I registered at Youth for Seva last year and was waiting for the right volunteering opportunity. I got the email intimation about the 1st Annual day meeting at Ramakrishna Mission, Chengelpet on 1st April. Wanting to initiate my involvement with YFS i decided to enroll in for the event. We were supposed to assemble at the Mambalam railway station at 7.30 which was preponed to 6.45 and changed to Guindy railway station. I almost changed my mind of not going when i saw the revised earlier timing as that meant i had to start real early from home. But since i had enrolled in i did not want to back out of it and started real early to the station.Was pleasantly surprised to see that 27 of us were going to Chengelpet through YFS that day. We had people with years of service experience like Mr.Chandrasekar (a volunteer of RKM) and kids like Deepika and Ashwanth who were travelling in our group. We boarded the 7.35 am train to Chengalpet.
We reached Chengelpet at around 8.50 am. Most of us had not had any breakfast so we had breakfast at a local restaurant where we also had an informal introduction session. Then we started to the the Ramakrishna mission. It is 1.7 km from the railway station and it was a bit hot but most of us did choose the walking route. Mr.Chandrasekar from Ramkrishna Mission , Chennai guided us to the Chengelpet mission. On the way he showed us an old Ramar temple and the Ramakrishna mission run Boys and Girls school.
We reached the Matt at around 10.20 am. It was very quiet and peaceful at the mission.A complete contrast to the streets we walked through on the way there. We first visited the temple/prayer hall. It was very peaceful inside. Then we went to meet the founder of the Mission who gave us his blessings and also gave us a copy of the book Karma Yoga. We then had tea in the dinning hall.
After that we were told about the history of the mission in Chengelpet and shown a tour of the garden/farm where we saw a variety of trees including orange, lemon, chicku, coconut and even a nagalingam tree. We were told that the earnings from the farm provided for the mission’s activities of providing schooling to underprivileged children and other activities.
Right after the tour we went to freshen up and rest for 30 mins. Then there was a prayer followed by lunch. The lunch served was pretty good. After lunch we had a short reading session with Mr.Chandrasekar who read us a few pages from Karma Yoga, regarding service.
Then we met Savithri amma who has been working in the mission for around 30 years. She talked about the activities of the mission relating to providing medical help, educational activities and general improvement of the lives of the Irular community (Scheduled Tribe) that lived in the surrounding areas.The daughter of one of YFS Volunteers, Deepika who is a 7th standard student told us a few words about our day at the mission which she did with amazing clarity.Then we had a few group activities/games organized by Mr.Sundaresan from RSS .
After that we had a small speech by the Chief Swamiji about Karma Yoga and About Swami Vivekananda and Shri Ramkrishna Paramahamsa .We then had tea and evening tiffin and then a speech by Priya regarding the School Kit Drive. We started from the mission at around 5.50 pm and reached the station around 6.40 pm and headed back to Chennai. We all reached Guindy at 8.00 pm and that ended our day with YFS.
It was indeed a great oppotunity to spend time with a variety of people from different backgrounds. I am sure everyone had a great time at the 1st annual Celebration of Youth For Seva. Though everyone had work or other engagements the next day it was refreshing to see people come forward on this occasion. Kudos to Priya & Amit for organizing the event. And thanks to Mr. Chandrasekhar and the other members of the Mission for accommodating us on Sunday.
Booma