An interview with Miss Virali Modi, Miss Wheelchair India 2014 Runner Up

Miss Wheelchair India 2014 Runner Up,Disability Rights Advocate Quora Top Writer 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014

Q. Which part of your introduction you like the most. Being Quora’s top writer for four consecutive years, a motivational speaker, Miss India wheelchair runner up 2014, an aspiring actress/model or the lady who defeated death thrice?

A. ‘The lady who defeated death thrice’ because it’s inspirational and interesting. Everyone can achieve whatever they want in their lives , but getting a title like that is difficult and unique.

Q. So how was your reception in Gwalior?

A. It was good. I arrived yesterday here. I had some issues with my flight  but overall it was nice. I also visited Gwalior Fort yesterday. Everyone has been so kind to me in Gwalior and I’ve been taken care of as it’s my home. I have nothing but good things to say about the administration, students ,organizers and about Gwalior in general. I’m incredibly appreciative.

Q. Did you get butterflies in your stomach before the talk?

A. I was nervous. Being the first speaker, I showed up on the stage directly. It happens to the best of speakers and so it happened with me.

Q. You wrote on Quora once you have a dark and dirty sense of humour. One of your fellow Quora writer approves the same .Does this quality of yours help you to get along with people easily?

A. Yes it does. Usually when talking to people, I get a vibe if they would get along with me. Precisely, whether they seem easy-going in a way in which I could turn their statements into a joke and they wouldn’t mind, or rather approve my sense of humour . If I find this to be the case, then bang on! We are best friends.

Q. Diving in the Mumbai underwater festival, you said you felt like a mermaid or fish and moved freely in water. Despite having past swimming experience, were you in any sort of dilemma whether you should go forward with this or not?

A. Not really because while diving I had to go underwater but I  had  an oxygen tank with me so why to be scared.I was a litte bit nervous though but I pulled it off.By the way I just found out  I am going Scuba Diving this Tuesday.

Q. In the process of wining the big battle of making trains wheelchair accessible. How much satisfaction and enjoyment do you get in winning these small battles? I want to quote an example you posted from your social media account - A passenger travelling to Trivandrum from Calicut by Jansatabdi requested wheelchair via an email. In this process smaller wheelchair and portable ramps were used. It was a step towards accessibility for all without any stress, which seems to be your motive.

A. It gives me a lot of satisfaction because these small battles add up in wining a bigger battle. From booking a wheelchair via an email, porters are getting trained to handle the person who is disabled. If they are properly trained, no man handling will be done. If it is done, they will be fired. Because of this, the porters have become sensitized and they are now escorting the passengers from the train all the way to their car ensuring they are seated properly. This is a big change for humanity and in general especially for porters. I don’t mean to be discriminating but these porters come from an illiterate background .They might not understand how the world works or the hardships that someone with disability faces. They are becoming sensitized. Isn’t that a big change in the society? So if you win these small battles, eventually it all adds up in wining something big at the end of the day. You know, the best part was that they weren’t required to spend anything for this because everything was donated by rotary club, hospitals and NGO’s.

Q. How you deal with situations where someone shows extra sympathy towards you?

A. If someone does it I can tell it straightaway. This is one tatic I always follow in my life .It doesn’t mean that if I am on a wheelchair I cannot help myself. If I can push my wheelchair myself, why would I need someone’s help unless I am facing some difficulty. If I need someone’s help then I will the first one to ask for help.

Q. Your mother has a strong character .You narrated the incident today that she made you to crawl and struggle for cookies. What was going through her mind? In one of your posts you wrote she never cried in front of you?

A. Yes she has a pretty strong character. She was crying behind me watching me struggle. But she didn’t express it me. She questioned herself what she was doing and why was she putting me through this. When I asked her later, she told me - She had two minds about it. One was why she was doing this. Second, she had to do this otherwise I would have never learnt to become independent. I thank her for that everyday. .At that stage I was not able to sit without support but now I much in a much better condition.  Whenever I go through a hardship I remember that incident - if I was able to do that in that situation then I can do anything. If I cannot deal with a boy problem or manage my expenses so why am I cribbing. If I can overcome that stage to what I am doing right now then I can do anything.

Lets play a  rapid fire:

Q. Your inspiration.

A. Myself.

Q. Your favorite movie.

A. Haathi Mere Saathi.

Q. One thing you can’t live without.

A My mother.

Q. You are jealous of?

A. Bipasha Basu’s body and the hardwork she puts in everything she does.

Q. One actor whom you want to work with?

A. It will be Irfan Khan.

Q. If you were to be supergirl for one day first thing you would do?

A. Implement total accessibility for wheelchairs all over the world.

Q. One food item you can’t afford to miss anytime.

A.I have a sweet tooth but it’s surely not cookies. I would say pizza or may be noodles.

