Lost kid in a crowded mela..

The title best describes how i would have looked in a function last week.

The occasion was the handing over ceremony of houses constructed by my organization for a Dalit Hamlet in a Tsunami affected village.

On stage were a lot of eminent personalities - eminent in the development world - some only in the local area - but all eminent nonetheless.

As speaker after speaker took the centre stage, I was going through an experience of a different kind.

First came the CEO of my organization. I told myself, look he's so powerful, I gonna be like him one day, he's my role model.

After that came the advisor of my organization and listening to him speak about priciples which lead to the success of the project, my mind changed and so did my role model.

Then came the District Collector and spoke about how he turned around a school for adivasis - the school's pass %age was 16% one year and thanks to the shock treatment meted out by him to the school principal, the pass percentage jumped to 73% the next year and now they aim for 100% .. wooow .. my mind swayed again and the collector was my role model... until the president of the Panchayat Union spoke.

This guy had been in the thick of action since the day the Tsunami struck. He was there to help people, leading his staff right from the front. Finally .... hey .. wait who's next .. He was my hero until the head of an activist organization spoke. The activists were instrumental in pressurising the District Administration and the NGOs to provide relief to the Dalits.

So .. is my role model this activist .. or .... so I thought until a gentle man who was sitting quietly on stage came to speak. he was the Vice President of HR in a reputed MNC. This was the company that funded the project, but nowhere had they publicised their contribution. Many people in the function were surprised to hear the donor's name as the MNC had maintained a very low profile throughout the project.

Several stereotypes - Of corporates as profit minded Shylocks, politicians as self-centred crooks, Collectors as bureaucratic robots, NGO Leaders as spineless weasels were broken that day.