From Confused to Confident

By Rachna Vohra

From Confused to Karnataka - My Journey from Canada to Confident

On the first day of my first job as a computer programmer, after finishing 17 years of school, they sat me down in a classroom.

With my boss as my teacher and clients from around the world flanking me on all sides, they asked me to learn about statistical forecasting and things that go bump in the night.

I was supposed to customize and implement software in-house and on-site and provide training materials and training sessions to clients. But the only thought that ran through my head as I fell asleep that first day and every day of the class thereafter was, "What have I done?"

Welcome to the real world.

The corporate world makes you believe you have no choice. And I spent 364 days counting down to the 365th, just to be able to say I had a full year's experience in the computer industry.

But on that 365th day, I just couldn't do it anymore. I decided to save myself by choosing to save the world. It's unbelievable what one right decision can do to a person. It's as if the stars aligned and everything suddenly decided to make sense. No one in my family even flinched when I said, "I'm quitting my job and moving to India to volunteer for a year." It's as if they knew it had to be done.

A feeling of intense peace overwhelmed me as I planned out a trip clear across the world to a country I had only visited but never lived in. The knowledge that you're making a decision that is true to yourself has an amazing energy and power over your whole being. Everything just felt right for once.

Arriving in overpopulated and over-polluted Delhi, I still felt great. But after one whole month of mishaps in Delhi and miscommunications with an organization in Jaipur where I was supposed to volunteer, I finally decided to switch my experience to a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Bangalore. Being from Punjab, I didn't know the language and had no clue about the city, the people or the surroundings. Nevertheless, the Parikrma Humanity Foundation was my destiny.

I arrived there as Rachna and, in literally one hour, became Rachna Akka. Akka means sister in Kannada—I was already family. It was the only word I ever learned there, but the only one that mattered. If I had ever been in want of younger siblings—and believe me, I had—here I had found myself with 500 of them! And they all loved me without even knowing who I was. The point is: I was there. And that was all that mattered to these children.

Parikrma is an NGO located in Bangalore that set up schools in four slums across the city to educate street, slum and orphaned children and to provide a full life-needs package including nutrition, medical visits, family therapy and community development. These schools were an opportunity for the children to change their own lives, as well as the lives of their families, and to remove the shackles of poverty forever. If these children weren't in school, they would be working to get money for the household by rag picking, begging or who knows what else—I don't even want to imagine.

My first day there—a Sunday—I accompanied Jill, the volunteer coordinator, to one of the orphanages called Hope Home, where we gathered about 20 children and took a field trip to the botanical garden in the city. What I hadn't learned in 24 years of life, I had learned in 24 hours with a handful of underprivileged school kids. Love is all you need.

They did not look poor—whatever poor was supposed to look like—and I was amazed at one fact that came up every day of the four months I spent at my assigned school in a small suburb called Sahakaranagar. They were just kids. And no matter where you go, how much money you have, what clothes you wear or whether or not you even own a pair of shoes, one thing is certain: children are children.

At the school, I did a sad job trying to teach them remedial English (they had English teachers for that), but did a fantastic one being their older sister, someone they could come to, hang out with, talk to and play with. And all they needed to do was hold my hand, squeeze my arm, or touch my face. I was in love.

Every day, the children would fight to have the volunteers visit their ashram, orphanage or home in the slums.

"Come see my home, Akka!"

"Are you coming with us today, Akka?"

"Tomorrow?"

"Thursday?"

And something shifted inside of me. They were so proud of what little they had, so eager to show me their pile of bricks, the one book they owned, to sing the songs they knew and let me touch the cushion they slept on. And there we were, grumbling in the First World, about all the things we always thought were too important to forget. I wasn't in a Third World country. No. These children were richer than anyone I had met in my life. They had unconditional happiness.

In my four months there, we had sleepover parties, played cricket with a twig and a rock, ran around a boulder, kicked a "soccer ball" in the open field, picked bouquets of weeds, and climbed the tamarind tree to snack on fresh tamarind before dinner.

When I left, we all cried. On my last day at the school, Manjula, a little intellectually disabled girl whom I taught to read and type, said, "Is this a bad day, Akka?" And I held her in my arms, crying quiet tears, and said, "Yes."

I spent four months of my life with Parikrma, but those four months may have been more defining than the 24 years that preceded them. Whatever I thought I knew and had learned through years of experiences in Canada was only an inkling of what there was to know about life and the world. One thing is for certain, those children taught me more than I could ever have dreamed of teaching them. And they silently and collectively gave me one message to take back with me:

Welcome to the real world.

Back in Montreal, working as a technical writer and trainer, my time at Parikrma stays with me, not because I choose for it to, but because I wouldn't be the person I am today without it. My experience in India allowed me to add flavors and spices to my writing that I otherwise would not have known. It has changed my perspective on life and just what is worth worrying over, which does not end up being too much when you're remembering children you grew to love, running around in the dirt and rocks without shoes.

Rachna Vohra is a writer, poet, and editor living in Montreal, Canada. She works as a technical writer and trainer by day, and runs her own business, S'Apostrophe (www.sapostrophe.org), by night. She has published two books, The Distance Within and The Acorn and the Caterpillar, and has had her work featured in a poetry anthology, Beyond Memories. Since her return from India, she has encouraged many people to spend some time volunteering locally as well as around the world.

To find out more about Rachna, visit www.rachnavohra.com.

For more information about the Parikrma Humanity Foundation, visit www.parikrmafoundation.org.

Back to Top