Dreamz Of The Desire Society

Social Entrepreneurship was one of the unconventional courses I had taken during my MBA. One of the requirements of this course is that we go and study a social organization. Even though interacting with the cooperates to study their organization is not a new concept to us, but never was there any emotional connect, like we had during the duration of this course. We had selected "Desire Society", a social organization which helps kids who are infected and affected due to HIV/AIDS. Infected were those who are actually infected with the virus. Affected are those who are not necessarily infected with it, but some of their near ones especially parents might have contracted it. Hence this leads to the stigma, even though they are perfectly normal. The organization focuses on disadvantaged  HIV+ victims, especially children abandoned by one or both parents,  children of sex workers, truck drivers and children who have been abused and  belong to poor socio economic conditions.

One of the major issue faced by such an organization is awareness. This issue of awareness is not just prevalent in the lower strata of the society where the reach of this disease is much higher, but even among the highly educated class. When we were short listing organizations for the social entrepreneurship project there was a sense of uneasiness in dealing with an organization such as Desire Society. The first day we went to meet the founder to ask for permission and I must confess that we were not at all comfortable visiting the premises. We were constantly surrounded and bitten by mosquitoes and this freaked us out , later we found mosquitoes can't transmit HIV virus. Then we realized when people like us who can have information at the tip of the fingers cannot differentiate between facts and fiction, then what could be the state of ignorance among the common masses. 

We had visited the Bangalore unit almost 3 times, which has 34 students and it is really humbling and a truly enriching experience seeing those kids all upbeat about their future. They had so many full time volunteers and frankly speaking they are an inspiration to people like us. There was one electrician from Tumkur, who travels to this center on weekends and does voluntary work without any pay !!!! It is kinda sad that people like us(at-least majority of us) always expect monetary compensation for any work done. After this experience there is a call from within that I should give something back to the society, at-least on a part time basis if not on full time. And finding a cause for which someone has a soft corner is not at all a problem here in India :P.  But the problem with me right now is the time... but that is gonna last only for another 3 months, till I will complete my MBA. After that I suppose I will have the time to indulge in such sort of social activities. This brings me to the introduction of the "Nithin's Framework for the Soul". Being an MBA I couldnt resist creating a framework :P.

 

Nithin's Framework for the Soul:

According to me the soul is like a platform which needs to be supported by multiple pillars in order to lead a happy life. These pillars are some entities which in a way define your life. And obviously more the pillars, more stable will the "21 grams" of weight will be (Interesting theory abt soul weight :P). Right now I could identify 4 pillars in no particular order:

1. Work

2. Studies

3. Family and friends

4. Interests and Hobbies (like travel, movies, endurance sports, reading, blogging etc)

Hence having 4 pillars is kinda stabilizing my soul I presume, but in a few months with my MBA completed, the pillar count would be reduced to 3. Now 3 is not a stable number (of course much much better than 1 and 2 :P ), kinda similar to an Indian autorickshaw which can topple any time. With the weekends completely freed up, there is something which needs to take its place. And I can think nothing other than some social service. The least I could do is to spend a couple of hours every week to teach some of the less fortunate kids (can end up in Desire Society itself :) ) and no more will I spend my weekends just lazing around. This is one promise I am hoping I would be able to keep.

Desire Society Website: http://www.desiresociety.org

P.S>

My 100th post. And coincidentally this month signifies 4th anniversary since I started blogging :).

Kickboxing 1.1

Appraisal time !!!!!!
Some improvements over the year.... :)...from the 2 videos it seems right now I am less of a loose cannonball and more of a restrained, longer enduring boxer :P. Further there are some extra weapons in my arsenal.But frankly speaking I haven't practiced this much over the year.... but nevertheless this is one of the most fun workouts around :).

Y do i kick-box ????
1. Primarily to induce variety in my fitness regime, and not because I am some sadistic, violence loving crackhead :)
2. In case I find myself in some dangerous situation (God forbid I dont encounter such situation), to protect and defend , if not kick their asses :).
3. Its a good stressbuster.

Hopefully my next video will be named as Kickboxing 2.0 and not Kickboxing 1.2 !!!!!

Dont watch this video if any of the following holds good:
1. If u r not comfortable with "extreme" violence, or have some weird soft corner for a punching bag (refers to u PPR :P) :D :D
2. If u r not comfortable with upper body male nudity :D :D :D

Older Video Link
http://nithinu.blogspot.in/2012/08/kickboxing-10.html

Background Music : Pacific Rim Theme

Encounters of the Duathlon Kind

Yours truly in Action :)

Duathlon = (++Running) + Cycling ;

Even after being involved in both these entities since quite some time , their paths had not really criss-crossed until now, when I was to take part in my first ever Duathlon. The event was the Ajmera Sponsored Duathlon organized by Life-is-Calling to be held in the wee hours of 7th July 2013 within the confines of Electronic City. With the run-cycle-run format, this was a completely new thing for me, and for a person who aims to become a triathlete this was the first step towards nirvana. The total distances were 2.5km run followed by 18km cycling(12km for ladies) and finishing it off with a 2.5 km run. Sounds easy for a marathoner doesn't it :).

