When Gautam was asked to stop attending activities of the organization after the training camp.... #UnToldStoriesOfGautam

Gautam woke up early in the morning and started counting money that he was saving since the last one month. It was a mammoth task for this 15-year student to save Rs.150 required to bear travel expenses in-order to attend training camp of the organization he was working with. It turned out to be a lucky morning for him as he had finally saved the required amount from his pocket-money. Gautam came from a humble background, with both of his parents struggling hard each day to ensure that Gautam is able to complete his education without any financial hindrances. This could also be the reason behind his father’s disapproval over his involvement in social organizations. He followed his father’s directives in everything, but did not sync with his opinion about non-involvement in social organizations. From his early days, he explored different organizations. After getting disappointed by experiencing vested interests and hypocrisy in all social and political organizations in his locality, he got involved in a main-steam student organization through a reference of one of his neighbours.

It was just six months back that he joined the organization and the journey had been fascinating for him until now. His initial days were spent analyzing the people around him, rather than understanding the philosophy or methodology of the organization. His anti-establishment disruptive thoughts had been transformed into constructive revolutionary ideas supported by actions. Somewhere he felt that witnessing his colleagues set ‘examples’ of compassion, dedication and selflessness while undertaking mountainous tasks, along with not claiming the credit to accomplish it, had been itself a ‘school of thought’ that he was learning from. Learning from actions rather than mere words, his ‘idealistic thoughts’ were turned into ‘practical idealism.’ Through this, he could command moral leadership of people around him at the age of 15! And all this was happening when he was still learning to be an activist!

Gautam had found new friends in this training camp. The most amazing part was that some of them were pursuing Ph.D in the subject he was interested to pursue his career. Even after this huge age-gap, they still interacted in a way which looked as if they belong to the same age, with both trying to learn something from each other. He always wondered looking at the high excitement levels of such activists who were attending the training camp for the tenth time, even when most of the content remained same all this years. In the later years, he realized that there exists no person in the organization who could not deviate from the goals and the path to reach the goals, while interacting with different people from all walks of life and getting exposed to circumstances that reflected the opposite side of idealism. Hence it was very important to keep revisiting this chosen philosophy.

He was asked to meet a professor in the lunch-break of the training camp. He was nervous thinking about the multiple objectives of this interaction. The professor started the discussion asking him questions about his decision to choose his stream during 11th admissions. After completely listening to his ideas, the professor opened up infinite ways of looking at the stream and career opportunities ahead. The whole discussion was about Gautam's academics, his career, family, interests, his approach towards studying, etc. Gautam was taken aback by this, as he expected it to be a discussion related to the organization. At the end, the professor informed him about his new role in the organization. He always wanted to be identified as a 'true karyakarta' rather than an office-bearer of the organization. But, he accepted this role as he was informed that the responsibility given to him is only to have a systematic arrangement of cadre to execute the organization' various tasks and nothing else. 

Gautam was highly motivated by the training camp and was preparing plans while sitting near the door of the train's gate during the return journey. A senior activist of the organization saw him doing that and requested him to share the notes. She was astonished to see that he had prepared day-to-day plans for the next month. While she appreciated his ideas and even suggested some changes in it, her sentence while leaving completely shocked him. She asked her to postpone this plan for a month and stop attending all activities of the organization till his exams are over by the next month. He was disappointed to hear this and requested her to let him continue with this plan as he felt that the exams were just internal mid-year exams. But, she stayed firm on her decision and explained to him about her own experience of taking 11th standard lightly leading to struggle in 12th board exams.

Finally Gautam accepted her decision and stayed away from the activities. In the initial days, he would not study for much time. As soon as the senior activist was informed about this, she started taking follow-up's of him to check the amount of syllabus completed each day. She even visited his house to check if he is actually studying. His family was completely suprised to see him taking double efforts for the exams than what he took for his 10th board exams. Their opinion about the organization completely changed. They were happy to see someone playing the role of elder sister to him. Gautam cleared his exams with improved grades and could not stop thanking the people in the organization for it.

This warmth by every activist for every other activist was seen by him each day. He was of the strong opinion that it was not just an organization, but a family of kind and compassionate people. This defined the organization to him!

P.S: I have worked along with Gautam (name changed) in ABVP. Witnessing his commitment towards the organization and listening to his experiences, has inpired me to work for ABVP. As respect to his principle of anonymity, I have not used his original name in the article.