Organizing Learning Utsav

I truly believe that learning is something beyond boundaries, I dream of a society where we can go beyond discrimination, beyond division and simply celebrate each day and live.

I saw it unfold in front of my eyes at the Learning Utsav @ Aarohi.

Organising the learning Utsav has been an amazing journey for me. A month full of action, challenges and learning's. If I look back I realise that the belief in myself, that I am capable of achieving what I want to do and the immense support that I got was what made the event possible. 

To my astonishment I succeeded more than I expected, which is something for me as I generally set unattainable expectations for myself. I experienced the hard-work required to make something you dream come to reality. Organising the event pushed me to do things I wouldn't do generally. I fell in the position of a leader, I did the uncomfortable thing of delegating work, asking others to help and receiving lots of support from other. My capabilities to be an eagle were tested, to look at things from a far distance and yet see the tiny rat on the ground with great detail. I found myself breaking usual patterns of fear of failure/making mistakes, of trying to make things perfect and of expecting too much from a situation. It was liberating for me to organise this event, I completely enjoyed myself and hope to do more such work in the future. 

As for the Utsav, It was fascinating to see a day of little structure, little guidance and lots of freedom bloom in itself. It began with chaos, 150 people in one place, some from the village and some from the city. Many new to the concept of open learning. A smoke of confused spread everywhere, yet slowly learning emerged. 

A circle of discussion, the laughter from listening to stories, the pleasure of learning hula-hoop from a little girl, the bewilderment in learning to make your own wire puzzles from anna, the joy of playing, the magic of games, the inspiration of seeing a young boy teach how to maintain ones cycle, the disappointment of no one attending ones session, the tears of a fight between two friends, the spark of connection, the jingle of conversation and among everything the refreshment of watermelon and coconut water. This is what I witnessed in the Utsav, that even thought there was some mistakes in organisation and even thought it may have not been what everyone had expected, it was celebration of learning, of moving beyond boundaries.

Somebody asked me, what is the benefit of all this? Though I couldn't answer him, I was left wondering. From what I witness, to me the benefit was simply to embrace life. Everybody who came to the Utsav discovered something for themselves. Some learnt something new, some simply enjoyed a day out, some made new friends, some may have even gone home disappointed but my purpose to do the event was not to make anybody happy, but rather create an environment to let people create their own happiness and leaning.