Got my bro's Jazz to transport my dismantled Rockrider 5.1 to the venue. This was my first ever competitive ride on my trusted 4 year old bike (which nowadays cannot be trusted much :P.... ) and the organizers had touted this to be India's---first---duathlon---to---be---held---on---NH's---longest---flyover. Lot of technicalities you see, but end of the day it had some "India's first" tag :P. The things the organizers do to market their event ......

Landed up at the venue(NTTF grounds) with it totally engulfed in festive spirit, along with Shashi who had already given his bike to the organizers for transportation. There was music , drums being played in a trance by some spirited African drummers, a DJ as MC and booty shaking crowd doing a fun warm-up before the endurance race. There were close to 200 participants for the duathlon which included both the team event and individual events. Went and parked my bike at a designated spot inside the transition area, with the gloves, helmet etc placed at strategic places so as wear them in the shortest possible time after I complete my first lap of running. The event started at 6.45 am and off we were let into the streets of Electronic city to complete the first 2.5 km.


{ Video Compilation by Veloscope. I make an appearance from 0.16 to 0.20 }

This first part of the run was not at all challenging. By the time its starts to get tiring, I was back to the transition area to start the cycling leg. Putting on all the cycling gear in the shortest possible time and somehow this reminded me the kindergarten days where one used to have competitions like run-wear socks, run-wear shoes, run-wear sweater and so on. It was actually fun traversing through the transition area all geared up, running with your bike till the no biking zone and then all of a sudden mounting on the bike and cycling. The entrance to the ground was kinda narrow and the same was being used by bother bikers and runners for entry and exit during the run. This was kinda scary and a mess, with lot of blind corners and both the bikers and cyclists coming in with full speed. A potential disaster waiting to happen I thought, with me having a couple of close calls. But luckily nothing untoward happened.

For the cycling leg we were let into the Electronic City flyover and within no time we were bogged down with strong headwinds. Roadbikes with a better aerodynamics were able to negotiate this quite easily, but MTBer's like me had to endure the brunt. Cycling was where technology had a higher priority over endurance. This hard fact was illustrated to me when the guys whom I had overtaken during the 2.5km run, overtook me during the cycling leg in their carbon-fiberish road bikes and ultimately went on to finish 2nd and 3rd :P. I am not saying that I would have beaten them if I had a same bike, probably they are better cyclists than me (ofcourse they are, they represent a professional cycling team :D ), but I felt that with the distance for cycling and running set by the organizers, hardcore cyclists had a bigger edge over runners.

Once the excitement of riding on top of an endless flyover dies down, the ride becomes pretty much boring with the views being monotonous for the entire duration of the race. Unless u r overtaking someone or someone is trying to overtake you, all the adrenaline rush starts to kick in. All the road-bikes were pretty much untouchable and I focused my competition to just MTB's and Hybrids. I won some one-on-one battles and at the same time I lost some too. But it was fun. Drafting behind another cyclist to avoid a headwind and then suddenly overtaking that person and then a role reversal, with them chasing you , but at the same time enjoying the draft behind you :). I was even thanked by a biker for letting him draft behind me , when in fact I didnt even know he was doing tat :). We bikers are such gracious adrenaline junkies you know :P.

After the 18km bike ride, I was back to the transition area and I dumped all the cycling gear and got ready to run. Eventhough I was not tired beyond a level, my legs were kinda refusing to run !!!!!! I dont know what phenomenon is this... something new I was experiencing and maybe a common thing in cross-sports. Anyway after some time the legs were woken up and I got the regular run momentum. Finished my race strong with my usual sprint with a total time of around 1hr 8 mins . Shashi finished his race close to 18 minutes behind me. He was let down big time by his "chinese" bike. After the race it was back to the celebration-festive spirit with breakfast provided for the participants. Overall it was a fun experience.  

 (Both of us with the finishers medal :) )

Official Timing:

Place	BIB	Name	Time	Category	Run 1	T1	Bike	T2	Run 2
21	174	Nithin Uliyar	01:08:38	Individual	00:10:52	00:01:16	00:44:40	00:00:25	00:11:26

Pics and Videos Courtesy : ICycle.in, Chromoframes and veloscope.in