HE WANTED TO BE A FILMMAKER but…..

It is said that “Dream Big to become Successful” but everyone in this world is not so lucky that he can fulfill all his dreams. Whenever and whatever happens in this world there is always some reason behind it to happen. Of course here is also a reason to make this organization happen “a reason” a very genuine reason!

I am thankful to those who said ‘NO’ to me.

It’s because of them, I did it myself. – Einstein

This statement of Einstein completely suits to the man in this story who is belonging to very poor family, staying in Mumbai’s slum area but with big dreams. He started his mission just at the age of 21 for people unfortunate like him, to make them lucky and happy. He had decided to dedicate his life to serve the deprived people when other friends of his age were busy playing games and enjoying their life. But on the other hand this person was very serious about things happening around him, things that were making him disturb from within i.e. poverty, hunger, child labour … and more.

His dream was to become a film maker. He was very fond of films and was a big fan of Bruce Lee. When we speak of films for him Burce Lee is a passion, Salman Khan is a craze, Riteish Deshmukh and Amitabh Bachchan is a style, Nana Patekar and Aamir Khan are an acting Institute. Akshay Kumar and Shahrukh Khan’s struggle and success is an inspiration for him. From his childhood his interest was in film making only. His dream was to become a successful film maker, so he wanted to go for higher studies. But when he was in class 6th he was forced to shift to his uncle’s place in Satara (Phaltan / Baramati) due to the outbreak of 1992 communal riots in Mumbai. Because of the weak financial position of his parents he could somehow continue his education from 7th to 10th in ‘New English School, Nimbhore’ Phaltan in Satara. He failed in 10th Exam because he could not get enough resources, support, guidance and motivation for his studies in a remote place like Satara (Phaltan / Baramati).

In 1997 He came back to Mumbai with his father for his further studies & livelihood with just Rs. 1800/- with them and a 10th fail certificate.

He again started his journey & struggles to fulfill his dream to become a film maker. He decided to continue his studies on his own from 10th class fail. He passed 10th by distance education in March 1998. But again because of his weak financial position he could not take admission in 11th for next 2 years. 

These two years of his life were filled with very strange experiences and hard struggle. He did odd jobs for his survival. He started working at Navi Mumbai, Vashi .Due to financial constraints he could not travel daily from his home in Malad , Mumbai so he had to stay away from his home. In this period for first six to seven months it was not possible for him to arrange for his accommodation so he had to sleep on foot path at sector 17 Vashi with only some pages of news papers as his ‘Mat’.
Street dogs and cats were his partners for dinner and best friends to accompany him for whole night. In every difficult situation of his life, he always had two options in front of him one was GOOD and other was BAD. Bad was very easy to be achieved to make easy and fast money and Good was difficult and required a lot of patience and struggle to earn money but by grace of God at every situation in his life he choose the Good and not Bad.

Later on with help and some loan from his friends he managed to take admission in 11th for Commerce stream in Night College in ‘Saraswati Junior Night College’ at Goregaon (West) Mumbai, in the year March 2000. With the advice from his friend in 2001, he visited some local charity organizations for the financial help for his next year education but it didn’t work as many of them discriminated and rejected him on the basis of cast, creed, community and religion, and no one consider his proposal on the basis of his financial condition. This was the first time ever that he envisioned to have his own trust that would really help the poor needy students selflessly but ‘The vision to have his own trust’ that would never discriminate on the basis of cast, creed, community and religion, a trust that would reach to every deserving students and their underprivileged families to help everyone on the basis of their financial condition and physical capability as a human being was that time just a thought which came out of his frustration, irritation, depression and mental harassment. 

He wanted to complete his own graduation and also wanted to help his brother & sister to complete their education. He had to take up a job & work 15-17 hours a day as he was the only bread winner of his family.
It was a hard struggle continuing his study in Night College and working in daytime for his livelihood. Sometimes he was just having one time meal in a day or sometimes even deprived of that. He somehow completed his graduation in 2005 from Public Night Degree College, Santacruz (East) Mumbai.

There after he had two options available, whether to complete his MBA thereby getting a good job to quickly get rid of his family’s poverty OR go for FILM MAKING COURSE to become a film maker & fulfill his dream. A career in film industry is always uncertain; it could have caused more struggle and trouble to him and his family. Though he was ready to take the risk personally but for the sake of his family he decided to go for the MBA COURSE. But when he inquired about the fees from the colleges unfortunately both of the courses were out of his reach as again he could not afford higher fees for either of the courses MBA or FILM MAKING COURSE.

While completing his graduation when he was in F.Y. B.Com in 2002 – 2003, he had already got the idea about the unaffordable expenses of further higher education. So he again prepared his own ‘Educational Profile’ for presentation which included his results, mark sheets, academic documents and also some sports certificates and medal that he had won in various competitions in his schools and colleges and started approaching various NGOs, charitable trusts, politicians, social workers and other people for donation to help him in his higher studies. 

