This is a collection of inspiring and motivational short stories,
which I have posted earlier on my Facebook page. Every story gives a distinctly
positive message. Enjoy reading the volume #10 of this collection.
1.
Many people tend to spend their retired life in
a peaceful manner, relaxing and enjoying finer moments of life. However, there
are some exceptional people, who spend their time in unique ways…
Like Pravin Tulpule, an ex-office from Indian
Navy. He retired as Lt. Commander after serving for 17 long years in Navy.
He keeps himself busy by visiting pediatric
wards in hospitals and orphanages, and shows magic shows to the children. He
dresses like a clown to evoke laughter among the children. Some children,
fighting for various diseases like cancer also momentarily forget their worries
and roll out with laughter.
Moreover, he does this free … because he
believes that bringing smile on the faces of deprived and suffering children is
priceless. That satisfies him immensely.
Everyone lives for himself. Some live for
others. He is one among them.
Such people make this world a better place to
live in …!
2.
It is a matter of great pride and pleasure for
any father to see his daughter prosper. But the pleasure experienced by
Ramniwas Shukla, 62, is something unique.
He is a tea stall owner, who serves tea in
Indore police control room.
These days, when he serves tea to all the staff
there, his heart swells with pride when he serves tea to Sub-inspector Tina
Shukla, his daughter.
Tina Shukla says that her father motivated her
since childhood to think big and never give up in the face of adversities. She
gives the credit of her success to her father’s continuous encouragement.
This story brings out two adorable aspects –
one, a humble beginning need not limit one’s dreams and two, a broad minded
father, who encouraged his daughter to excel in her career.
3.
What do we do with the leftover medicines after we are cured
of minor ailments? In all probabilities, they lie in our shelves unused, till
the expiry date and are thrown away one day.
In this common habit of people, Omkarnath Sharma, 79, from
New Delhi has found a novel method of doing his bit towards contributing to the
society. Daily, he goes around the upper middle class and middle class
societies knocking on the doors for leftover medicines. He collects them and
stores them in a small rented room near his house in Manglapuri. The poor
people visit him daily between 4 – 6 pm to see if the medicine required by them
is available with him. He donates around Rs. 5 lakhs worth of medicines every
month. He is popularly known as ‘Medicine baba’ in the neighborhood.
At an age, when people generally tend to relax and enjoy
their life Omkarnath Sharma walks 5 – 7 km every day in pursuit of his dream of
providing free medicines to the poor, while at the same time avoiding the
wastage itself.
He has proved that social service can be done in any form.
What is required is … the will to do.
4.
Some people value their passion more than success. They
believe that doing something, which we are passionate about, gives us more
happiness than doings things, which we do not like, even if that makes us
successful.
No one can prove this more convincingly than Roshni
Mukherjee.
Roshni had a dreamt of becoming a teacher since her childhood. She just loved teaching. After completing her
M.Sc. (Physics) in 2011, she took up a job in a MNC to support her family.
However, the job pressure prevented her from taking up the teaching activity.
Therefore, in a decisive moment, she quit the job and
started a website called examfear.com. In just few months, the YouTube channel
of her online platform had over 74,000 subscribers. The website has around 4000
videos on Maths and Science for classes 9 to 12. Her main aim is to provide
quality education to those children, who cannot afford to pay high fees of
famous tutorials.
She is immensely satisfied today to see that thousands of
students are benefited from her online tuitions, which are absolutely free. She
supports herself on the earnings from advertisements and donations from
charitable institutions.
She can surely be classified as a modern day Dronacharya
teaching thousands of Eklavya around the globe.
5.
It is not always that a person gets declared a
country’s ‘citizen of the day’. Especially when you are on a
foreign land.
But Tejinder Pal Singh, an Indian-origin cab driver, has
been named ‘Australian of the Day‘ for feeding the poor and
homeless in northern Darwin since the past three years.
Every last Sunday of
the month, Tejinder finishes his shift as a driver and goes to northern Darwin
where he feeds the poor and homeless, giving them a taste of Indian
cuisine which includes chickpeas, rice and vegetarian curry cooked especially
for them. Tejinder prepares and carries 30 kg of Indian food
in his van, which has a sign that says ‘Free Indian food for hungry and
needy people.’
Tejinder is a
religious man. He says that according to his religion, ten percent of
one’s income should be spent on helping the needy and the homeless.
He works as an
air-conditioner mechanic during the day and as a cabbie at night. People
who are impressed by his work often try to provide monetary support to
Tejinder, but he refuses the favour. He says that rather than donating money,
they should start their own food drives within the local community.
India is proud of
you, Tejinder Pal Singh … you inspire us.
6.
All of us know the importance of protecting our environment,
but how many of us are willing to do something out of the way to contribute to
this cause? Not many.
Well, Dhananjay Chakraborty, 40, a taxi driver from Kolkata
is an exception.
