While India ushers in Daan-Utsav, an unique festival which celebrates the ‘Joy of Giving’, we try to decode what makes Giving a Joyful experience. Knowing that ‘Joy of Giving’ touches people from all walks of life we decided to understand various perspectives from people from all walks of life – a homemaker, an entrepreneur, a social worker, HR professionals and employees who are not part of organised workforce.
For someone like Sagina Deshmukh (a legal practitioner, a homemaker, Secretary of the housing society) the “tiny” act of giving starts from Ganesh Utsav. She has turned the ritual of making offerings to Lord Ganesha in her house during Ganeshutsav into an act of sharing and caring. The guests are asked to make all offerings in a Signal Shala (Signal School) donation box. All this donation goes towards the running of school which is literally at a traffic signal in Thane. Signal Shala is a school run by few volunteers with the mission of taking child beggars off the streets, and bringing them into the mainstream. Currently in its second year, 45 children are enrolled, 22 more will join next month. So, by transforming Ganeshutsav into Daan-Utsav, Sagina in her own small way acting as an Agent of Change, is helping in improving lives of marginalised sections of the society by promoting the cause of education. With such a noble thought at its heart, no wonder Sagina has been successful in influencing many in her housing society and in her social circle to join hands for this noble cause where her Care for education has led to Sharing blessings of the Divine.
On the other side of the spectrum is Nikhil Dabhole (HR Head, South Africa with a leading technology company) who is leading execution for #futureforward vision on behalf of his organization in South Africa. The vision is to train students from South Africa to be ready to take on challenges in the world of Technology. Standing distinctly are also other initiatives that Nikhil proudly shares, in field of AI and Robotics for students of South Africa. In-fact, his organization was recently awarded ‘Sustainable Partner of the year award’ by Code4changeSA. Another initiative being run is Exolab program, it is an experimental platform that brings together classrooms and the International Space Station (ISS). For Nikhil Daan-Utsav and Giving is all about Sharing knowledge and Caring by connecting world through technological advances.
For Amita Patil, HR Professional based in Dubai, Daan Utsav is all about teaching and experiencing ‘Dignity of labour’. Every year around 2nd October children in their residential complex are taught Dignity of Labour when they participate in ‘Shram-Daan” which is working on so called “menial” tasks in their neighbourhood. This not just helps them break gender, role specific barriers but also develops sensitivity in children at a young age on the act of Serving and Caring for the society.
We got insight from Sakshi Vaishampayan (National Lead- Human Resources, with a leading NBFC) who spoke to us about how HR can nurture the mindset of Giving at workplace. She says, “HR has an extremely important role in shaping the culture of ‘giving’ in an organization. When sharing and caring are a part of the organization’s DNA, it starts showing out in larger efforts towards building collaboration while still being competitive, because then the ‘purpose’ stands out as the most important item on the organization’s agenda. Whether it is redeployment of manpower from one business unit to the other when the latter is no longer viable, that inherent sensitivity of caring for someone’s job and hence for his/her family, and therefore the thought of sharing the position with the target audience comes naturally. These are just some of the corporate examples where sharing and caring get driven, not from employee relations perspective, but more from humanitarian dimension. The mind and the heart are then left with on overwhelming feeling that we must create opportunities to give a chance to someone, if we are truly caring and believe in sharing. Slowly, this starts resonating with the societal agenda of the company under the banner of CSR etc. And definitely then, people involved in such acts and impacting them positively, carry this sense of goodness back to their homes and society at large. I am reminded of a cliched adage ‘What goes around, comes around…. There are many such instances where HR underlines the ‘Care quotient’ of the workplace”.
And then we saw Ganesh, (office help in leading pharmaceutical company), who gets tea to your desk and helps you with filing. Last year he quietly asked us what’s the significance of “Wish Tree” which was set up at office reception during Daan Utsav. When we told him that the tree has wishes from kids from an orphanage on what they would like as gift, he quickly picked up one note which said “I need a school bag” and took out Rs 250/- from his pocket and promptly handed it to us. Who other than Ganesh, (he would be earning monthly salary of 8-10k) can teach and help us understand Giving – his silent act is more powerful than many words to express the Joy of Caring, Sharing and Giving!
While this is a beginning to understanding the larger purpose and joy of Giving, the perspectives gained from people we spoke to, left us with a sense that Daan-Utsav, is a festival which is not restricted to national boundaries or sections or any strata of society. Perhaps at this juncture each of us have two options, start a new ‘Pay it forward’ act or be catalyst to accelerate an already triggered act of ‘Sharing is Caring’.
Ek Earth 