads of questions in mind. It was one such class of teaching basics of introducing yourself to one another when I gave them some 4-5 sentences and in a mood of jest, one of them asked me - "Hello mam. I'm Ganesh! Are you married?" 'Good one!'..I said somewhat embarrassed. But looking at their smiling faces, I said - "You all are learning pretty fast!" :)

It was good to see them write small essays, their daily register entries and they even started teaching their kids at home to improvise more. Considerable amount of change, seeing that they started wishing me "GoodMorning" here and there( a little bit of show off on their side ;))

Later as I got involved, we started on some new grounds too. On these line, this saturday, we got a chance to finally have an AIDs session arranged for them after a tiring effort of getting everything in synchronization. There was a a guy named Avinash from Deepgrah NGO who understood our plight related to logistics and assured us that he will come whenever the internal matters were resolved. I guess that more than a respite for us. The event was such a success and the enthusiasm displayed by Avinash and his team and our housekeeping staff is beyond description. There were some hillarious moments too, in the street play where they asked our staff(in a very typical manner) to tell us where the red light area girl Sarita(fake name)lived in Pune and each and every person was blushing(as if they actually knew). Even the NGO people were amazed by the campus and the feel of the session.

So, that's how, I have been happy for quite a while by making other's happy.There is no satisfaction which matches this one. And..Oh! Did I forget to mention about the training I'm getting out of it, to have somewhat higher levels of patience! :)