My strides with a Great Humanitarian

I fondly remember my Grandfather telling me ‘There is no war that love can’t win!’ during my early childhood. He always said “love trumps all” and I grew up seeing him walk his talk. Anytime I hear the word Humanity or Humanitarianism, he is the first person who flashes in front of my eyes. Humanity is non-existent without the feeling & expressing the all-encompassing emotion of love. In 1995, his death showed me the true power of leading life as a humanitarian. His death ceremony saw countless people from every corner of Tamil Nadu, travel in-person to Chennai, to pay their last respects to the family. Every memory they shared had one common thread about his humanitarian touch, that benefited the person or their family in their time of dire needs. In his life (and his death), he showed me the importance of being humane and placing love, humanity, dignity, and respect above all else. 

His words and actions had a huge impact on my childhood development and still have a huge role to play as an adult. As I have said in my earlier article about him, he is one of my role models, who I aspire to be like and strive to be so every day.

These early childhood lessons have stayed with me and fuelled my passion for behavioural science and the curiosity of ‘why people do what they do’ started taking shape. I realised that what he said about humanity, dignity and mutual respect was the basis for removing all the suffering that we go through in our life. Underneath all our yearnings, these are the core needs that drive us to do everything to belong somewhere and have an identity that will be looked upon with respect and be celebrated. Unfortunately, we fail to realise that we are looking for it in the wrong places. 

These principles as the foundation, my actions always centre towards understanding perspectives of people (including my own – I am my own critique as I look inwards a lot), the underlying belief systems that drive their action, and the toxic patterns that contribute to the suffering. My four decades of learning from various experiences and people resulted in my sharing it with everyone around me in any form I could. Technology helped me do it in multiple ways. 

I now run my own life skills colloquium – ChangeMakers – for teens and young adults focussing on these topics and a few more including self-awareness, mindfulness, inclusion, conditioning, mental health, and sustainability. My blogging under the #CauseAChatter quarterly challenge for Blogchatter under the headings - #GenderTalks, #MentalHealthTalks, & #EnvironmentalTalks is yet another way. I personally think that all these three are important and essential causes for sustainable change management to be a reality. The #GenderTalks is a place where you find people writing on anything to do with Gender, Gender Identity, Gender (In)Equality and Unconscious Gender Bias. We all know that there is no wellbeing without #mental wellbeing and hence the importance of it can’t be stressed enough. For sustainability to be a reality, these two, working hand in hand with the #environmental impact of our actions also need to be dealt with in detail for us to leave behind something that our next generation can work with. I did write with a purpose (of sharing my learning for the larger group, with the hope of impacting a positive mindset shift that celebrates a learning and growth mindset, rather than the outcome itself) even before I became part of the Blogchatter challenge, but this gave me more discipline to be regular and group it under a specific cause. 

Over the years, and from my multiple international relocations across the US & Europe, I have come to understand that I would be content (in fact, excited) when my identity is associated with my humanitarian aspects rather than the other attributes that generally people use to define an individual’s identity. This is what has always found me contributing to local causes in all the places that I have resided. When in the USA, I was part of the Parents-as-Teacher programme, run by the local community centre being trained about child & development psychology that is essential for any young parents. When we lived in France, I facilitated many immigrant parents with the help of the structure of this programme, as part of the PTA of an International school. During our recent stay in the UK, I volunteered at a local community centre, that positively impacted immigrant and asylum seekers from war-torn countries. I developed training programmes that would help them in their acclimatising process and help them with basic skills to enhance their job readiness. This help

ed them find suitable work that would keep them financially stable to support their family. 

I also work with many NGOs that focus on child education, as a tutor and courseware developer. I believe that education is the way to break the shackles of poverty and ignorance and the gateway to developing an informed and equal society for all. 

On this World Humanitarian Day, I could not think of a better person to write about than my Grandfather, who shaped me and the way I think & work today. The beauty about the journey of life is that it is filled with learnings & enriching experiences and Humanity is the means of making it more fulfilling. As I found my calling with my Grandfather, I would love to hear from each of you on your stories from your journey. 

This post is part of Blogchatter's #CauseAChatter #MentalHealthTalks.