He has installed a green grass-bed on the roof of his taxi,
by modifying the roof at a cost of Rs. 22,000/- which also increased the weight
by 65 kg. He has also placed eight potted plants in the trunk behind the back
seat to give a garden effect. This increases his fuel consumption but he does
not mind. The temperature inside the non-AC taxi remains cooler because of
these plants and green roof. He says that it is not just enough that one plants
trees. What is more important is to nurture them well, by taking their enough
care.
People like Dhananjay Chakraborty are rare and few. Their
intentions and actions in protecting the environment are far more impressive
than the CSR initiatives by big corporates, who do it more for image building
and publicity purposes.
Tomorrow, if we happen to see that the environment
conditions have really improved, we can be sure that Dhananjay Chakraborty’s
contribution is also there.
Just like the contribution of proverbial squirrel in
building the Ram Setu…!
7.
All of us have guests in our home sometime or other. How
about having same guests, who come daily for over ten years?
Well, Sekhar from Chennai has been feeding around two
thousand parrots every day for over ten years now. That too, two times in a
day, at 6 am and then at 4.30 pm. He wakes up at 4.30 am every day to prepare
the food for these parrots. He places the food neatly on racks on his terrace
and the parrots come regularly without fail.
He is a camera mechanic by profession and spends around 40%
of his income on feeding the parrots. He says that during these years, he might
have missed a meal, but not these parrots. He says that one must love not just
the human beings, but also all the living beings.
Oscar Wilde had said, “The smallest act of kindness is worth
more than the grandest intention”.
He is demonstrating that … so well.
8.
How often do we come across a grade 6 student donating funds
to the Chief minister’s welfare schemes, from the prize money earned though
contests? Rarely indeed.
Well, Maryam Siddiqui from Cosmopolitan High school, Mumbai
does that.
Maryam shot into fame a few months ago, when she topped the
Bhagwad Gita contest conducted by ISKCON (International society for Krishna
Consciousness). She was showered with felicitations, awards and honors from
around the country, starting from Pranab Mukherjee and Sonia Gandhi, several
chief ministers, and many other organizations.
She won the first prize amongst 4,000 students from 195
schools in Maharashtra who took part in the competition. However, that is not
the end of the proud deeds of this girl.
Since then, she has been donating all her cash prizes for
the betterment of girl education in the country. Every cheque that she has
received, which include cash rewards ranging from Rupees 11 thousand to
11 lakhs, have been returned back to the respective administration with the
request that it be used in a scheme or something to provide better education
for girls.
Maryam is from a middle class family, who lives at Mira road
in Thane, Mumbai. Her father, Asif Siddiqui, says, “Though we are not
financially well off, my daughter has made it her mission to work for the
education of girls.” Maryam has also been visiting few other places and
distributing sweets and money to poor girls by herself.
Hats off to the amazing girl who shows us the true
meaning of generosity.
9.
What do the children do with their damaged toys? Most of the
children throw them away or do not play with them anymore.
Well, Vedant Dhiren Thaker, 11, from Mumbai is an exception.
He uses all the broken toys and sometimes disassemble
electronic toys to take out the components inside, to make new toys very
different from the original ones.
It all began during the summer vacations, when he went out
several times and many times his friends came to call him to play outside.
Every time the doorbell rang, his mother had to leave whatever work she was
doing and open the door. This irritated her, like most of the mothers.
Sensing a need and an opportunity here, he developed a
circuit using the remote control of a toy car, batteries, motor drive mechanism
circuit to develop a door-latch-opener with remote control. Now, whenever the
doorbell rings, his mother just presses a button on the remote control and the
door opens.
Vedant has demonstrated that innovations can be done without
any formal technical education or long work experience. What is required is an
analytical mind and a desire to learn.
So, are we looking at a future genius in Vedant? Time only
will tell.
In the meantime, we wish him all the very best in his
out-of-box-pursuits.
10.
These days, most of us experience traffic jams very often.
What do we do when we are stuck in traffic a jam? Curse the traffic? Spend some
anxious moments?
Well, M. Chandra Kumar, 51, and auto driver from Coimbatore
uses the traffic jams for a very productive use. He writes novels whenever he
is stuck up in traffic jams, or while waiting for passengers. Popularly known
as Auto Chandran, he is a class 10 drop out who ran away from house at a young
age. He has written six books so far.
Earlier this week, he travelled to Venice to take part in
the 72nd Venice International Film Festival, as a movie based on his
novel ‘Lock up’ was made into a Tamil movie ‘Visaranai’ and is being premiered
in the event. The movie is directed by Vetrimaaran, and has the honor of being
the first Tamil film to be screened in this event.
Five valuable lessons reinforced from Chandra Kumar’s story.
Time is money – spend it wisely.
Dream big – everything is possible.
Look for opportunities in every adversity.
Talent gets due recognition – sooner or later.
Believe in yourselves and pursue your passion. Success
follows automatically.
***
Coming Soon Volume #11
