It was after a very long time that Foram and I talked for hours. And it was fantastic. Because we spoke about someone for whom both of us have immense love and respect: Amitabh Shah.
People who know of him have different perspectives about him. But I have known Amitabh a lot closer or atleast differently than most.
I realised that by writing about him, I might be able to portray a side of him that not many know of, and many more people will get to know the Amitabh that I have grown to love.
There have been many instances when a lot of people haven’t been able to understand Amitabh’s way of thinking or his actions. Many think that a man driving around town in a Honda City, and yet motivating others to do good just doesn’t add up. Wanting to do social work and still not giving up the luxuries or amenities of life doesn’t seem to make sense to a lot of people. They feel that he should be grounded, use the simplest and most economical means to make a difference and not add up to expenses, etc.
All of these are individual opinions and I completely respect them for many years this has been the formula for doing something good for the society and it has always worked. So for those who have always been used to the traditional ways of working for a social cause will find it difficult to accept someone who is breaking away from conventions and still coming up with new and innovative methods to make a difference. And changes could be either big or small, but a change nonetheless.
Person with a capability of make billions and trillions and start charities, a person who can have fleets of cars at his door step, a person who can ask for something and can have that with him in a matter of few hours, a person who has been in a culture where money was never an issue and he too like any of his colleagues would have been ruling the corporate world with the amount of smartness he has.
But
Here is a man who has a self-driven decade old Honda City, a man who is as humble to make and bring and give awards of Youth Icons to people and never taking one for himself, a man who would drive me personally to any corner of the city I want to, a man who wouldn’t get angry or take a revenge if someone’s bad with him, a man who is not doing a single thing which a man with all the money he has can do.
I have always wondered-
How difficult would it be for you if, having being habituated to riding a two wheeler for the past 10 years, you were asked to ride a cycle across the city?
How hard would it be for you to live in a city with soaring temperatures of 40 degree Celsius and drive a trash car when you have been used to living in the United States for more than 12 years?
In an attempt to judge a person, we tend to do so based on our personal opinions or the way we have been conditioned to think.
If I am someone who has spent my life giving food to the poor and sitting in the hot son teaching little kids, all the while struggling with parents at home, I tend to think that in my opinion that is “sacrifice” and anything less doesn’t qualify as sacrifice.
While I may consider my act as commendable, what I don’t realise is that in my haste to judge, I forget to consider the sacrifices a person had made with respect to his capabilities or standard of living.
This is one of the very misunderstandings that I have seen a lot of people have had with Amitabh or has. It makes me feel very bad. I don’t understand why people don’t see the sacrifices he is making. A lavish life with all the comforts at his doorsteps, he is still taking the minimum of it and living with them. I don’t know him carrying or having a single thing owned by him which is especially for his comfort or just the sake of having it. He doesn’t mind carrying a lunch box when he is going to Yuva.
It is so easy to not have something and live without it, but it is definitely not easy to have something and still live without it.
I can say that because when I was experimenting to travel without my car for 2 weeks, 10th day was becoming almost impossible for me to travel in auto and buses.
He is one person I look forward too. The way he takes care of me makes me feel I have a ‘moto bhai’ (elder brother). The time from we have known each other not a single time it has happened that we dint have a lunch or dinner together when I am in Ahmedabad. If I am staying back at night it’s his house always except if there is something crazy going on at his place (you can laugh here). He has been always ALL Ears, it maybe when we are talking our personal lives or about Yuva.
And here is Amitabh which is not known by everyone. When at his place he is busy cracking jokes all the time, Gautambhai (house manager) and Maharaj bossing around him always (this are the craziest conversations to listen!) even demanding him to change his shirt if they don’t think it’s a proper colour he should wear, his amazing dadi whom he handles so tactfully with all the love in him for her, his love for watching movies on Zee Cinema and Star Gold or the South Indian Hindi dubbed movies, always getting up 15 minutes before going anywhere and then making me run as I can never be on time. Even Aunty is amazing at his place as she makes me dine to my tummy full every time.
The point I want to make is how many people would dedicate or give their life for a social revolution if you have a fleet of cars in your garage, if your family is running a multi-million business house, if you can buy a new phone every two months, if you can have all the riches and get everything you ask for and still don’t take any of it and sacrifice it for the leap of faith?
When I try to put myself in his shoes I realise how difficult it is to stay so simple and humble, to be so kind and affectionate to every human being even with all the money in the world and still not using it the way it could be otherwise.
It is necessary to know he is motivating and encouraging the people to be the change but along with it he is also learning and exploring and most importantly,
He is also HUMAN!
