Kanpur Medley

Krishna gram is a small village 20 Km from Kanpur. Aside from being one of the biggest dairy-hub around Kanpur area, it is also known for its paddy crops. This village is also well irrigated unlike many other villages in various parts of India, or so the myth goes. This village has found a significant place into the consciousness of the people in Kanpur, especially students and alumni of IIT Kanpur. That is the presence of Jeevan Sanskar Kendra, established by Shri Ganesh Bagadiya Ji or simply Ganesh Ji. A pass-out of IIT Kanpur’s 1976 electrical engineering batch, Ganesh Ji did not go on to join the herd of engineers with an IIT degree working for big corporations. He chose to stay back and work with villagers, teaching them. But the education he imparted was much different from the traditional sense of the word. As years went by, he came to meet various like-minded people from all walks of life in various cities of Hyderabad, Delhi, and Raipur etc. All of these people together had a mentor in the form of Nagraj Babaji, who is presently residing in blessed town of Amarkantak in the heart of Madhya Pradesh.

As this clique grew, it began to assess the root cause of many problems currently faced by humanity. Their goal was not to simply uplift the people of India but of the world. But since it had to start somewhere, it started with educational institutes such as IIT Kanpur, Delhi etc. For the past 15 years they are in the process of teaching the so-called teachers of various institutes to instil the right kind of education into the minds of the young generation. And the network of students and teachers keeps growing through word of mouth. I came principally in contact with this network in Feb 2006 and since then my life has changed significantly if not completely.

Santosh Kumar

Santosh kumar is a small farmer in Barkhula village in Bihar. 5 years ago he was working as a sales agent for a detergent company; he also had a small travel and tourism business. But all was not going well. He had a rough relationship with his in-laws due to not being able to afford the status which his wife was used to in all her premarital life. Needless to point out that his marriage was not going well either. This went on for a couple of years until they had a child, a beautiful girl named Fuli. He started worrying about the future of the girl and the fact that she would one day grow to see all the blisters which his relationship with in-laws had and he did not want that. That’s when he chanced upon an old college friend in the nearby village’s harvest fair. Apparently, that old friend was learning and teaching YOGA in the JEEVAN CHETNA SANSTHAN at Kanpur. With an invitation Santosh went to visit the place only to realise that this was going to be his family for the rest of his life. Santosh began to do YOGA, he quit smoking and drinking. After 2 years of association with the institute, he met one day with Ganesh ji, a meeting which was to change his life forever. He plunged himself into the ocean of knowledge which Ganesh ji was imparting to others through his set up in Krishnagram. Santosh now became clear what he wanted in his life. He began farming paddy after buying a small land in Barkhula. He chose this place since he wanted to remain close to Ganesh Ji. He convinced his wife to meet Ganesh ji as well. Their family relocated to this village in 2004. He has been farming for two years and makes enough to send his daughter to obtain the primary education and pursue her real interest of learning Music. She is a gifted singer at a tender age of 12.

Shefali

Shefali is a social worker for as long as she knows. She works in the remote villages of Assam for a small NGO based in Assam. She lives in an accommodation shared by 8 other girls of the nearby villages working in Assam to make a living for them and support family back home. Shefali has 3 sisters, two brothers and a mother. Her brothers have left Assam ages ago and work in cities like Pune and Hyderabad. Shefali is the youngest sister, the rest of them are married and have their own families to tend to. Shefali has to take care of her mother in her old age and she has to make a living for herself too. She has ambitions to start her own NGO to deal with human trafficking issue which is rampant in this part of the country. She herself deals with a lot of issues at the grass-roots working with her present NGO. Unfortunately she has not been able to save a lot of money to start her own venture. So she started building a network with her NGO fraternity in the rest of the nation. She had to frequently travel to states like Bihar and UP for her associations with NGOs there. She met Ganesh ji while he was conducting a 3 day workshop with the local villagers. She instantly knew she wanted to know more and despite a language barrier, decided to stay back and listen on. She was only able to understand 40% of what was actually taught there, but it was enough to encourage her to pursue this further and she went to attend a full length workshop at Kanpur. After completing the 7 days there, she realises the importance of her life and her time. She now wants to go back to her village and start independent work helping out the villagers to deal with their local issues with land rights, police and establishment. It’s a gigantic leap in her faith towards her cause.