This Jharkhand farmer spent 14 years digging a 'pond'

Dumka, Apr 29 (ANI): Need is the mother of all inventions, says the old proverb. Today's transformed world has evolved new experiences that modify the old adages too: Denial is the new mother of all inventions. And sixty five-year old Shayamal Chaudhary of Jharkhand proved it right by single-handedly digging a pond in his village with fourteen years of dedicated effort.

A farmer from Vishnu Pur of Kurua village, Sukhjora Panchayat, Shyamal Chaudhary, requested the Block Development Officer to have a pond dug that would fulfil the irrigation requirements of the fields. After filing several applications and visiting the officer many a times, a determined Shayamal lost neither courage nor his farming skills. Instead, he took this denial as a challenge and started digging a pond on his own land.fter fourteen years of continuous hard work, he not only created a pond but gifted it to the community that was going through hard times in the absence of irrigation related facilities.

Here is a person who is an inspiration in an agricultural country like India. He also reminds us of Late Dashrath Manjhi, the mountain man who independently brought down a 360-ft long, 25-ft high hill and created a 16-ft wide pass in place of an almost impenetrable space.

His twenty two years of hard work was inspired by his love, his wife, and got him international acclaim. The Government of Bihar not only awarded his efforts but also gave him a state burial out of respect. Dashrath Manjhi has made a place for himself in history. However, with Shyamal Chaudhary, destiny has played the game of irony as he has not been able to even garner the attention of his neighbouring villages, leave alone the state and the country.

Fourteen years of his life were committed to bringing a change in the lives of the farmers for which he demanded nothing. When Shyamal, a Class Eight dropout, started out, many people taunted him. He simply ignored them and remained focussed on his objective. "I never asked for help," says the farmer who started digging the pond in 1997 and completed it in 2011. The pond, 100x100 metres long and 22 feet deep, now benefits numerous villages in the vicinity: Kuruvaa, Petsar, Margadi,Beltikari, Vishnupur and Baiganthara to name a few.

On his nine bigha of land, Chaudhary produces a variety of vegetables and fruits like potatoes, onions, bananas and mangoes. He then started fish farming in the pond. The increased income is enough for the survival of his four daughters and a son. Quite happy with outcome of his efforts, Chaudhary feels that his life is blessed as the farmers now have a year-long solution to their irrigation woes.

Chaudhary asked the government department to help with a retaining wall and a pump set and pipes for irrigation, but all of his demands have fallen on deaf ears. The Officers did not pay heed, despite being aware of his remarkable achievement. Undeterred, he tried to access the Agriculture Minister Satyanand Jha, which has not produced any positive outcome so far.

When, on the one hand, India's farmers are committing suicides, a few like Chaudhary are willing to find a solution.

The Charkha Development Communication network feels that such successful farmers should be encouraged by the government, which at the moment is woefully not the case in Jharkhand. Chaudhary is nevertheless moving ahead, ready to help his fellow farmers, irrespective of the attitude of the state government towards him.

Like Dashrath Manjhi, Chaudhary is living up to his ideals. He not only interacts with the farmers but encourages them to understand their real strength. Shyamal is delighted to see farmers around him respond to his effort. This is his real award. 

                                                                                           By Shailendra Sinha (ANI)

A Visually-Challenged Student

NOTHING IMPOSSIBLE:

Winner: B. Srikanth, a visually-challenged student, who secured admission in MIT.
A staunch believer in hard work and perseverance, this 17-year-old with his excellent command over English might seem like any other teenage. But, for B. Srikanth, a visually-challenged student, nothing in life came easily. Not even the admission into Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a full fee waiver.

Hailing from Machilipatnam, this son of a farmer completed his schooling from Devnar School for Blind. When he approached an Intermediate college to pursue his plus two in sciences, he was told he couldn’t do that. However, with the help of his mentors from school, he managed to enrol himself in M.P.C in Royal Junior College and finished his Intermediate with an impressive 92.5 per cent.

The success in Intermediate didn’t come easily. “There was no Braille in Intermediate. My teacher Swarnalatha helped me a lot by recording the entire syllabus onto audio tapes,” he says. “I took home tuition only for mathematics as it is not easy to learn this with the help of tapes,” he adds.

