I remember those days - 10 years back, when I was studying for my chartered accountancy, little aware of what was happening in the society around me. I stumbled upon the project office of this project- Azad Bharat Rail Yatra in September 1997, where I had gone down to install a piece of accounting solution. That day was a turning phase in my life and I am sure this yatra had a significant change in lives of all the yatris. An experience that changed our thought processes - more from self-centered thinking to a passion for the real India and its people.

I met up with Shashank, Gauri and Sharma Uncle - it all seemed strange to me on the first day, when I was asked if I would like to work on this interesting project. A group of people trying to do something I had never heard of - taking the Indian youth on a train journey for 22 days ! From that day, I did not attend my office for the next 4 months or so [was just hoping that I wouldn't be kicked out of my chartered accountancy studies] and took over the project office for the Yatra. While I was not as lucky as the other Yatris who had a chance to be on the train, this Yatra gave me some excellent project management experience and a chance to meet the youth with heterogeneous background from all across India.

Organising this Yatra was no easy deal and a whole team of volunteers were dedicated almost 18-20 hours a day to make it happen. What made us all take those efforts ? It was probably a hidden desire within each of us - to be able to do something for the nation. I am sure every citizen of this country has that desire, but does not get a right channel to work towards it.

The first yatra was in 1997, after which all the participants were dispersed across the globe, busy with their professional lives, but the flame never died. Here is a bunch of the ex-Yatris who want to do it again in 2007. The world is a global village in the real sense - people co-ordinating across time-zones over the internet to make it happen.

Only a few months more to go and a lot to be done - will we succeed ?

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Jagriti Yatra. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.