Originally we were supposed to leave for Mangalore early
in the morning, at about 3-4am, but we got news that there’s gonna be a bandh
in Karnataka on the 22nd, so we left at night only about 10:30pm.
Sister came and woke us up and within 10 minutes we were all downstairs and
loaded our stuff on the vans and started off for Mangalore in the still of the
night.
I really have great respect for our drivers.. They drove
so responsibly for 8 hours without rest and without a word of complaint or
exhaustion..
On reaching, we catch up on some sleep and I awake to
hear a voice from down the hall, very overdramatically saying “Ha ha ha ha!
Jaante ho main kaun hoon? Main is duniya
ka raja hoon, raja!” Ha ha ha ha!”
It takes a moment to realise that it was Ravi talking.
They were practicing the street play on Eradication of Plastic to perform
later. Then I heard the dialogue again. And again. Ravi. He probably relished saying
it over and over. Typical.
We headed out to a rally in the later where there were
like 100 motorcycles and tempos and auto and buses and all escorting us to
another location where we addressed everyone there and performed the street
play and gave their messages. In particular, when Rakesh spoke, there was
something different about him today. He had such a fire burning under him about
what he wanted to put across to the youth and the way he was speaking to them
was like that fire was getting transferred to his audience. He spoke about how
we as young people should take responsibility to make the changes we want to
see, and that we should raise our voice when we can see something is wrong and
we want to change it. Not just be people standing by anymore. We have so much
energy and we need to use that in the right place.
The way he delivered his message reminded me of watching
a recording of Martin Luther King Jr. and his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech. It was
with that much force to drive the message home in peoples’ hearts and minds.
After this we visited St. Antony’s Ashram nearby. We got
to dance with this troupe who played the drums and breathed fire and
everything! It was soo cool! And then we got to interact with the residents of
the place who were introduced to us by Father Anil. There were some mentally
and physically challenged persons and many retired priests staying here. The
former priests, despite their age were still bubbling with youthful energy and
some had such illustrious careers like being a diocesan director for 50 years.
Another source of inspiration for all of us.
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