“Nothing in this life is impossible,” says this die-hard optimist, “We are not ‘disabled’; we are ‘challenged’. So we have to take this as a challenge and fight back,” he says.

Srikanth’s zeal to learn and reach for the stars was noticed by Ravi Kondapalli, an NRI at a conference ‘Ignite the genius within you,’ held in Indian School of Business. “I had expressed my dream of studying in the USA to Mr.Ravi and he took up the challenge to fulfil my dream,” says Srikanth. With the help of local support from Valmiki Foundation, a city-based NGO, his applications were sent to the top notch universities in the United States. Soon, his application was accepted by MIT which not only gave him admission but also waived the entire fee amount of over 56,000 US dollars.

Srikanth hopes to set his own software firm to employ skilled rural youth. “The biggest hurdle for us rural youngsters is the lack of proper education,” he says. “Primary education is a constitutional right but we are unable to give value to that right,” he adds.

Courtesy :: DVL Padma Priya

TBI Inspirations: Raghu – When Determination Conquers Disability

India is the country with the largest population of beggars in the world – some of them young, some of them handicapped and many of them aged. But a physical disability or age is not necessarily a barrier for people to find work for themselves. Raghu is an example to follow for all of them.

Having lost his legs in his childhood due to polio, and living in a slum area of Ahmedabad with very limited future prospects, Raghu had all the reasons to live an average life of a huge majority of Indians. Instead, he chose to live life differently.

http://www.thebetterindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Raghu-500x427.jpg

Tulsi Project:

Tulsi Project was one of the first initiatives from Raghu, intended to spread love, peace and harmony in the society, something which the Tulsi (Basil) plant symbolizes in the Indian culture. Whenever Raghu came to know about a dispute in any family, he would simply go there and gift them a Tulsi plant. The attempt was to show people a way to resolve the family differences in a peaceful manner and spread love instead of hatred. The project received overwhelming response from not only the receivers of the Tulsi plants but also from philanthropists who extended their hands to support Raghu in his initiative. To date, Raghu has distributed more than 600 Tulsi plants in various houses in Ahmedabad.

“Tyaag Nu Tiffin” (Food of Sacrifice):

Last year, Raghu took up another initiative – Tyaag nu Tiffin – for those among the lesser privileged who are not capable enough to feed themselves. The idea of Tyaag nu Tiffin took birth when Raghu witnessed one such poor old couple and decided to do something for them. The idea played around his mind for about a month but financial constraints held him back. However, he persisted in his efforts, and once Raghu received the seed funding for the initiative, there was no turning back. He quickly made a team of five individuals (one of them handicapped as well) who devoted some time from their everyday lives to deliver hand-cooked meals to some of the most underprivileged people on streets.

Once the word spread about the initiative, monetary and non-monetary help started pouring in from all the sections of the society – NGOs to individuals to NRIs. However, at times, when there is shortage of funds, he himself contributes in order to make sure that the objective is not missed. To date, Raghu distributes about 14 tiffins daily to the needy people.

Inspiration to Abdul Kalam:

Raghu has also attracted a lot of attention from famous personalities, most notably, honorable former President APJ Abdul Kalam. While Raghu was completely amazed by the simplicity of the Missile Man of India, the honorable former President was also very inspired by the story of the courageous young man and more than that by his dream of seeing every women and children of India – HAPPY.

In addition to his own initiative, Raghu also devotes his time and efforts to various other institutions and initiatives like GramShree, MovedByLove, Manav Sadhna, ESI, Yuva Unstoppable, Sabarmati School and so on. His ambition to spread his thoughts as much as possible and do his little to motivate people in their lives is what drives him.

Going ahead, Raghu wants to spread as much love as possible in the society which is more important for him than the project itself. “If I expand the reach of the project, then there will only be project and no love. I do not want that”. His priority is to spend enough time with each and every individual touched by his project and make sure that the beneficiary not only receives food but also well deserved love and sympathy.

For himself and others like him, he proved that one is disabled only till one does not use his/her abilities.

Reference - thebetterindia.com