INSTITUTIONALISING THE JOY OF “GIVING”…………….

Since my childhood I have always been attracted towards nature, towards people needing help and care, as it was something I picked up from my mother, who had huge affinity for such things and used to tell me about how we the privileged few, have a role to play in society. She used to say it is like a chain. God gives us resources to train and educate our children in more ways than one and it is but natural to expect that a portion of them, will give that learning and earning back to the same society and people who were deprived of the same.

So, this was the family environment where I grew up. Our strong middle-class values always told us the difference between right and wrong, and as we grew up we tried to put some additional interpretations of it, ourselves. When I got married, I saw the same focus of “giving” in my wife, Ranjana. I noticed many times, giving comes naturally to her. That was a great learning for me and of course for my sons. As the designated bread winner in the family, I was always forced to balance aspiration, ambition and righteousness. I always focused on ambition and aspiration, but honesty came to me naturally as it was given down generations and strongly embedded in my very roots and upbringing. When you grow in life and start meeting your aspirations, there are several stumbling blocks when you meet with things which are not right. Surprisingly, I found pretty early in my life, the society has already worked a way to deal with dishonesty and cover  some elements of aspirations with dishonesty, to make us feel better and comfortable. But the root remains the same. Make no mistake.

I realised pretty early in my hard-fought entrepreneurial journey that we get adequate choices to balance aspiration with truthfulness. So, I kept waiting for an opportunity. I always wanted to institutionalise it. In 2010, at a time when I was deep in debt repayment process, as well as struggling for growth in business, both in tech and higher education, I started the process of giving within the Institution. I saw a great opportunity with Business School, where young adults were my students. I thought if I can pitch my “giving” mantra among the students at this stage of their lives and bring that in as a process within the Institution, then “volunteering” which is the essence of social work will get its teeth in their lives.

To ensure that, I as the leader of the Institute, never trembled in my commitment. I named the Foundation as KALYANI. I thought my mother, Kalyani, who was my inspiration in life, will keep me focused. “Touching human lives” which was appealing to youngsters, we made it as our CREDO. And we were on our way. So, ‘giving’ became institutionalised in Globsyn, through KALYANI and by Kalyani, my late mother.