Q. Your favorite subject in high school?

A. It has to be science.

Q. Biggest rumour you have heard about yourself on social media platforms.

A. That I am related to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Q. Your favorite TEDx talk of all times.

A.  there was a talk in TEDX Oslo about ‘Virginity Fraud’ delivered by medical students Nina Dølvik Brochmann & Ellen Støkken Dahl.

Q. Who was your favorite co-speaker in the event today?

A. I definitely think it was Roshni Misbah and Saurabh Kaushik.

Q. You wrote before you became wheelchair bound, it was your dream to become a doctor; specifically, a heart surgeon. What would you be if you were a doctor but not a heart surgeon?

A. May be a neurologist.

Interviewed and edited by-

Prakhar Srivastava

An Interview with Mr. Saurabh Kaushik ,Founder at PEOPLEIST INDIA. Trusted Business Growth Strategist & Coach for Business, Owners(Billionaires/Millionaires), Entrepreneurs & Fortune 500s.

       

Q1:What led to the inception of Peopleist  India?

Ans 1: I always wanted to do something on my own. I was already consulting a lot of companies and thought why not let’s start something of your own. You are also dependent on others. I found this a great opportunity to do this all by yourself. I’ve got great support from my teammates and I think one should take the plunge and then there is no looking back.

Q2:What is the biggest change you’ve seen in yourself after Peopleist India?

Ans2: I think I’ve grown as a leader. Working with these guys in my last assignment I was the HR manager and I was consulting many other companies for which also I was HR. But during  Peopleist when you’re working with your own people so closely, you grow because you have so many experiences .For the first time it’s like you go to the jungle and hunt your own food. In a job whatever you do you get paid every month but in this you’re hunting on your own like finding a client, delivering a service. The best thing has been growing as a leader and bringing about a change in not only yourself but in your clients as well.

Q3:As a consultant what is your instinctive approach to any problem?

Ans3:Fisrt step is to know the problem really really well. How we operate is we’re like sharp shooters. Often times what we’ve seen is when an organisation calls us, they’re generally talking about symptoms and this is generally one part of the problem. So first understand what it is and where we are and where do you want to go and then devising how could we get there. We take the best of insights from the organisations themselves.

Q4:How do you maintain balance between work and personal life?

Ans4:I have the one principle of really living your life. I think there’s nothing worse than a life not lived and I don’t think my work is work. I really enjoy it and for me its like how would a hobby be for someone. Its something which you would enjoy. Whereas personal life is concerned that’s what we do all the time.

Q5:TEDx ..was that personal or professional?

Ans5:It was a very good opportunity to share my experiences with the youth of our country. My TEDx  experience was phenomenal. I really enjoyed and I think that the 18 minutes concept is really cool.

Q6:Nowadays start-ups have become more of a trend. Can you give some pointers for successful start-ups?

Ans6:They say 90-97% start-ups fail in their initial years. The most  vital thing for a startup  to be successful is for their founder to know who they really are and what they want to do and how they want to do it. Nobody teaches you how to run a startup  in your college education .For a startup to be successful it really needs to be able to add values.

Q7:What advice would you like to give to your younger self?

Ans7:Don’t take yourself seriously. Just do what you like to do. A lot of people I have come across are suffering from many things. You can have a lot of money but still be depressed .You should keep moving and add values.

Reported By:                                         

Riya Khandelwal

Ritika Agarwal

Photographer:

Vishakha Gupta

AN INTERVIEW WITH ACHARYA SRI PUNDRIK GOSWAMI

   

   

Q1. What you are doing presently has been a trend in your family since generations. Didn’t you ever feel like joining some other profession sometime in your life.

Ans. I started doing this since I was 7. According to me, this is just a mindset. Ultimately everyone wants to be happy, either by doing what they want to do or what their family expects. What I believe is if I am born in a family which has already created a mark in some field, then why should I not take it forward from that point rather than going to some other field and start from scratch to reach limited heights.

Q2. You go to different places not only in India but also abroad with people of different mindsets, ages, education level and backgrounds. Do you find any difference while delivering your thoughts? And if so, how do you make sure that everyone gets you well?

Ans.  All in all, everyone is on the same ground. The only difference lies in the age but it’s not that big an issue because if it was so then I would not have been the one delivering but would have been on the receiving side. The distinction lies in realization and my objective is just to make them realize. So all these differences actually lead to no differences.

