Christine Pelly, a volunteer for five years, came to give us a small introduction and answer our questions on the organization, ‘Transient Workers Count 2’, on Writer’s Fortnight. She talked about how she wanted to do something meaningful after retirement, and she was able to bring in her passion to help this organization and the issues they are facing, in a completely unknown and unfamiliar country. This taught us that there is always somewhere we can help and make a difference.

Deborah Emmanuel, a poet came to give us a talk on Writer’s Fortnight. Or rather, “Journey Through Deborah’s Life With Poems’, as she called it herself. Growing up, she felt as if she didn’t belong to the prescribed categories in Singapore. She felt disconnected from her roots, leaving her without a cultural identity. She felt these categories were unnecessary, and carried too much weight. Living in an abusive household, a without a home for a while as well, did not help the matter and her social life. To find happiness elsewhere she had begun to do drugs, and eventually landed herself in jail for a year, but imprisonment, ”doesn fix people”, she said. Since she was young, she felt words, more than anything came naturally to her.

Originally she didn’t write to share, she wrote for herself, to heal. She found peace and felt she was able to communicate herself through words, try to pick apart her troubles and examine them. It was a while later that she was introduced to poetry slams, and begin to share her work.

She had a sort of wild vibe about her and was especially expressive during the poems she performed for us. More than anything she taught us that salvation can be found in many places, and words which can be powerful, is one of them.

Robyne Hayes, a ‘Research Photographer’ on child marriage & photovoice around the world, as she called herself, came to give us a short introduction on herself and answer our questions on Writer’s Fortnight.

Empathy & Understanding Through Photography?

When I first heard this, I was confused, how could you be making any difference through photography? However, as the session progressed I saw the entire matter in a completely different light. Since younger, she always loved working with kids. In fact, her first job was a teacher. Recognizing her passion for the issue of child marriage and combining it with her talent for photography, she sought out to build a career out of them both. This taught me that is possible to combine your passions and talents and make a living out it as well. This way what you did would matter to you. The question that remained however was how? How did she make any difference to this issue with photography? For starters, this created awareness of the issue, letting those inside their own bubbles, have a view into the lives of these kids. Although however hard we try, we cannot possibly put ourselves completely in the shoes of someone else. She came up with the idea of letting these girls have a camera for a week, and helping her capture their lives through there own perspectives. This lets us have a small glimpse into what they believe can represent their lives every day.

January 17th, 2018

Changing The Game

With Chetan Bhagat

Chetan Bhagat, an ‘Authopreneur’, as he called himself, came to give us a talk on Writer’s Fortnight. Before he came, I had heard from a lot of my friends that his writing was very simplistic. Although I had watched quite a few of the movies adapted from his books (some of them my favorites), I had never gotten to reading his books. However, I was determined to only make a judgment, when I heard him myself.

He started out with jokes, entertaining the crowd. Once he had captured all of our attention, he introduced himself. He wasn’t always a writer, in fact, he used to hate his job; a banker. It was then that he had begun writing his first book, ‘Five Point Someone’ (published in 2004). He made it very clear to us that he wasn’t the ‘Best’ author, but he was a ‘Best Selling’ author. He said when he first began writing, a lot of Indian authors wrote to win international awards. Although he had a different goal in mind; ‘change’, by reach the maximum number of Indians he could via entertainment and influencing them towards a progressive society. He talked about his strategy, ‘Reinvent by changing the game’. The adaptation stimulus here was the increasing number of Indians learning English.

He told us there are two winners in life.

• Those who do it better than others.

&

• Those who change the game.

After all,

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is not that is the most adaptable to change.” -Charles Darwin

“Literature does not have to be wrapped up into a book”, he said. Then talking about how he himself, began to scale things up and entering the film industry: Bollywood. This kept going and soon through forms such as social media, books, films, columns, TV & talks, he was reaching 100 million + Indians.

Next, he moved on to the topic of ‘Success’. “The definition of success differs for everyone, it was one you had to define for yourself”, he said. This definition would change, again and again. But how do we reach success? Goals. There were two sorts to these as well. Who would have guessed?

Short Effort Goals Vs Long Effort Goals

However, something needed for both of these was: Motivation. & Only one person could help you there. Yourself. “Motivate yourself”, he said, “Motivation is necessary again & again for big achievements.”

Short effort goals weren’t hard to master, but long effort goals? These took long periods of effort. It was like the difference between eating a chicken and an elephant. Both could be eaten, but one would just take longer.

Achieving Big Things

-Setting a clear goal

-Reasons behind that goal

-Finding the group

-Detailed Action Plan

-Setback dealing mechanism

-Faith

One thing that particularly stood out to me was the ‘Setback Dealing Mechanism’. For example, imagine you were on a diet. It had been going great, until you were invited to a party and tempted into eating unhealthy. This frustrated you, at this point lots of people would just give up. But this was like falling into mud, and then giving up and just rolling the mud. Instead in situations such as these, it is important to get up, clean the mud and keep going.

Success Tips

-Under promise and over deliver

-Reinvent

-Passion in intent shows

-Patience

-Partnerships

-Humility

“Be so busy improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others.” – Chetan Bhagat.

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North: This lesson helped me to advance my understanding the different take articles such as ‘Hard News’, ‘Featuring Article’ and, ‘Op-Ed’ present us with, as well as how they do this.

South: This made me question the sort of articles I have written and read before, and which category they fall into.

East: This lesson has inspired me to be more aware of the articles I expose myself to.

West: Are there more categories articles could fall under?