Poor Little Rich Slum—Rashmi Bansal: No Silicon Valley, No Princeton University its all About Dharavi my friend
Dharavi
is a cauldron bubbling with enterprise, with a never-say-die attitude. With
spirit and spunk”
I have been in exile for quite a long time. One day I
suddenly watched amazing blog of my friend Jimmy Jay @http://personalstreet.blogspot.in/
and thought I should also pen down something.
Recently I brought the fourth book written by “Rashmi Bansal”
(https://twitter.com/rashmibansal )Poor Little Rich Slum. I ordered the book
along with biography of Fauja Singh at dirt cheap price. But that was it. They
were lying in one corner when one day I just picked Poor Little Rich Slum and
flipped the pages. My inspiration to buy this came when I visited Bombay in
year 2010 for a bakchodi aka presentation contest. Once we landed at the
airport and were driving towards the destination I saw a huge rather mammoth slum
and thought wow!! These guys have serious balls if they can stay in this mess.
Smile on their face made me confused.
Time filed by and the
in year 2012 I was reading about Dharavi Asia's largest slum, Dharavi, home to more than a
million people right in the mid of India’s Financial Capital where 1,400 people
shared one toilet. Somewhere it reminded me of Shantaram prison scene (read http://humangb.blogspot.in/2011/12/shantaram-book-review.html)
.
Written
in fluid and simplistic fashion this books is about 20 son of soils came from
all parts of India and their destiny has one common factor Dharavi. No
Silicon valley, No Princeton University it all starts right here, right now in the heart of India AamchiMumbai.
Be it the story of jameel Shah the man who made
dancing shoes for bollywood head honchos , Soaib Grewal, a graduate
from the Rhode Island School of Design using his skills to cure one of the
worst problems in India “Water Purification” each one of them is filled with
what human spirit can achieve. It manifests that all the blockers are in the
mind and the most powerful tool given by god to human race “Hands” can do
wonder if used in the right spirit. Stop this all for an a moment.
Coming to the pertinent question a lot of people ask (including
me) we don’t have enough resources, don’t have money, qualification, correct
exposure and all that kind of questions which we hide behind. I remember during
my MBA macroeconomics professor used to teach about the macroeconomic indicator
like Purchasing Power Parity, Per Capita Income , GDP and so on( complex terms
YUkk!!) . But as evident Most of us working in Corporate Rut have one indicator
to judge everything i.e CTC or package. A parochial view has been created and
most of the persons are afraid to take the plunge. This book proves it wrong.
All guys listed in the book don’t look
the world from the safe view and were not willing to spend their life as bunch
of sheep’s living in a herd. The question I ask to everyone is that they have
lived in worst situations ( imagine ten people living in 10X10 room) have no
formal education but have used Jigar
,Jugaad and Junoon. So if they can
live their dream and are creating their Magic factory who is stopping us. Only the Mental Roadblocks.
Please read this saga of human spirit, compassion , blood, pain and pride. There are moments when you
will feel happy, sad but I am sure it will ask you for a bigger introspection
something which education can’t teach you. Something that is very near to your
heart. Read to know more about it. Colourful photographs are also very good. Mind it , it’s funny as well in between.
No Silicon Valley, No Princeton University it’s all About
Dharavi my friend . Salute to strength of Human Spirit.
Post is dedicated to Jimmy Jay https://twitter.com/JimmyShout and
his blog http://personalstreet.blogspot.in/.
“A
life lived for oneself is the biggest waste of all” -Poor Little Rich Slum
My Rating 12/10 Must Read
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