Teach for India to startup : How, why, what?

I write this on one of those nights when sleep eludes. Despite multiple attempts, drifting off to a sound sleep is looking like a far fetched dream tonight.

Lying in the dark waiting for the sleep to take over is not my favorite pass time. But interestingly this acts as a perfect setting for contemplating and finding some answers.

One of the questions that has been asked many a times and definitely demands answer is why did I startup after Teach for India fellowship? To an outsider, this might look like an outcome of severe mood swings but as the person closest to this decision I can put forth my very valid case.

Teach for India is not just about teaching. It's a life transforming experience. And this statement is not an exaggeration at all. There is not just one being whose life is transformed but many because teaching for India is a collective effort.

When I entered my class of 60 students for the first time, I was quite confident as I was armed with a training. Two weeks in the fellowship and you realize that the training just got started. Every single day, every uneventful moment was a steep learning curve. 60 different characters to understand and manage at an age where their character is getting moulded. In hindsight I think it was a huge responsbility. Good thing that the magnitude of this responsibility did not struck me back then otherwise there would have been a lot of baggage to work with, which is never good. In a pretty disguise, this responsibility tagged along and the bliss of the ignorance led to creativity, dreams and reaching for the stars : not alone but with a spaceship full of 60 odd 10 years old.

What my kids achieved in two years indicates that I proved myself to be useful but what they did to me is invaluable. They made me patient, empathetic, team player, leader, teacher, dreamer, believer, achiever and a better human being.

I say this a lot in many of my conversations that my kids equipped me with all the valuable lessons, I needed to learn and all the necessary skills, I needed to have to startup. I never did an MBA, I don't need to and yet management comes naturally. Starting up was the most natural choice.

Inspiring, brainstorming, finding solutions, getting a team together, implementing while being resourceful and creating a dent in the universe is the order of the day.

I didn't give my 2 years to Teach for India, it gave me my 50 years.

A yielding unsettled night

I am back.
Actually I am unable to sleep.

Usually I come back very late from office, drained of all energy, exhausted to the core. I am not able to keep myself away from the bed and as soon as my body touches the coziness of the bed I drift off to a sleep full of dreams ( yes, I am a big time dreamer).

And then there are some days when I come early and happily try to sleep so that I can get up early, fresh as a daisy and all those good things associated with getting up in the morning (which, frankly, I don't agree with). So my reason of sleeping early is to sleep for more hours!

But such nights, without fail, turn out to be a big disaster. I end up tossing on the bed, desperately trying to sleep, silently praying for the silence of the night to engulf me and take me to my beloved land of dreams. AND I fail miserably. I always start talking to myself, sometimes giving speech, sometimes having a conversation, sometimes telling stories and sometimes singing songs. Now it sounds crazy but who isn't crazy? Who can claim confidently that they are perfectly, absolutely normal?

Now these are two extreme ends of spectrum : Blissful sleep and disturbed awakened moments. But what if I want to choose one of them. Which one would you prefer? First one, maybe.

But sometimes it is good to have those tossing on the bed, frustrating, unsettled nights. I'll just talk for myself but these are the nights when I hear my voice again singing songs that I loved as a child. I end up introspecting which is so difficult to do in the noise of Mumbai. I reprimand myself for not doing something which I should, I commend myself for doing something praiseworthy. I get time to think about my work, long lost friends, enemies, places I visited, add stuff to my wish list, revive personal goals, forgive and forget!

I am writing this after spending 3 hours of such a night and did I use the word 'disaster'???  No, no something good always comes out of such nights - today it's this blogpost after 11 months!!! And along with this a resolution to which I may or may not stick but what's the harm in trying to write one post every week.

A night well spent!

Good night!

XOXO...