He was presenting his educational profile to the various people and organizations for 04 academic years i.e. form the year 2001 to 2005 but no one helped him. He requested many NGOs to present his educational profile to donors for his educational help but they did not entertain him at all. Some of them asked him for an initial BRIBE in return of their ‘HELP’. This again was out of reach for him. He was also not agreed for, even if it was possible somehow. Many times he did not have money for travelling to visit NGOs so he had to walk for hours and hours with his educational profile presentation file in his hand. His slipper got big holes under the ankles through which he could see the entire world but…..world could not see him.

Many of Trust/NGOs rejected him against caste discrimination saying we help only to our own community or religion people and not outsiders. No one looked at him as a human being or as an Indian brother. He realized that there is also a communal or religious cold war among people in our own society. The war which is without any weapon and violence but that which spoils the entire society, humanity, kills the feeling of unity among Indians, that which is working like a slow poison. He says that working for the welfare of one’s own community and religious is of course not wrong but making discrimination on the basis of cast, creed, community, state, province, language, party affiliation, color and religion is absolutely wrong. 

He thinks every communal organization must have some provisions for other communities, if they want to distribute their helps on the basis on community. This kind of discrimination actually becomes the cause which forms a feeling of communal & religious enmity among the people of different cast & creed of our country. He says that people who carry such mentality of communal and religious discriminating are in one sense terrorist by themselves. Hence such people do not have any rights to blame the terrorist who kill innocent people with bullets and bombs under the name of cast, creed, community and religion in their terror attacks.

He also realized that many of these NGOs/ trust etc are just fake and money making organizations under the name of social work or sympathy for poor and needy people.

At this point he thought that there would be several students like him in this world who cannot pursue higher education just because of their weak financial condition and hence cannot fulfill their dreams. This was the point when he finally & firmly decided to establish a trust which would genuinely work for such students who are deserving higher education but cannot reach it because of their weak financial position. 

From 2001 to 2005, with the guidance of his ‘Bhautik Guru’ ‘Jain Saheb’, he had already started doing observation of his friends and students studying with him in his college and their family members to know what are the things those proved to be obstacles or barriers in achieving higher education and not only education but also affect their health and career. As per guidance of his ‘Bhautik Guru’ he needed a ‘Deep Research’ to establish a very genuine charity organization. So from 2001 to 2005, he started finding out the problems, obstacles and barriers that affect education, health and career of the students in the format of ‘Problems – Root Cause – Reasons – Symptoms – Permanent Solutions’ because he wanted to work on the ‘Root Cause’ of the ‘Problems’ and not on their ‘Symptoms’. With his personal experience of struggle & hardships faced as a student and the strong observation of other his friends and students studying with him in his college and their family members he found out around 19-20 problems, barriers and issues that affect education, health and career of the students. He categorized all these problems, barriers and issues in 03 main categories Personal, Family Related, School Environment and Educational Infrastructure related issues.  He created 03 most important programs for the welfare of the students under the ‘Mission Vande Mataram – National Social Welfare Mission’. There is story behind every project and program added in this mission. Stories or incidents happened with him or students around him which affected their studies, health, life and career. He proudly says that he stays in slum area because most of the social problems are lying in the slum area of the cities. So he gets chance to be in touch with the people, who are suffering from various social issues & problems, and study them to give better results.   

He also started gathering information about establishment of NGO in 2005 when he completed his T.Y. Bcom Examination. He is a proud Indian by his heart and wants to help all the people in India who belongs to any cast, creed, community and religion. Because he looks at everyone with an equal vision i.e. as a human being and as a Indian brother first. He started studying the field of NGO, its rules, regulations, acts, laws, working systems, concept, themes, planning, strategies, projects, action plan, organizational structure of his own NGO/trust to reach every deserving students and their underprivileged families and  mainly shortcoming or drawbacks of other NGOs and many more things related to the field of NGO or Charity. 

Later again at one of his well-wisher’s suggestion he continued his struggle and joined a Food & Beverage course from Kokane’s Koninoor Institute of Hotel Management, Dadar (West) Mumbai in 2006. He completed his stewards training in various well known hotels in Mumbai. In 2006 he started working as a steward just to have experience to go abroad and make money for his film making course. But again he could not become successful in this plan because he did not have enough money to give to the agent for visa.
He again got disturbed from within because of repeated failures which were only because of his weak financial position. He says “I am not the only one, I am not the first one and I am not the last one to face all these problems and difficulties in the life”. He has purposely not described in detail the difficult phases of his life which were sometimes full of depression, frustration, failures or times where thoughts of committing suicide touched him many times. Herein he also does not mentioned his personal distress, plight, irritations, sacrifices, compromises, hard work or heart-rending mental harassments in detail which he tolerated only for completing his education and getting two times meal to him and his family. The only reason is that he does not want to gain anyone’s “sympathy” for any purpose. He wants people to help him by considering his “sincere efforts and pure motto of selfless social work”.

