Note:
I wrote this article while I was in MindTree, Bengaluru. It was reviewed by Subroto Bagchi, then Gardener of MindTree. Then it was published on MindTree's internal portal with some of the portions taken out due to space restrictions. The complete writing is published here.
Mind: In MindTree, an employee is addressed as 'Mind'.
TSA: Technologists for Social Association. This is an internal community in MindTree who spend time with inmates at Missionary Of Charity and Sri Lankan refugee children at Indira Gandhi International Academy on every second Saturday. Corporate Social Responsibility is at the heart of MindTree's vision. In fact, Mindtree's old logo was created by a student Chetan, who has cerebral palsy!
It was April 11, 2008 evening, the day before the second Saturday
of the month. I was at my cubicle when the telephone at my nearby desk rang up.
“Hello! Is Siddalingesha there?” an
elderly, gentle voice I heard, when I
picked up the receiver. “Sidda is on leave today. Could I know who is speaking? Anything
urgent?”, I asked. “Moses. I want to talk to Sidda regarding TSA. Do you have his
number?” was the reply. TSA and Moses are synonymous names in
MindTree! I had been thinking to go on a TSA trip myself but my conviction
was not firm. On the spur of the moment, I decided to go. After giving
Sidda’s cell phone number, I showed my interest to be a part of TSA and Moses
gracefully accepted.
The next day, I reached our Banashankari office at 8:40 am, five
minutes before the usual time of departure for TSA’s second Saturday trip. Like
me, a few Minds had come without our ID cards. Somehow we managed to convince
the security personnel near the gate that we would not get inside the company;
we had come for TSA trip only; they let us in. I was very happy to see
some people from other organizations joining TSA; some even had been coming for
years! “We have
some personal attachment with them. This attracts us to come and meet them
again and again”, told Ravindran, who was not a MindTree Mind and has been
coming for two and half years! “Is it so?”, I
questioned myself. We started our journey.
Fig: Subroto Bagchi (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Around 10:45 am we reached Missionary of Charity (MoC), Yelahanka. “Geogie! What are these three
books? Could I have a look?”, I asked one of my team members just after we got down from the
cab. “Yeah! Sure”, he replied while handing over three ISKCON published books adding, “Parag gave me. He told me to
give it to one lady here”. This is the first instant, I saw personal relationship of my team
members with MoC people. We were moving towards the entrance of the building.
In MoC there are well trained nuns, serving people for whom there
is nobody in society. They follow Mother Teresa. None of them are paid
employees like us; this is the most surprising fact about MoC! Still these nuns
are satisfied with their work!! They take anyone who comes for help
irrespective of caste, creed and religion; this is what is called Principle
of Christianity.
Fig: Subroto's handwriting
Reaching the entrance, anxiety of seeing something unknown made me
walk fast inside the building with Ravindran. There we saw around twenty old ‘men
and women’ sitting in a row, some on the floor and others on a long bench. I
was taken aback by seeing their woeful condition. As if they were struggling to
live with their disintegrated and miserable body. For a few moments I was
thinking “Why
these poor have been abandoned by their relatives? Would not old age come for
their relatives?”. Seeing
us, they started smiling; some raised their hands slowly waving towards us to
greet us. Though I was unable to understand their language (Being from Odisha,
I was not so familiar with Kannada or Tamil in which those people were
talking.), I was enjoying their conversation with my team members. Few of my
friends were making fun with them and they were laughing uncontrollably.
Their happiness filled my heart with joy.
After that, we started serving lunch. One old woman kept on
refusing me an additional helping in her own language. I could understand from
her facial expressions and body language that she wanted very little to ensure that
there was no
wastage of food. So when I offered the lunch plate with less food, she happily
accepted. I silently remembered our cafeterias thinking about the ‘food waste
chart’ pasted a few months back!
Then I moved to an extreme corner of the verandah where a very old
woman was having her lunch. She was about to finish when Anulekha came, sat in
front of her (Anulekha is TSA regular. She joined MindTree in 2005, two years before
me) and asked something lovingly. The old woman raised her head, stared at
Anulekha with her eyes gradually filling up with tears and emanating love as if
she had some earlier relationship with Anulekha and had been longing to see
her! Suddenly she started sobbing unconsolably like a child! Anu hugged her,
kissed her forehead with her palms around her cheeks and was telling something
lovingly to soothe her grief stricken heart! I could not hold myself and moved
away to control myself. After few minutes I came back. “What happened Anulekha?”, I
asked. “Whenever
she sees me, she starts crying”, Anu replied. “You still can’t help coming to
her, talking to her, sharing her sorrows, giving her a hug, a kiss. Ravindran
was absolutely right. You do have personal attachment with these people!!”, I heard my inner voice reply. It was a great experience that day and
I learnt a lot from others.
A gentle touch, a hug, a
smile, and few loving words... they cost you nothing but are priceless when
you share them with others. They can create a ray of hope for the hopeless,
give strength to the weakest and helpless who cannot help themselves. Never ask “Why are these people suffering?”. It is
we people, their kins, who have made their lives miserable by not paying
attention. Service to mankind is service to God! Our selfishness, false pride and incessant desire for momentary pleasure makes us blind to ignore those who have once sacrificed the most for us. At this point, a beautiful
poem, one my dearest teacher wrote for me when I was in MindTree, comes to my mind. I reproduce it
as it is:
O son! Satyaranjan!
Kindle the flame of compassion
Barring every odds and confusion
And tearing the clouds of selfish vision
Mind the mind and MindTree
Embracing you to a greater degree
Enlarging your success horizon
Brightening the path of destination
Let love not lust drench the thirst of your breast
Allow you to enjoy your profession
Foster the spirit of appreciation
And devotion in God’s creation
