There was a school in our village which was 111 years old. It went up for sale because the existing management was not able to maintain the school – the buildings were about to fall down, the roof tiles were already falling down, children were quitting the school, and only a few children, especially from very poor families, were attending the school, the rest had all left.
When my father and his friends were planning to buy the school, he asked for my opinion. I thought I should pay a visit and went for a PTA meeting. We were the prospective new management even though we had not yet made a decision, and there were teachers and parents.
I was sitting back on the bench with the parents, my father and his friends were sitting in the front. We were communicating to the parents that we planned to buy the school and would try to transform it with better facilities, infrastructure development, and make it a high tech one. All the people were from the same village and they were retired now and wanted to contribute something back. I was sitting beside a man whom I understood to be a local fish seller, his child was a student of the school.
While the management was explaining the plans they had for the school, I observed the heat rising from the man sitting by my side. I was able to sense his heartbeat, the flow of the blood in his nerves. He seemed like he was about to explode and he stood up, he was literally shivering when he said that if you are willing to rebuild the school to provide better facilities for our children, we too are willing to give our lives for it if need be.
He was stammering in between and it was evident that he was not familiar with speaking in public but the audacity of hope made him stand and deliver his offer for his children.
We expect to profit from any investment, at least not let the investment go in vain, but this gentleman and his confidence and willingness to deliver his life struck me emotionally and made me make up my mind to go for it.
After a couple of years, we rebuilt the infrastructure, totally transformed the way they were educating students, conducted extracurricular activity training and the kids performed amazingly well. They became champions in arts and sports festivals even at district levels and we felt a great sense of pride and satisfaction on the decision we took that day.
When some people decide to offer their lives for a noble cause, for a great purpose, sometimes we tend to gamble on that. Today I am grateful to that father who inspired me to take a call that brought amazing results to a community.
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