Unity and Caring - Neelam Waldia

A human pyramid depicts focus, strength, coordination, practice, faith, and so much more, but the underlying values to any human pyramid are UNITY and CARING. Everyone in the pyramid cares for each other, ‘I can’t be at the top if I don’t care for the one carrying me’, ‘if I get careless, the one above me may fall and hurt. Taking Care of each other and the common goal of success unites everyone, forming a beautiful pyramid that reaches the height where we alone can never reach.

When we think of unity as a value, we think of people coming together to form a team, despite their differences. We imagine people working together in harmony, accepting and appreciating one another. Man is a social being, COVID-19 has shown us how being away from families and the pain of not meeting friends has affected our morale and mental health. Family, Friends, neighbours and colleagues are not only required to have fun or to talk; they all give us courage, strength, and hope, which keeps us all united. It was only the care offered by doctors working beyond their capacities, social workers trying to reach everyone in need, employers being empathetic & supportive, and families being strong and loving that united us all, even after the physical distance in between.

It is so true "United we stand, divided we fall." and we've known how vital unity is since our independence. People can easily break, crush, and hurl you if you're alone, but when you stand together, nobody can touch you, and we can only be united by caring for each other. Caring is to treat others as you would like to be treated yourself. I remember one of our students who would spend most of the time alone and was not part of any group, which was surprising because that is the age where we want to have affiliations and groups. She was in the infirmary due to fever; another girl from her class was also admitted there. This girl surprised us all by showing her caring side. She would put a blanket over the other girl if no one is around and she is sleeping. Help her to visit the washroom. She would do small stuff for her even when she could have easily called for help.

In the class, even in organizations, people feel unified when leaders create a culture of care. We expect our teachers to be always in their best self, calm, composed, joyous, and energetic, but teachers too are human beings with their struggles, shortcomings, and bad days. We started 20 minutes of "Tea with MD sessions" before the start of the first period. We would just sit, pick one value and share our thoughts and experiences on it. These unbiased, non-judgmental sessions helped us break the ice; people who were not very open initially also started opening up. We talked about happiness, positive thinking, the law of attraction, kindness and much more. We also shared that one thing, which we keep procrastinating but not able to fulfil, resulted in aerobics classes for the ones looking to get fit, music and dance classes for the one’s wanting to learn that and a lot more. This exercise showed that we are cared for and helped us unite and imbibed the value of being caring in us. Hopefully, when we are back at our school, we will start it again. A beautiful poem by Abdulla Saeed sums up it all-

Neelam Waldia
The Doon Girls' School

Is Your Child Ready To Face The World?

The very first thought which strikes in my mind, how does one prepare his child to face the world? "Why we are always behind our child and forcing them to focus on a goal. Being parent sometimes it becomes difficult when our conversation ends up without any result, Dr Sibal handles it with the nice examples in each chapter from the lives of people who started life small and went on to become great afterwards. There is an example of Dr Christian Bernard who performed the first human to the human heart transplant, it shows infinite courage because this was the first transplant of its kind. It shows how one handles pressure, make others happy, determined and never give up.

Many more examples are there of honesty, that how we are honest in professional relations and with our colleagues. As Dr Sibal was the only child to his parents and his parents bestowed upon much care and love whole bringing him up and it was similar in his case too as Devang was the only son to him, to provide him same atmosphere Dr Sibal and his wife treated their child in the same way. It shows parenting should not be forced on the child because it is to bring a child from early age to adulthood. Though Dr Sibal was paediatrician he has had the rare opportunity to interact with teenagers and children every day, he carefully observed their behaviour with others and with their parents and develop effective methods to communicate with his own son.

The same happens with The Iconic School educators, as we are not doctors but every day we also interact with every Icon as we are teachers and this is an opportunity for us to develop our own method of communication with our child. Parenting is not easy and it's not climbing the mountain but it's a bonding between us and our child many deeply rooted concerns are there beyond parenting about child's health, nutrition and education. It's one's experience which is shared with us that how to be a good and positive parent before we take any decision let's be our child's friend first and then we proceed. It needs our own effort and time and certainly, we will see the same as we have thought off.

Many celebrities are quoted in this book and it’s a long list like of cricketers, martyrs and of course famous icons and personalities like Ratan Tata, Sachin Tendulkar, Barak Obama... it doesn't matter who you are it matters what we want to do because parents are always parents, I have seen Shahrukh Khan with his kids and the bonding between them. M.S Dhoni who was plying and sipping the soft drink along with her daughter when his teammates were celebrating after a big win. Book suggests we reduce the generation gap and to introduce communication and lead our child to become a good human being and of course a role model to someone.

I feel Mr Amitabh Bachhan's foreword is a good deed to every parent that " ...whole family grows up together through the ages".
           

Kaushal Singh

WSFG Coordinator

Caring Icons,  The Iconic School, Bhopal(M.P)