Stories, mine and yours, hold in them the charisma that can keep the world moving ahead. Converging stories of inspiration from almost all walks of life, Youth ki Awaaz’s Converge 2016 brought to the fore some tales that told the audience to raise their voice and give a damn. Find out how the event unfolded some of the most inspiring life-lores.
Giving a better life to innumerable children in the country, Nineismine’s young team set the pace of the event with their drum performance highlighting the organisation’s 17 goals to a better life. The first speaker for the event, Kartik Lokhande from Hitavada enlightened the audience about sanitary hygiene, something which is never paid heed to. During his conversation Kartik welcomed 10 year old Ram from Nineismine who only wished for one thing when he said, “Main nahin kehta mujhe paisa do, bas humein humare adhikaar de do!”
Drawing attention to the ill practice of Racism in the country, Monika Khangembam shared her experience of racism in India and the inspiration to fight against the practice. Next came Sabbah Haji, who had envisioned to provide quality education in a village 7000ft. above sea level in 2009. She shared with the audience her journey of successfully realizing this dream. The smiles of her students brought many smile around.
Making the audience rethink about the definition of success, Ankur Warikoo, CEO and Co-founder of Nearbuy told the young audience “Don’t let others” opinion of you become your reality” and inspired them to shun the predefined notions of success. M. Suman gave a glimpse of her trans rights and HIV awareness through her work at Samara and currently through her role as director of Swatantra Organisation.
Deepak ramola, educationist and the man behind project-fuel was his reminiscent best in talking about his tryst with stories and the experience with the migrants in France. “The world, as you sit here, has 7.447 billion people, which means there are 7.447 billion mistakes to learn from, heartbreaks to mend and life lessons to live with.” he said amid his smiles.
Sabika Naqvi, the eloquent speaker from Pinjra Tor, the women’s rights champion made her stance clear in the best way possible. She mocked the patriarchy, sarcastically crushed the sexists and took the curfew at girl’s hostels across the indian universities at her point-blank and effectively made her way into the hearts, minds and souls.
The man of the hour, Tanmay Bhatt, the AIB man pragmatically defined the power of comedy. He talked about his struggles, success and the feminism and similar issues he is taking up at different platforms. ” The biggest global crisis is that the intellectual haves are not conversing with the intellectual have-nots. This is what the comedy can do at times“, the man was quoted as saying. The roaring, clapping crowd only proved that “Comedy is contagious”.
At 6.30, the show was far from over. The show-stopper in Ska-vengers came up with back to back numbers on varied nationalist causes, only to be followed by the socio-rap. The crowd made those noise and moved to the beats, till the very end.
“Very few events charge your mind, body, heart and soul all at once. For me, this show did just that.” Vikram from Jamila Milia Islamia quipped, munching at the delicious snacks at offer, after the show was over. This quite summed up the fantastic day the audience at Converge 2016 had had.
Reported by:
Nikhil Kumar ([email protected])
Niharika Dabral ([email protected])
Priyal Mahtta ([email protected])
Images by : Stanzin Yangdol
