Let’s Say It Like it Is

It was a big move, thought some. For me, it was just another flight. In my mind I had already taken these flights up and down, several times over the year. Moving to Mumbai from Goa to build the outreach of my Media and Lifestyle company, Think Geek Media, little did I know how `Change’ would come knocking at my door asking for bed space. Now, in Mumbai we all know that `space’ is a premium. Crowd and Clutter. It applies to relationships as well.  I opened the door, like a good Catholic. Little did I know that from bed to heart is just pillow space, before Love becomes a permanent companion in your life.

Now, Love too means many things to different species. It could be a cat called MJ. And then, I met these smart people, doing extraordinary things with their ordinary time and learnings, achieving superhuman like feats, quietly, steadfastly, and the world so busy clinking champagne flutes and making small cocktail banter for flashbulbs and next day column spaces, didn’t even know of their existence. These superheroes in day-to-day street wear. No Chanel and Gucci for these.  Just ordinary people in a train, an auto. You wouldn’t even know how they battled a poacher, or risked life and limb photographing a tigress feeding off a kill. Prevented an abusive husband from lynching  his wife, or a mentally challenged child struggling to eat her lunch, thread a needle, or comprehend simple motor skills.

So busy were these Page 3ers celebrating the superficiality of their stiletto lives, the arm chair selfie shenanigans of their equally void and vacuum existence. Love, was just a one night visitor in their homes. `Space’ is a premium in Mumbai after all…

And yet, here I am, one evening in winter, with twenty big hearts in one small room in Mumbai, overlooking the US Embassy, in a start-up corner of Bombay Connect, BKC. Stalwarts of their industry, harbingers of Change. Ordinary people doing super feats. They spoke with the intelligence of compassion, and listened with the intensity of purpose. All of us have been there, done that…What next?

When 20 CEOs and Founders of Change-making organisations in media, creative arts, and not-for-profits get together to share,  a little room is created in their hearts and ours. That `space,’ a premium, you cannot put a cost to it, because Change cannot be forced upon. It exercises the power of Free Will. For when it moves you, You can move mountains with it, can teach the starving to fish and closed doors to open. To Change.

I’ve learned one thing in Mumbai, which reinforces my beliefs. All things are possible when you set your heart to it. It is not for nothing called the City of Dreams. So I’ve set my pulse to this vibration. I urge you too, my readers. It’s the greatest high with no hangover to deal with.  Let this vibration resonate in your Voice and your Action. Let there be a spring to your step. Let there be a Revolution in your spirit. Adapt, Act, Thrive, Flourish. The world will then know real Change.

Let it begin with Mumbai…#BeeTheBuzz