I hope I don’t get in any serious trouble for being so late in submitting this report. Well, actually I am not late yet coz there isn’t any deadline declared as of yet.
Anyways I will be sending the report to the concerned authority by tomorrow 11:15 (I hope!)
What is the report?
Oh. Ya.
‘Community Services’ better known as the supplementary course of our 3rd semester curriculum (supplementary has a very deep meaning but lets cut it short and say you just need to pass it to pass.. and no credit involved. So 0 credit. Doesn’t add to your SPI or anything. That’s it. But you need to pass.) was the job given to us, 3rd sem students to serve the society… for 15 hours.
Ok.
15 hours isn’t a big deal.
Only.. it should have been. At least I feel so.
Getting back to passing it, I just needed to create the report properly and yeah of course be the part of my community service team, that I did. The latter, not the former. The report is still due to be submitted but I know its ready and will be submitted by tomorrow.
The problem that I faced during these 15 hours were not the things we did, to serve the community 😛 but the report. It was a pain. Writing 5 formal pages with Times New Roman font size 12 hurts. Hurts, if you think if that’s all you need to pass.
It hurts if you think write it, or even better, copy it from your teammate and get it done on time and wohoo! done!
It hurts…. if you are Mahaveer Verma.
So here comes the small twist. I did complete the 200 words 5 page formal report by using some ahmm.. team resources. But, but ,but. One small last section hit me straight.
The conclusion.
I couldn’t write it the same as the professor would expect. I just couldn’t resist speaking freely about the conclusion of everything.
And so I let myself a bit free… I’ll show you how later, but before that, lets forget about the formal report. Its done and I am in no mood to discuss this here. I need a good sleep before the last day of my college vacation ends.
What I really want to talk about is… The real report.
Mahaveer, What’s All This 15 Hours Deal?
Well, as I said earlier, it was a not so big deal of supplementary course which of course like every life incident I took seriously. Not much this time though, I tried but couldn’t. You probably know me by now.
Our team had 8 members and we were supposed to perform tree plantation for the first day and help out an animal welfare trust on the other day. The third day would be for promoting people about the work we did and what some NGOs do.
Neat plan.
Tree Plantation
“Where are you now?” – Me
“Coming back to hostel” – My friend
“When should I come and join?” – Me
“We will tell you the location of plantation and you join us directly there.” – My friend
Well, plans don’t always turn out as neat as they say. The final spot decided for tree plantation was not some ehh.. I don’t have any proper word for it, a place where you would expect people to plant something. It was … my friend’s very own hostel.
Not exactly on a concrete floor, no. Outside the hostel, on the side of the highway that passed by.
Yeah, not a good plan at first sight, but it was good. At least somebody would be watering them regularly and everyday as my friends would see the plants that bear their name (and mine too!), it might.. might.. make them proud… one day.
About 6-7 hours, 16 dirty hands, 8 empty stomachs later, the hostel saw 20 fresh plants right in front of it. We have a group photo too.
8 members if I got my maths right. And no, we don’t look that black and dirty everyday. Its just.. the mud and all.
And then there was the utter desperation to get framed properly in the picture. You can’t ask a stranger who was just walking nearby to keep taking photos until everyone looks good there! You have only one change.. Either your photo lives or dies. No second chance.
The Wisdom At The Animal Welfare Trust
I won’t say much as it might be unhealthy for some of our teammates to hear about the place of wisdom again.
That’s because we got to learn a LOT LOT more and we left a LOT LOT heavier from there, though our feet were lighter 😉
One thing that I will always remember is that they really did a great job. And they needed more volunteers there. Seriously, I am not joking here on the matter when I say that some of the animals getting treated there melted our hearts… maybe only to make it stronger.
When you can’t see your friends suffer from fever how can you see a small puppy suffering from paralysis.. or being blind, handicapped. When a bird can’t fly, its already half dead. And so are the humans that contribute to the ill behavior.
No animal deserves what we saw there. But I can say they did deserve to be treated like humans.. free.. by that animal welfare trust.
Hmmm…
OK.
That’s almost it.
Yeah? Mahaveer, what did you learn there then!?
Well, I can say I didn’t learn anything worth sharing here. Not because they are too obvious but because they are too useless.. yet precious and above all, helpful. Yes, I do think everything I learnt there was useful. (useless yet useful. I love to say things like these!) And its difficult to explain.
Whether it be the small things I learnt about running an NGO, or how to travel in rain and offer our seats to the elder generation in a full jammed bus, the real community service indeed, whether it was the ‘jugaad’ that we did to plant all those plants without any digging instrument, whether it was the waterless tear in the hearts of all those ill animals, whether it was the strongest will to perform the task in hand by one of my teammates, whether it was written on the report or not, there are things, things that are to be written in the diary of our life, our memories and our knowledge.
Here is the conclusion to the report that I added to the ‘formal’ report that I am going to submit tomorrow…
The 15 hours spent towards community service (unwillingly for some) might or might not benefit the youngsters pursuing this supplementary course in a direct manner. But as far as my experience goes, this has helped create an awareness of serving the community in the minds of all those who were directly or indirectly connected to the program.
While most of my classmates would have taken the course as a burden, there are some that have been truly affected by this in a positive manner. I assure, one of them is me. Tree plantation, which has already been a hobby for me, this time it helped the society in a direct manner. At least the plants which will grow for the next 5-10 years will bear the name of 8 students who planted it. One of whom being me. While Jivdaya trust taught us how to love a blind dog just as you would a golden retriever, the manager at Jivdaya also taught us some lessons on running an NGO.
“I cant define knowledge, knowledge defines me.” – Mahaveer Verma
This course has been equally helpful in providing us knowledge and wisdom, whether this report reflects this or not.
Well, at least this blog post reflected what I meant.
very well written
Thanks Mehul 🙂