Q3. Can forgiveness become weakness of a person?

Ans. No, forgiveness can never become weakness, in fact it is the strength! You can only forgive when you are strong. There is a very famous line- “क्षमा शोभती उस भुजंग को जिसके पास गरल है, उसका क्या जो दंतहीन विषरहित विनीत सरल है” meaning that forgiveness only suits the one who is strong enough, it is not meant for weak.

Q4. When someone is going through bad times then people often say things like trust the Almighty but it seems impractical to him at that time. Is it so that philosophy can never meet practicality?

Ans. Everything starts with a hope, for example if I take a cup of tea I hope that it will be sweet but if I already believe that it is bitter then I will not enjoy it.  So giving hope is a very practical thing and if somebody is giving it in the name of God but the other is calling it impractical then he is really in a miserable condition.

Q5. People often fear future, they fear about its uncertainties or mishaps that can occur. So how can we face this fear?

Ans. Fear is sometimes good like night is good to sleep, not to work, so if there was no night this world would be very different. So those fears are like injections to motivate you to do something better.

Q6. It is usually seen that many times people lose faith when bad things happen to them so can it be seen as justified or not?

Ans. Actually those people never had faith, it was expectation! These two are very different things. Like I expect that drinking a cup of tea will keep me awake, now the level of expectation will decide, the tea will definitely effect and keep me awake but I thought it’s gonna last for 3 nights but it was effective for 1 hour only, so it showed its effect but my expectation was more which disappointed me.

Q7. When something good happens in someone’s life, they say it’s because of their hard work but when there are bad things going on they blame their destiny. So is there really something like ‘Karma-fal’ or Destiny?

Ans. Actually people like to take credit of everything but it is ultimately their actions only. Destiny doesn’t affect your actions, it affects the results of your actions. So it’s always there and that’s the whole theory of Karma. It is not what now you are doing but why you are doing, like a doctor & a thief both possess a knife, cover their faces and cut your stomach but it is their intentions that are different.

Q8. We students have different goals and we all work in the direction to achieve them. But according to you what should be the ultimate goal that each one of us should pursue?

Ans. The ultimate goal of life is to look for the goal and if you know it, that’s the biggest achievement. Its always about knowing the goal, knowing what you are here for and not about how much you have achieved it.

 Reported & Edited By:

Mahima Gupta

Gaurav Agarwal

DOKLAM STANDOFF- tension between INDIA & CHINA

                                                                                                             

 We know that India and China are economic friends but, after Doklam satndoff began in mid-June then began the tension between these two nations. Doklam is a tri junction between India, China and Bhutan. And Sikkim section has a special historical background and this is the only defined boundary between India and China. When India accused China of constructing a road in the disputed territory towards Doklam Plateau, supporting Bhutan's stand and asking China to halt its construction work China claimed Doklam as its territory. Soon there was a stand off between these countries,sending reinforcements at the boarder area. Due to this the pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar was cancelled.

On June 30,the People Liberation Army(PLA) spokesperson Col Wu Qian warned Army Chief General Bipin Rawat to “stop clamoring for war” and told reporters: “we hope that the particular person in the Indian Army could learn from historical lessens and stop such clamoring for war”. In response to this,Union Defence Minister Arun Jaitley hit back “if they are trying to remind us, the situation in 1962 was different and India of 2017 is different “. A day before the G20 summit was supposed to begin in Hamburg,Germany  China dismissed the prospected meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and PM Narendra Modi, saying the “atmosphere is not right for bilateral meeting “. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said the border stand off with China cannot be resolved through war but can be settled through bilateral talks. Then Chinese Consul General in Kolkata Ma Zhanwan,said that “shared interest “ between the two countries “far outweigh any differences”.

Ma said “In relationship between nations ,there are always differences. It is like belonging to a family with many brothers and sisters. There can be differences between siblings and even parents. If there are such differences between two brothers, that does not mean that they cannot get along. You don’t stop dealing with that brother with whom you can have differences, on other issues”. Everything can be resolved if both come forward to have a healthy relationship because if we don’t resolve it  then in future there can be greater chance of having more conflicts and possibly it can go further more i.e. war. By shedding blood no one is going to win anything ,there will be sorrow, disturbance and even worse. As China is showing off that they are superior from past and now,as well. And  India is at such an active pace of developing that it can’t compete with their superiority. If this thing continues then our government cannot  concentrate on things which are far more important. At some point both have to get along with each other, both  need to resolve this issue not by war but through rational, objective and constructive means.

-Laxmi Saro Hembrom

  ( 2017IMG-049)