Young Indians’ annual event, Pathfinder, held last month, marked the beginning of the term of the new chapter leadership and the introduction of the executive committee heading the various verticals. It gave an insight into the course set for the various events of the new term, the approach of each vertical and the issues they will address. The event enabled the leadership to lay out their plans for the year and the ultimate goal that they wish to achieve.
This year, the majestic white structure of the Prinsep Ghat was the venue, illuminated with tri-colour laser lighting. Anusha Dandekar was the special host of the evening who interviewed the vertical members. The introduction rounds were followed by Javed Akhtar’s chat session with the Young Indians, and the introduction of his new book, Talking Life, written by Nasreen Munni Kabir.
Akhtar began the chat session on a lighter note by giving a peek to the audience at the kind of relationship he shares with his children. He reflects on how fiercely individualistic both his children are in their chosen fields and how he never intervenes in their work unless his suggestions are required. Next, he addressed the thought of stardom during the age of social media. From emphasising on how each one should continue to do their work without interfering in others’ work to the malicious act of trolling. “Life was never perfect, it will never be perfect. On social media, whoever is getting millions of followers, let them do their work. And we should do our work. They are not disturbing us and we should not disturb them. Obviously, there is a lot of trolling. It is happening to everybody. There are people against everybody who is somebody. Doesn’t matter. This kind of venom, hate and acidic attitude cannot come from a happy person. It means that they are living a sad life with so much venom,” he said.
At the event, hosted in the mesmerising backdrop of the Prinsep Ghat, Javed Akhtar’s new biography published in January, Talking Lifeby Nasreen Munni Kabir, was introduced to the audience
His conversation with the Young Indian representatives continued on various other subjects like the banning of the burkha or hijab, political allegiance and regressive mindsets and the transcending power of languages and scripts in every culture. “In this nation, there could be crores of boys who are 22 or 23, who have not spoken to a girl who is not her sister for two minutes in their life. When there is such segregation in society then you start fantasizing and your fantasy is not true. Look at a boy from a small town who is looking at a covered face across the street, how will he know that she is a human being? He will not know. She is only a body for her. This segregation causes perversion in the mind. If you take maps and find out where there is more sexual harassment then you will find that it is these places where there is this segregation,” said Akhtar. As his advice to the Young Indians members, he encouraged the members to actually go out and work in the space they are living in and not just raise slogans and wait for the government to do it.
Akhtar’s engaging conversation with the Young Indians was sprinkled with his familiar wit, humour and shayaris. Nasreen Munni Kabir shared nuggets of information on how her book on this iconic screenwriter, lyricist and poet took shape.
Rohit Patni and Siddharth Agarwal
Generally every year each vertical comes and presents their plan. This year instead of doing it as a speech, we thought of making it interactive, fun and in an interview format. As there are almost 22 vertical leaders, we had the amazing Anusha Dandekar host the interview for us. The format made the whole experience more engaging. I have been a huge fan of Javed saab since childhood and it was on my bucket list to host sir this year, and an event like Pathfinder was apt to have a luminary like him narrate his thoughts, journey, opinions and, of course, shayari. This year is the year of the Power of Collective, the power of working together, and hence the theme for this year for YI Calcutta is ‘We’. The plan is to come together as members and have a collaborative approach with other peer organisations, work with other help organisations, and become a force large enough to do what YI is here for — nation building,” said Rohit Patni, chair, Young Indians. Siddharth Agarwal (right), co-chair, YI Calcutta, added, “This year we at YI Calcutta intend to ensure all our verticals make a meaningful impact on the society from prosthetic legs to kidney dialysis to safeguarding our mangroves in the Sunderbans and at the same time have a lot of learning for all our members.
“We want to create a real impact with our efforts. Our project ‘Mere Desh ki Dharti’ is a manifold plan to plant fruit trees in farmer lands for combating climate change and increasing income for the farmer alongside protecting their other crops from animals. Mangrove plantation is to protect the Sundarbans areas and maintain biodiversity and help the people who live in the area. Waste management is another topic on our radar, since reducing, reusing and recycling seem to be the only way forward. We also want to increase awareness about the rapidly rising e-waste segment,” said Jagriti Gupta, joint chair, Climate Change.
“Our target in this term is to make villages period stigma free. For that, we are doing a lot of menstrual hygiene awareness and even working towards putting up sanitary pad vending machines. For health, we are doing eye camps, BP and sugar testing. We are providing spectacles free of cost and even working towards kidney dialysis. Making healthcare accessible to the village people. For those who need artificial legs, we are running a campaign, ‘leg for legless’, where we shall make artificial legs available free of cost. We found clean drinking water a major issue, so we are working towards rainwater harvesting. The plantation of mangrove trees and fruit-bearing trees is also one of our major agendas in the villages. We intend to plant around five lakh trees,” said Baibhav Agarwal, chair, Rural Initiative.
“Thought Leadership is a vertical of power. It puts in our hands, the Young Indians, the power to change policies, suggest central-level laws and a lot more. But before we get there, to us it means to lead with our thoughts, thoughts that convert to actions and thoughts that change perceptions. Our motto this year is ‘We Can’. And the idea is to enable everyone to think and act with more consciousness and intent. We want to start by working smarter, not harder. We are putting together a whole lot of activities to activate and stimulate how we act, react, think and do,” said Nidhi Somani, joint chair, Thought Leadership.
“Entrepreneurship vertical in YI is tasked nationally to increase the enterprise spirit among all stakeholders of YI. The youth in colleges and schools connected through our Yuva program and also the YI members are primarily the target audience for this initiative. The ‘Spark-an-entrpreneur’ is one such program where mini entrepreneurship is encouraged among the weaker sections of society. They are tasked with setting up small businesses, taught concepts like taking risks and serving customers. We provide them initial seed funding. This year the program is being encouraged among children of YI members too. The spirit of business has to be incorporated not just among those born in business families, it should be available for all those who have the grit and passion for it. That’s the national agenda for YI,” said Rishi Jain, joint chair, Entrepreneurship