GBH - Best CS Activity I have ever done

Hi Friends….

This blog is a long pending activity from me…At last I am here to write my experiences in GBH…

GBH…The first and the best CS Activity I have ever involved myself…

In fact I can remember that I joined this activity in the year 2005 when Arun Ramamurthy, Neerav,Abdul Qadir,Mukund and all were doing this very seriously. I visited the GBH for few weeks regularly and as usual after some three months I escaped to another CS activity. In fact at that time lot of things were happening at GBH apart from relocation. There were some classes on Yoga, Computer Classes etc..Later Origami classes were also started by one of the volunteers. Everything went on smoothly until Arun got his onsite opportunity. Suddenly there was a setback to the activities at GBH. As the famous OM SHANTI OM dialogue goes…Every Story has a Happy ending.If the end is not an happy one…then Picture baki hi….The same applied here….Our Commander In Chief Mukund emerged from the Horizon.I need to say a point very strongly “Arun and Mukund have always acted as the backbones to this activity at GBH. Without them, it would have been a different show altogether.

My Second Innings

My second innings started again few months back, though I was a silent spectator of the activities that happened at GBH.(To be frank, even now I am less active compared to the other soldiers of GBH).This time,Mukund gave me the assignment of spreading a word about GBH and getting more volunteers for the relocation activity. I started doing it with more enthusiasm and got more volunteers into this activity. But the main problem we faced was the consistency of the visit of the volunteers. We could not get the volunteers visit the home regularly week after week. Then with the help of Sunitha Prasad of USAA, we were able to reach more associates and spread more details about GBH. In this process, we got dedicated volunteers like Charan Singh,Durga Prasad,Mahesh, Lavanya, Venkat and many others.

My First Relocation

I believe that I have relocated some 5-6 kids in the few visits that I have made to GBH. But I cannot forget the first relocation that I made, which was really interesting. I was asked to relocate a local kid from Tamilnadu. So I started speaking with him and enquired him about the address and other details. As usual the kid did not remember the address. So I started enquiring him about his school and the other key points like theatres or any landmarks near his house. But with whatever limited details he gave us I could not trace out any location in Chennai.(in fact I was not able to confirm that he was from Chennai) .Then at last one question made a very big difference. The town bus he would take to go to school from his house. This small detail really helped us track this. I wanted to close this case the same day, as I know my level of sincerity and dedication I put in when I push the activity to the next day.

So I directly went to CMBT and checked with few conductors and tried relating the area to the bus route. Initially the conductors we enquired could not recognize this place, but at last one conductor gave me the hint that the area might be near the Central Railway Station. Again I went back to the Choolai area near Central and enquired the place with our Auto drivers. They were able to guide me easily to that place. The area was a Telugu dominant area and luckily I could manage with my Telengana Telugu J .When I checked with few Bench sitters at the Tea shop, they immediately identified the kid and directed me to the kid’s house. On reaching the house, I was surprised to see the reception. I was given a special chair to sit with one special Fanta ordered for me. J Then I informed the family about the GBH and its address and asked them to get the kid from GBH on Tuesday. I was so happy to see the response of the kid’s parents and the jubilant mood of the total area when they realized that the lost kid was found out. That particular moment gave me the best personal satisfaction, I can ever expect from such an activity.

Why GBH is Special to me????

I have involved myself in various CS activities like visiting orphanages and supporting the needy. But this GBH relocation has always been special to me. The main reason for this is the personal satisfaction that you get when you realize that you have made a difference in a kid’s life by finding and reuniting him to his family. Just check the faces of the parents when you first inform them about their son’s whereabouts, you can see million emotions running in them.
Every relocation case that we handle is a treasure hunt. The kid we enquire gives us different hints about the location of the house. We put all these pieces together and we google/orkut it out to find out his address…sometimes we even contact the police of that area to find out the kid’s house. We strain ourselves for hours to find out the kid’s home. But all these pain would fly away in a moment when you could see the joy in the kid’s face when you inform him that he is going to meet the parents and get back to his house. I strongly believe in a point that…The kid at GBH leads a life of an orphan…. even though his parents are there and his parents want him to be back with them. It is just few hours of our effort in relocating this kid, which really makes a difference which no other activity can make to that kid.

With more volunteers pouring in, I think we can make such big difference in more lives in the coming days. And never forget that Even You can become Aamir Khan (of TZP) in any one of these Kid’s life.

With Love,
Laxmi Narayanan