It all started last year when I had first got to know about grassroutes.I wanted to apply for a couple of reasons .. a) a road trip with friends during holidays to some remote village would mean revisiting  old childhood memories of camping in tribal villages and b) rediscovering myself in different space time coordinates..a lot had changed since my last trip to the villages which was 5 years back  in standard 1oth.Also, the program was initiated by people I have  always admired and respected.However I could not apply for winters..I didn’t find a suitable team and I also wanted to spend the holidays at home.

So as soon as the program was announced for the summers,my hunt for a team had started..Manyu has already spoken about “How we met each other” in a previous post.The most important and fun part of the application process was the period of mini campaign..it was a constant learning process about:

-ourselves -how lazy we are about a few things and the extent to which we could push ourselves for a few other.

-each other -  how we fit in as a team

-the Indian mindset about a few important social issues like prostitution, legalisation of  which was was the initial topic of our mini-campaign.Bringing about a change they say is all about changing mindsets.It was then when we learnt a few nuances about the system and more importantly, our own limitations.Due to some unforeseen circumstances the campaign could not take off.I would post in our findings on “prostitution in India” in a later post.

The most important realisation was that we were actually about to do something for something we feel about.The realisation was very important personally.. the grassroutes journey had begun.