BHAGYA AND RADHAKRISHNA
Ok so this is going to sound cheesy. But to those in the know, the two people I’m going to rave about are worth every column centimetre of gush. I’d be hard-pressed to find people in this world who I can seriously describe as selfless, dedicated and brilliant, but Bhagya Rangachar and Dr V.Radhakrishnan are who I want to grow up to become. Who have made the world a better place to live in, who reinforce the goodness and creativity of humankind.
Bhagya is the prodigal NRI. A software professional, she moved back to Bangalore in 1997 for a year and never went back. Instead, she decided to do something about the children at the construction site she used to look at through her window everyday. A small start- a midday meal at a government school in Basavanagudi led to the formation of one of Bangalore’s most active NGOs-the Children’s Love Castles Trust, or CLT. The name perfectly indicates Bhagya’s vision- to create a framework of love and support for disadvantaged kids to ‘build castles’ for a better future.
I first heard of CLT at a time of transition in my life. My mother Bharati Chanana and her friend Beena Bhandari were volunteers with CLT’s adopt-a-school programme, and were looking after a primary school in the Purnapura slums. One morning in March two years ago, for lack of anything better to do, I met up with Bhagya and was taken on a grand tour of CLT’s projects in and around Jakkur- the midday meal school, the Purnapura slum school and kitchen, and the learning centre being constructed on the grounds of the government middle and high school in Jakkur.
This last project was what ignited my interest- along with the new Intel Clubhouse, it was to be a centre for extra- and co-curricular activities for the kids from the school- activities like theatre and computers and art, rainwater harvesting, writing for newspapers- all to be integrated with their own syllabus. Training for teachers and summer workshops were all part of the plan. I was hooked, just as are the several far more active volunteers of CLT, all inspired by Bhagya’s drive- a drive she cannot quite define, which is not even conscious most of the time, but seems to have a spark and life of its own!
CLT’s main thrust is to give back to the community, to merely act as a catalyst for development work. Which will then be taken over by the now empowered community, which starts to identify with it and feels responsible for carrying the work forward. And all through, the vision that Bhagya started with and fatally infects everyone she meets with, has remained the same- that the child is the nucleus, at the centre of the development process which must involve the family, the school and the community.
Meeting and talking to Bhagya, I am zapped by her spirit, her enthusiasm and her sheer stamina- how does she do it? She was a long-distance runner and is an avid fan of Himalayan treks, so perhaps that gives her the endurance to deal with slum politics, corruption, government departments and who knows what else. And smile right through it all.
Dr Radhakrishnan is a world-famous astronomer, a pioneer in the field of radio astronomy. Several deans of universities abroad owe their positions to him- he’s actually asked to recommend who will occupy which post. He lives in the C V Raman Institute with his wonderful wife Dominique. (incidentally, he’s the son of CV Raman, not that you would know it to talk to him). This Einstein look-alike is an amazingly interesting man. Widely travelled (he has lived and gone all over the world to lecture and research astrophysics) he has stories in every port and friends of every nationality (and therefore Dominique has guests all the time!). Lots of parenthesis there…but that’s because its so hard to classify Rad, as he is known to everyone. What do you call a man who with minimum resources, builds micro-lights and flies them, constructs boats and sails them, sometimes halfway around the world, who is part of a small, exclusive group of world class astro-physicists, and has contributed more towards science than most people alive or dead, in his 70 odd years?
Rad never talks about any of this, except when he reminds me to learn how to make chapattis so I can be a crewmember on the new wing-sail boat he’s just designed when he sails it on the Brahmaputra or across oceans. (Besides his regular meal of rasam and rice, Rad simply loves chapattis. I’m convinced it’s the only reason he comes so readily to our house for dinner.)
Recently, he was given an award by a big industrial house, a small token to honour him for a lifetime of contributing to not just Indian, but international scientific development. And building the first Indian micro-lights. Perhaps even a tiny gesture of thanks for his discovery of the Van Allen belt of Jupiter or his brilliant work in the field of pulsars. Foreign governments line up to get him to their universities to lecture. In any other country, films would be made and books written about his adventures as a sailor and his discoveries as a scientist. Most Indians are hardly aware he exists. But not a word of complaint, or a jot of vanity. Give him his boat and his rasam and some young people to talk to, and he’s a happy man.
What makes these two people special is not just their extensive roll call of actual achievement- Rad’s pulsar astronomy and years of training young scientists or Bhagya’s every successful programme. It’s the complete abnegation of the self. Without being saintly, there is in both the sheer spirit of giving and doing, the courage to forge ahead with no plan B. Expecting nothing but a personal satisfaction in exchange. And doing it all with a sense of humour that truly cracks me up.
No comments:
Post a Comment