_{Article ID: IG.23.11:21}

_{Important note to the reader: This article is published in continuation to the first article of this journey “Less Resources: More Innovation”. I would request you to kindly read that article first (if you have not) to avoid any misunderstandings.}

^{Characters of the story: Mr. Sharma (myself- Gaurav Sharma); grandma (my grandmother-Nirmala Devi); a place of stillness and chaos (my village: padaasla)}

^{Context of the story: Transformative experience by involving myself into grassroots innovations.}

Do you know what is the easiest exchange in this world?

You might think of some crucial things of life with less friction like gossiping words, money, food, liking someone’s post on social media, or sharing your inner voices with your loved ones. But if we observe the context of such things, then these things becomes conditional. All these mentioned keywords are happening conditionally. Most of the time, if people see any output for themselves or wellbeing in those things, then they are thought to perform these exchanges. Otherwise, they might feel better to be alone without thinking of seeking any personal need.

Here, the power of unconditional framework has been held by sympathy. Sympathy is the easiest exchange in this world, you don’t even need to be at some point. Meanwhile you just feel that and most importantly manifest. It is again just the intensity a person carries within. But a synonym of it is very difficult to have, that is empathy. Being empathetic is not as easy as being sympathetic, because this is not the work of understanding some situation. But it is a framework of knowing the situation exactly (in emotion or in memories) and hence knowing happens from experience, not understanding. With such context…

…Back to the event; …

… This thing was very clear to Mr. Sharma. So, he knew that thoughtful actions need to be targeted at the people very clearly so that they could become, not sympathetic, but empathetic about his initiative. So, he initiated this journey and started talking to his parents first regarding these things. He shared an idea to proceed, but again (you know!) grandma type of smile and then a long-lasting laugh.

He tried to organize several meetings with the village committee, but nothing worked due to less coordination of village’s people. He was in dilemma that, “why he is not getting any social support from these people?” Not even his peers or family members were interested. Just the specific crown of ignorance was manifested to his eyes from those people. He was so disappointed that he thought to spell this idea into the dustbin. But every time his mother’s approach of conducting her life with immense integrity shored up his thought process. He was unbalanced but thanks to spiritual practices, which helped him to get balanced instantly and made him realize some of his faults or wrong moves with introspections. But how? Hmmm; …

…Let us understand it in this way!

Once, Devdas was travelling to a food point on his bicycle to get his favorite Indian dish “Rajmah chawal”, as he was not married yet, you know!!! Suddenly, his bicycle’s tire passed unbalanced through a small pit and Devdas fell on the roadside. With some minor scratches/wounds, he turned back to his home partially conscious and took out some bandages from the drawers. Confronting a mirror, he looked at the scratches on his face and started fixing those. After a while when he came back to his conscious (normal) state. Astonishingly, he saw that he didn’t fix himself but only mistakenly tried to fix the wounds reflected by mirror with bandages. This is the problem! And Mr. Sharma, so called a “self-propelled boy”, addressed that now.

As instantly he realized that he needs to fix some more experience and work in his professional world. This was not the part of proving people’s thought process wrong. But it was a part of his own daunting journey to get some unprecedented support at any point. “As he had no proper experience of grassroots innovations yet, but he wanted to make other people learn”. It was never meant to work in this way.

Fortunately, with his efforts, he got selected in the National-Grassroots-Innovation-Program conducted by SRISTI–BIRAC every year at the national level. Now, he was going to get the taste of real efforts necessary for grassroots level which he always wanted to experience. He had already worked on grassroots with his grandma but that didn’t make any extra mark to his brain cells. Because now he had to strategize and work uniquely in desire to explore, not to reinvent.

The duration of this innovation program was 4-5 weeks. There were 50 students selected from all over India and only 10 of them were supposed to receive the grant money. He was the only participant from Himachal Pradesh, so there was only one opportunity of getting success to his home-state and to his village. The pressure of work in that program was such that everyone was in havoc. He was also concerned for his chance. Subsequently, the head of the program “Professor Anil K. Gupta” (an eminent personality-nationally/internationally) assigned a very tough task to these 50 participants. The task was to perform an extraordinary “home-experiment”, which could provide the relevant outcomes in terms of its feasibility.

The boy was nervous due to no lab facility, no specific shops to buy crucial materials for the experiment. “Now what to do? I am stuck in this village”, he questioned himself. He started searching some old scrap/junk inside the storeroom of old home. Well, he garnered few things and started performing his home experiment. But again, he miserably failed. Three weeks were passed already, and nothing was happening in his experiment. The irony is that no one of his family was concerned about his work. They had their own discussions regarding; What will he do next, a job? When will he get married? The disappointment level inside his heart raised to such a level that he became alone. It was the moment of inside stillness and outside chaos. “So many efforts and devotion but nothing is happening”, intrinsically he questioned himself with a disappointment and became still with his alone desires.

Once more, only 15-20 minutes of mindful meditation and some realization in a room. With some amount of anticipation, he decided to continue the experiment. He had already noted that it was an impossible task to conduct that experiment which he thought to. Now he was enough aware that taught lessons of his research laboratory are not going to work. So, he knew that he does not need to think like a researcher at this moment. Instead, he needs to think like a helpless innovator. One spark of ideal hope on his head and he immediately left his room…

…To be continued in the upcoming article “From Untruth : To Truth”.

Hello readers, here, I am ending this article of my journey. The experiment I was performing will be interpreted in the upcoming article “From Untruth; To Truth”, which is very interesting and full of experimental learnings as well. Especially, if you are a budding explorer of life! Stay tuned with me!!!

Thank you!