Thursday 5 November 2015

Letter to Student Series- Volume 1 and Issue 4 - Inspire To Innovate (I2i) Storytelling Movement @ Students Of India

My Dear Student Friends,

Greetings!

This is Dr. Ravi Saripalle, Believer and Mentor, Inspire to Innovate (i2i) Thinking Movement. Welcome to “Letter to Student Series- Volume 1 and Issue 4”. Hope you enjoyed reading my previous letter. These letters are connecting many schools and student friends of North to South & East to West. I thank all of you for spending your valuable time reading this letter series and patiently acknowledging the same.  

In the previous issue, I highlighted upon the process of inspiration. What is the source of inspiration? In this context, we discussed about how Martin Luther King, Jr, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Subramanya Bharathi, Chandra Shekar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Netaji, Tilak etc derived inspiration from National political movements, which is the first source of inspiration. We discussed about Prem Ganapathy, Thomos Edison, etc and how they derived inspiration from an individual need or problem which is the second source of inspiration. The third source is most important where one can get inspiration by hearing great stories and mentored. We also discussed about how Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai are flagging India color outside. We talked about how Sachin is playing with a game called “Commitment” but not the game called “Cricket”. It was great to hear about Kalamandalam Hemalatha who made Guinness record for performing longest dance marathon. We also proved that there is no disability to inspiration with the living examples of Helen Keller and  Dr.Sharadkumar Dixit. They are all really inspiring! Aren’t they?  

My Dear Friends, in this issue, I would like to stress upon the most important aspect of inspiration which is dire need and craving desire. Recently I read an article in Times of India (2nd Nov 2015), about Saji Thomas who is born deaf and also people in his village ignored him. However, this man surprised the world by building a twin-seater ultra light aircraft on his own, using used parts and recycled material by reading few books. He has to go through lot of hardship (sold 5 cents of the land which he owned) to design this model. Finally Saji’s name got listed in the India Book of Records. During this process, 45 years old Saji, has to work as rubber tapper, an electrician and band photographer and other odd jobs for his survival. Desire designs our way of thinking and develops run way for linking!! How could a Jain monk, Shri Hansratnavijayji Maharaj Saheb (Times of India, Nov 2, 2015) fast for 494 days as part of his religious practice? It is driven by divine desire!!!

My Dear Student Friends, it is amazing to hear that our country is the longest written constitution of any sovereign country in the world, with 444 articles, 22 parts, 12 schedules, 118 amendments, with 117,369 English words. How big our inspiration should be? In 2014 elections, the number of people voted is more than 54 Crores which is more than sum population of USA, JAPAN, and BRITAIN! How magnanimous our collective inspiration should be? Can you imagine? We have approximately 1000 spoken languages and dialects in our country. Still we are standing high as 2nd largest English speaking country in the World after USA. What kind of endorsement we made? Is it not source of inspiration to achieve impossible? Around 700 B.C., India used to have world’s largest University at Takshila with 10,500 students in 60 disciplines. Why are we now struggling to get into top 200 University ranks in the world? Is there any issue with our inspiration? We are number one user of Gold. Why are we not becoming number one Golden Thinkers? We have world’s largest platform in Khargpur with 2.7 KM. Why don’t we build World’s largest Thinking Network? Please think about it? Are you game for this? You should be the first node in this network! You need to convince your friend and build your first network. Make it huge chain.

Let me share a small story which I read in whatsapp recently. The number “9” slapped strongly the number “8”. Immediately number “8” asked number “9”, why did you slap me? Number “9” told, you are younger than me, hence I have right to slap you. Listening this rule, number “8” slapped number “7” and told the same reason. This process continued till number “1”. However number “1” is like you. She did not slap number “0” but with lots of love, she made an offer to sit next to her. Immediately she became number “10”. Looking into this change, number “9” started fearing with number “10”. India story is same. We should bring this change in our lives, inspire every node like you and build large and strong thinking network. Will you start today?
Inspiration cannot be manufactured! You cannot weigh it in tons. You cannot buy this in shopping mall. You cannot store it in huge storage warehouses! However, your heart can store millions of tons of inspiration and can share unlimited with others! Learn this from a Tree, which is symbol of selfless service. I was reading a message on calculation between how much Oxygen we inhale and how much Oxygen a tree produces?  On average, a person inhales oxygen equivalent to approx 3 cylinders per day. One oxygen cylinder is approx Rs 700. The total cost of three cylinders is Rs 2100. It comes to Rs. 7,66,000 per year. If we consider the average life of a person is 65 yrs, then the total value generated by our beloved tree is approx Rs 5 crore. We get this value of air FREE from our beloved selfless service plants! What kind of inspiration it gives us! Can we draw similar inspiration from these plants and pass on to our fellow friend? Think about it friend?

Friends, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe says, “Nothing is worth more than this day”! Your day counts now! Inspire, Inspire and Inspire!!!

My Dear Friends, Hope you enjoyed reading this letter. I appreciate your valuable time. I wish it is informative and useful. I will again see you in my next letter. Thank you for giving me this great opportunity to write to you and help me to learn, unlearn and relearn in this process.

With Best Wishes
Dr. Ravi Saripalle

About Author:    Dr. Ravi Saripalle is Believer and Mentor of Inspire to Innovate (i2i) Storytelling Movement. He is also Director, Center for Innovation, GVP College of Engineering (A), Vizag, AP. As part of Inspire to Innovate (i2i) Thinking Movement, Dr.Ravi conducts Inspire to Innovate (i2i) Storytelling Workshops to inspire students and provide customized mentoring to specific inspired students. Dr. Ravi is having more than 17 years of experience in Industry, Consultancy, Training, Mentoring and Research. Prior to this current role, Dr. Ravi worked with Wipro Technologies for more than a decade. Dr Ravi can be reached at saripalle.ravi@gmail,com or http://i2itm.blogspot.in/ or facebook.com/saripalle.ravi    or https://www.facebook.com/i2ithinkingmovement    


Links to previous letters

1.   Letter to Student Series- Volume 1 and Issue 3 (Inspire To Innovate (I2i) Storytelling Movement @ Students Of India) http://i2itm.blogspot.in/2015_08_01_archive.html

2.    Letter to Student Series- Volume 1 and Issue 2 (Inspire To Innovate (I2i) Storytelling Movement @ Students Of India) http://i2itm.blogspot.in/2015/07/letter-to-student-series-volume-1-and.html

3.    Letter to Student Series- Volume 1 and Issue 1 (Inspire To Innovate (I2i) Storytelling Movement @ Students Of India) http://i2itm.blogspot.in/2015/05/inspire-to-innovate-i2i-thinking.html




























Disclaimer: The goal of this i2i letter series campaign is to inspire students through storytelling and develop innovative leaders to build strong nation. In this process, I have taken several data points from various websites, NEWS articles, books, videos etc. I sincerely thank all the editors for providing such insightful stories. To the best of my knowledge, I tried to acknowledge all the sources. I sincerely apologize for any omissions, grammatical mistakes and hurting any reader’s sentiments. I request all the readers to understand spirit behind this effort. This effort doesn’t involve any commercials. Letter series is for free distribution. 

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