Chess for Social Change

ENTREPRENEURSHIP is a huge field to address in a span of 2-3 hours. Still team IU gave its best to cater to the necessity to kindle the fire of entrepreneruship among the youth of Bangalore on the occasion of Labour's Day a.k.a International Workers' Day on May 1st of 2013. During the session there was an interesting participant among the crowd who came on the stage to share her feedback and here's her inspiring story to inspire a lot more.

 

A brief introduction about yourself

My name is Bhavana.B. I am pursuing my MBA from Maharani College of Arts, Commerce and Management. I am a national level chess player. I have represented my school for 3 consecutive years in chess and have won many prizes. I have participated in HKES tournament wherein I secured first prize and in many other inter-college competitions wherein I have won many prizes in the chess competitions.

 

With how many people have you shared the knowledge

about chess and what were the implications?

I have taught chess to 4 of my cousins out of which one went on to participate in national level chess competition. She was trying from 4 years but was unable to make it. Last year, I left my internship to help and guide her. By God's grace and my guidance she was able to pass through all the rounds at the national level and is a national level player now. Right now, we have 3 national level chess players in our family. Also, there are couple of young cousins of mine, one studying in 6th std and another in 2nd std  whom I am coaching about chess. It's a pleasure to also be teaching about chess to a 5 year old kid.

 

Apart from these, I am also training a 3 year old kid in chess. I have shared my knowledge about chess with Gururaj.S, who is a member of faculty in RIESI Bangalore and passionate about promoting the game of chess. I had written down some articles about chess and passed them on to him. He had got them circulated and I have received many positive feedback about the same. Once I had got a message from a teacher from Tumkur whom I had never met that my material had benefited her and she would be teaching chess to her child. I was very happy to know that my material had helped someone whom I didn't even know. I wish that all these people go on to become international chess players.

 

How do you plan to use chess as a medium for social change?

Today, whenever anyone talks about sports, it's mostly cricket or football. Indoor games are not given much scope. I want to make sure that chess becomes a part of our lifestyle itself. Just like how one doesn't remember when s/he brushed for the first time, I want people to not even remember when they started playing chess. It should become an intricate part of life is what I believe to achieve.

 

You can pass on your feedback for the fantastic work that Bhavana is doing on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

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Sometimes just a gesture is sufficient

Recently I was watching the interview of a very famous movie hero who had turned into a politician. He was offered a role in one of the big budget movies offlate. He couldn't accept it because of his political commitments. He stated that ot would be difficult for him

to be punctual for shootings and hence it would disturb the complete schedule of the movie shooting. At this point he mentioned that even if he doesn't give any appointments for any meetings, by the time he leaves his home after just saying 'Hello' to all those people who

would have come to see him, this itself would take a minimum of three hours. At this point more than the busy-ness of the actor cum politician I understood how important it is to wish people. All that people want is a small recognition through any type of a gesture.

'People are not difficult, they are just different'. This is one of the famous quotes of Er. Sujit Lalwani, a star international inspirational speaker. There is a desire in every human being to be considered as important. Unfortunately most people rely on others to fulfill this desire of their's. A man who is completely self-aware, knows his worth doesn't care about what others think about him but not all people on this planet are wise enough to have such wisdom. They need to be recognised is what they feel. In majority of the functions and public meetings you might have observed that it's almost next to impossible to talk to anyone in detail because there are just too many people seeking attention of the hosts. It is quite possible for the hosts to miss out on saying just a 'Hi' to few of the guests and in majority of such cases people come back home and start blaming that they shouldn't have even gone to the function. They blame that the hosts didn't have even the courtesy of saying 'Hi!' to the guests knowing that there were just too many people to wish. This eventually goes on to develop cold relationship between these set of people and they revert the same action of disrespecting when they meet the next time by not even wishing the other person that goes on to completely cut the relationship.

There are 700 crore plus people on this planet. We can be very sure that not all will be with us forever. Out of the even few of them who are with us there is no point in losing them on such simple stupid occasions of not wishing them either by ignorance or overlooking.

Make your best efforts to wish people whenever you come face to face with them because all that people wish is just a wish. I wish to receive your feedback on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

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