My Indian
Experience
I am a Toybank volunteer who
lives in the United States. I just finished my freshman year in high school. My
relatives live in India and my family visits them every couple years. This
summer was one of those years. I had very little idea of what India would be
like, as I hadn’t visited India in a long time. Back in the Unites States, I had
a job that I loved. I was an after school teacher at one of the local
elementary schools. My job was to play and interact with kids, teach and help
them with homework. I had to supervise the kids to make sure they didn’t do
anything wrong or bad, and to correct them if they did. The job was fun because
I think it is very important for all children to get an opportunity to build
happy lives. I always wanted to help more children though. There are millions
of children who are underprivileged in the world. So I thought of using my
summer vacation to find something to do where I can further my cause and in
turn help the community. This is when I found Toybank. It had a great message:
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men”. I took a
look at their website and it said that they help 38000 children lead better
lives. I was impressed and decided to sign up as a volunteer for Toybank.
So, here I was in Mumbai,
India to spend my summer months with under privileged children. I had many
amazing experiences while volunteering with Toybank but there were three that
really stood out to me. One of them was my meeting with the Toybank CEO Shweta
Chari. On my drive to the Toybank headquarters, I was nervous, I didn’t know
what the experience would be like to meet a CEO. I had never met or interacted
with a CEO of a company before. I expected the CEO to be a very serious and
strict person. Instead, she was the absolute opposite. She was nice and
friendly, which helped to ease my anxiety a lot. At the meeting, she explained
to me and my parents with an elaborate presentation what Toybank was all about.
She also talked about the kids helped by Toybank, the different volunteer
opportunities for me, etc. I was impressed by her humble nature. I made a
mental note that great leaders / CEOs are so humble even after they have
achieved so much in their lives. I participated in several play sessions with
underprivileged kids as a volunteer for Toybank. But, my first one was the most
special, the play session with the kids who live in the slums of Mumbai. My
expectation was that the place would be really bad. And I was correct, the
slums were awful, I couldn’t believe these kids would be living in such
conditions for most of their lives. The roads were cramped and cluttered, the
homes falling apart, the whole place reeking of a terrible smell. I felt really
bad for all the children that had to suffer through all this every day. Sadly,
the kids didn’t even have a proper play area, as it was demolished by the
rains. So, we decided to do our play session in the local temple. The children
were all very happy to even get to play. They were all screaming and jumping
with joy. I was so shocked to see all these kids enjoying the play even in
conditions like this. I didn’t expect any of this. I really enjoyed that play
session because it showed me that you don’t have to be rich to have fun. I was
impressed. The thing I took from this experience was that it’s up to us to play
and have fun in life without getting impacted by the environment around us.
These children had no expensive toys, no air conditioned play area, no iphones,
ipads, etc. but they were having loads of fun and were HAPPY. Back in the US, I
have seen children having everything they can ask for but still are unhappy, sad
and complaining a lot. To get a deeper and broader understanding of how
difficult it is to run an NGO, I worked in the back office of Toybank. I did
the inventory, sorting and checking toys and games in Toybank’s “sorting
center”. The experience was very unique. My expectation at first was that this
type of volunteering would be easier than the play sessions, but that myth was
quickly shattered when I learned that inventory sorting had its own unique
challenges. The volunteers who work in this inventory have one of the most
important roles. They have to check and make sure that all toys are working and
proper, discarding broken toys. This is a very tedious job but also very
important. If the children don’t get working toys to play with, it might not go
well for the children. Along with this, they have to sort the toys into
different categories such as strategy, general, etc. I realized that to
organize the play sessions with kids, there are many people working behind the
curtain. I realized that there is generally more to running an NGO than what
meets the eye.
Anytime someone travels to
a foreign country they are bound to face challenges, that’s just the nature of
the world. Sometimes, the challenges are small, but sometimes they take lots of
hard work and adapting to overcome. The challenges that I faced in India were
tough, but they made me a much better person, and taught me that ability to
quickly adapt to changing circumstances is a very important life skill. For
example, living in the United States, I didn’t know much Hindi at all. I could speak
short phrases but that was about it. So, it was a challenge to communicate with
the Toybank volunteers and the underprivileged children. Throughout my stay in
India I learned more phrases and words in Hindi, so I could have a basic
conversation with almost anyone there. I also grew accustomed to speaking
“Hinglish” a mixture of Hindi and English to fully communicate with the
volunteers and children. In addition to the language, the overall culture in
India was a major shock to me. India is a nation that thrives on chaos. For
instance, nobody really follows the traffic rules in India. Anywhere you go
there are people driving on a red signal, not following lanes, etc. The first few days I was shocked by this and
I was frightened. I thought that if people are not following rules, many accidents
will happen. But somehow in all this chaos things just worked fine. It felt
like there was order in chaos and things always worked out. Over time, I
realized that there was nothing to worry. The people in India are very alert
and somehow avoid accidents. This environment makes Indians prepared to face
any situation. Actually, I started to respect that quality in all Indians. Another
example of a challenge is the amount of pollution in India. There are various
types, noise pollution, water pollution, air pollution etc. I was so scared that
I did not want to leave the apartment. But, I noticed that the millions of
other people living in the city were not falling sick, or bothered from any of
the pollution. This is when I realized that if it isn’t bothering them, why
should it bother me. I learnt to adjust to the new environment.
Throughout my stay in
India, I learned many life lessons. I developed a broad perspective and it’s
always good to get global exposure. Most people from developed countries never
visit developing countries in their lives, because they feel that it is
unnecessary. Therefore, I am one of the few westerners who has seen both sides
of the world. I feel like I now have appreciation for things which I used to
take for granted. We have to be grateful
for what we have and always be happy because there are people in this world who
struggle for basic necessities of life. This trip to India has taught me to be
more thankful and humble in life to god, men and women of all backgrounds. At
last, Indians have me taught to always persevere and never give up. A lot of
Indians face setbacks in their life just because of the country and environment
they are in. Yet, they don’t give up, and they still strive for their major
life goals even after setbacks. From the kids who live in the slums, to the CEO
of Toybank, to my own relatives. I have never seen anything like this to this
degree anywhere else on the planet. In conclusion, India has really changed the
way I look at things and has taught me many valuable ideas and life lessons.
Sarthak Dalal
August 15, 2016
Posts