He actually started his social work at age of 21. He used to help people around him who were in any kind of problem like financial, medical, educational etc, even though he himself was facing lot of financial problem for his studies. He used to provide note books, stationary or very small amount of money like Rs. 20/-, 25/- or 50/-…etc. to the students around him. To help others many a times he used to borrow money from his friends & people at his work place.
Now when he firmly decided to establish a trust, it was real time that this social work of his personal level be converted into an organization which was later established in 2008, on the basis of study he made in the period of last 03 years from 2005 to 2008, and called as ’Swrna Rajhans Trust’.

He says we are here to do very genuine and true social work with very transparent financial transactions and affairs that is open to all. He believes in real & selfless social work that which is done from the bottom of heart to have long lasting effects to make a permanent change in society.
Trying to solve the problems in our society, many of the social workers, reformers, NGOs and charitable organizations are working only on the symptoms of the problems, but he says ‘We should work on the cause…..The Root Cause… of these problems to uproot them permanently from the society.’
In the formation process of this trust since 2005, without anyone supporting him for this noble cause, he took severe mental stress and painful physical efforts to plan his vision & design his mission. He took special efforts to study the problems, needs and requirements of the society, mainly students. It took him quite some time to gather knowledge related to functioning of the trust and legal formalities. He met many people in the field of NGO or national and international charity and people who had done degree or diploma and other social work related 2-3 years courses to know their views and opinions. He studied the shortcomings and drawback of the other NGOs. But to cover these shortcoming and drawbacks, the main challenge in front of him was to set up a unique body of organization that consist of very effective structure of committees, sub committees with their types and total number of positions for effective delivery of the national and international charity to grass root level and also involving every Indian in to active social work which never happened before in the history of India. He specially designed roles, responsibilities and duties of every committee officer on these committees. He proudly says that this organization has an unique system which strives to provide all the helps and assistance even to last beneficiary at free of cost without any corruption, misuse, misutilisation. This system will surely works selflessly for 100% long lasting result and also motivate people for true social work.

He took special efforts to design an action plan to effectively implement his mission for 100% long lasting results and revolutionary social change in the history of social services.
After completing the design of the action plan and all necessary studies relating to formation of the organization, he registered his organization in 2008 with help of his common & ordinary friends.
For making this mission successful he had to sacrifice his career and his family life. He also sacrificed his full time job to give enough time for formation of the organization, “the job which could have given him good salary to secure him and his family life”. For the sake of the organization 80% of his earning from his part time jobs, home tuitions etc. was used for development of organization. But this amount of money was not really good enough for effective social work.
Fortunately later he got selfless support from some people, who saw his genuine struggle & qualities from very close and understood his mission. These people give him motivation and encouragement for his mission. He gives all the credit of progress for this mission to them and not to himself, considering himself just an insignificant cause to make this organization happen as per wish of the God.
He says that let’s remember one thing ‘Nothing in this world should be taken for granted or free’. One should not expect spoon feeding because- It is the rule of nature that ‘without doing any efforts you get nothing’. Hence to make our mission successful we have to visit and convince people to make them understand our mission. We may have to face irritation, frustration, financial problems, insult and failure too. In the process of achieving our goals we have to do hard struggle, do many scarifies and compromises but never give up because this all is also a part of success. Let’s brush up our minds, empower our self to get involved in service of nation and serve the needy people. Our mission is to involve each and every citizen of this country in active social work for the service of nation, but we need to take initiative, take the first step i.e. start from our self first……

He is firmly convinced that being a responsible part of the society, every one of us should come ahead and take steps to do our best for the welfare of our society.

He knows that in the matter of education, he was not ‘lucky’ but he wants to make others ‘lucky’ and fortunate. Hence his entire team is working with their sincere efforts and dedicated hard work to bring a long lasting change in the society.

He says ‘It is very difficult for a common man like me to run the organization and raise the funds’ because I am not a rich like well-known businessman and entrepreneurs in India, I am not famous like celebrities and I don’t even have power & authorities like any politician or minister for getting things done. 

Whatever money he is earning from his tuitions, coaching or job is mostly utilized for the organization but it is not enough for him to make a visible mark or impact, so he has to hunt for donations from outside sources. When he approaches donors for donations they say show us a visible mark or impact of your organization only then we will give you donation. But none of them ever think that unless we give him at least a basic or sufficient amount of donation he cannot show any impressive performance. His condition is like a fresher who goes for interviews to 100 companies but everyone rejects him for having no work experience but none of them think that unless we give him a first chance he is not going to get any experience.

Since it is just a beginning, this organization is facing problems. But it’s just because of his strong desire, passion, conviction, sincerity, determination dedication towards the work with ‘Never Give up’ philosophy which has helped him to run this organization till now.