Vivek Vani Kendra, the seva wing of Bibek Anander Satsang’s Calcutta Centre, now has many young people blossoming into fine human beings in Sri Sri Gour Baba’s loving care – good human beings with moral and spiritual values, and the drive to do something constructive in life.
I am proud to say that all the young ones who come to study at Vivek Vani are growing up with Gour Baba’s love - they have learned his 23 Yugavanis by heart, and also the short form of the Adyastotra. They often do short plays acting out episodes from Gour Baba or Swami Vivekananda’s childhood. They have learned to do pranayam and other yogic postures that will help them to concentrate. Now no one has to remind them – they themselves do all these the moment they come to class and enjoy it greatly. Classes go on from 5pm to 9pm, with a prarthana at 6.30pm where they learn new bhajans and do meditation. They have come to love their Dadubhai – Gour Baba – greatly, and are the most enthusiastic participants of the various ashram events round the year.
The Vivek Vani students study English on Wednesdays and Fridays, and Math on Saturdays. The older youth come to study spoken English and also Reasoning, English and Math for various job-related competitive exams on Sunday. Vivek Vani now has a children’s library, which has both textbooks, workbook, guidebooks and other academic material for them to borrow, and lots of richly illustrated story books on religion, mythology and moral values which they love to read. Each week, after class, the young ones borrow books to take home, and the children themselves are in charge of running the library – at present Joy Sadhukhan and Rohan Mondol of class six are jointly the ‘library maharaj’ who maintains the library catalog and register!
Our youngest student is little Pritam in class four, whose mother is a domestic help. Pritam is being given special care, as he recently saw his elder sister commit suicide and was deeply traumatized. Priyanka, daughter of an ayah, also studies in class four and is an enthusiastic participant in our prayer meetings. Rohan, Rahul and Joy are students of class six; children of ordinary drivers and durwans, but extremely bright – Joy ranked first among all three sections of his class this year and never gets less than 99% in maths. Rohan loves to play, and is a great elocutionist. Tomboy Suchandana in class seven is a born leader, who takes initiative in all the work at Vivek Vani and guides kids even older than her! In class nine, preparing to start class in class ten, are Abhishek and Bobita. Bobita, daughter of a domestic help, does not have a father, and self-studied to reach class nine without any tuitions. But now she cannot cope with board-exam level studies, and her mother cannot afford to pay for her studies, so she has come to Vivek Vani for help. We are giving her extra care, as she is very weak in studies. Giving their Madhyamik (class ten) in February 2012 are Sourav and Banti. Please pray for them; that they may clear their board exams at one shot – they really need our prayers! There’s also an assortment of young people from underprivileged backgrounds who are not regular Vivek Vani students, who flock to us just before the board exams for help in subjects or topics they are finding difficult.
Each term, the students get new exercise books and stationery, and the ones who cannot buy all the prescribed textbooks at school are sponsored by Vivek Vani. Besides, there are guidebooks and testpapers in the library that they use frequently.
On Sundays, sixteen older youth, most of whom have passed their class 12 exam - the children of domestic helps, rickshawpullers, working-class or poor parents - come to Vivek Vani to study spoken English, and Maths, Reasoning and English for the smaller competitive exams (exams for clerical, police, postal, railway, staff selection commission and other small jobs). We are proud to say that among these 16 students are a few who studied as school children for several years in Vivek Vani and successfully cleared class 12 under our tutelage. Many of these then had to be helped financially to get admission in college, as college fees can be three to five thousand rupees, and this is far more than their parents save over many months. Vivek Vani’s Anjali, Amit, Bubai, Sajahan, Prasanta were thus helped to get admission to college. In December 2011, on Sri Gour Baba’s birth anniversary, Vivek Vani successfully completed a one-year spoken English course in 2011 for older students from slum backgrounds who had managed to clear their board exams and reach the college level. Eight students got beginner’s level certificates on 14th December 2011. Now the number has doubled to 16, including two girls who travel from the villages to attend our spoken English classes. There is also a girl who had dropped out after class 8 (now self-employed as a tailor) but attends our spoken English class so that she can try to get a job as a shop assistant or beautician. The Vivek Vani library is also now a repository for books on competitive exams and spoken English, which the students use. Many of the older students have to work at jobs along with their studies, and this can hamper their studies. In order to relieve the pressure to work when they should be studying, we are giving stipends to the really hard-working, bright and needy students.
Several of our students have been assisted by Gopa-ma in getting free admission to vocational courses such as fridge and AC repairing, and beautician training at Jadavpur Polytechnic. Many have been successfully awarded certificates, and are doing occasional work. Of those of our students who did vocational training, Nasima and Paromita have already got jobs as nurse and beautician respectively – a great achievement for girls from such impoverished homes! From March, we will again be having a series of vocational workshops where we will be teaching the youth and children some useful practical things such as block printing on textiles, greeting cards and wrapping paper, and also oyster mushroom cultivation. Students of earlier Vivek Vani batches who had learned mushroom cultivation or handicraft making, will in turn teach the new students.
What is wonderful is that some of the underprivileged students who studied at Vivek Vani for many years have now volunteered to work as teachers for Vivek Vani. Thus Bubai, Rupa and Sajahan are often helping to teach the little ones, along with the regular volunteer teachers such as Gopa-ma, Subhasree-di, Ranjit-ji, Maitreyee-ma, Tina-di. A young engineer devotee of Sri Sri Gour Baba, Chandrika-di, has also volunteered along with Cdr.Deb to teach Reasoning and Maths to to the older youth. This helps to give more individualized attention to the younger ones. Dedicated wellwishers and devotees such as Angana-di, Jolly-ma, Shanti-dida-ma, Kaberi-ma, Rajyasri-di, Srila-ma, Shahu-ji, Mallika-ma, Dipti-di, Gita-di, Kamal-da are helping to keep the work going in different ways.
The students have also learned Sri Gour Baba’s ideal of ‘little resources of the common man’ – they each save one rupee every week in an earthen pot, and at the end of the year, they buy blankets to give to street-children or the blind in the winter. They have learned that just as they are being given a helping hand, they must also help society in turn. Vivek Vani is thus unique – we do not create parasites like many so-called ‘charity institutions’, but principled young people who will contribute to society as Swami Vivekananda and Sri Gour Baba wanted.
