 Celebrating the human spirit
Students of Sophia College reach out to the victims of the bomb blasts in Mumbai
The devastating aftermath of the Mumbai bomb blasts has drawn warm hearted responses from a wide range of people. One such response was a fund raiser, an evening of music entitled “A Celebration of the Human Spirit”, organised by the Sophia College Hostelites. Scheduled for Saturday, 19th August 2006, at Sophia Bhabha Hall, the event went off without a hitch, and the students were able to collect a fair amount of money for their cause. Even more important, it was a profoundly learning experience and an object lesson in faith for all of us: faith in a vision, faith in each other, faith in the goodness of people at large.
To start with, all of us in the hostel team were a little doubtful about whether this event would ever take off…. whether the initial enthusiasm was just a flash in the pan, and die out just as quickly….. whether it was too close to Kaleidoscope (the annual intercollegiate festival organised by Sophia College) for the girls to be able to put in the effort and energy required for both…..whether people would respond with generosity.
But the girls were convinced that they could do it, and so, not wanting to discourage them, we went along with the plan. And they proved themselves more than equal to what they had undertaken. Since they were not planning to look for sponsors, since that would cut into the Kaleidoscope effort, just about everything had to be done by themselves – and they did it, with a little help and guidance from us. With little or no media advertising, they still managed to spread the word about the event by word of mouth, posters put up in colleges and parishes and building societies, announcements from the pulpit, and just going around talking to people at the malls and the department stores in the vicinity. The FYJCs (the babies of the hostel, who’ve been in Mumbai and in the College for just over a month) led the way: they managed to collect Rs 16,600 in their first three days of pounding the beat, and then flung down the gauntlet to the rest – if we could do it, so can you!
Nor was that all. The backdrop was done by the girls themselves – and it looked like something professional. Nobody would have guessed it was a whole lot of drawing paper stuck together and mounted on newspaper! Posters were designed, taken around and put up, delegations went to various parishes to sell tickets after the announcement on Sunday mass. And on the last day, everybody was not only assigned a task, but fulfilled it willingly and even offered to help somewhere else as well!
The College supported the cause as well, offering to pay for any RSCJ who would like to attend, so that the girls could be supported by RSCJ presence, and yet not lose contributions because of “free tickets”. The Junior College deserves special mention, because each class collected whatever they could afford to give, and added it to the cause – each girl contributed something, though only a few could actually attend. The Hostel services pitched in with attractive packets of snack and coffee for all the performers. Special mention must be made of Mario Fernandes who offered us the technical (sound) support needed free of charge. The staff at Sophia Bhabha Hall too were very helpful, getting us the permissions we needed, and being available for advice and assistance at any time.
Various performers generously contributed their skills to help make this evening possible. The first half of the programme comprised of performances by the St. Michael’s Parish Youth Choir and solos/duets by Kenneth Hopkins, Shawana D’Silva and Natasha D’souza. All of them chose inspirational songs that related to the theme of the evening, with the Sophia Hostel Choir leading the way.
The second half starred the internationally acclaimed tabla maestro Anuradha Pal and her group Stree Shakti, featuring Aninha Lobo (Head of the Psychology Department in the College) on the keyboard and Shyamala Sajnani on the Carnatic Veena. Their fusion of Indian and Western Music, with a number of original compositions composed around the theme of Mumbai, was a delight, and culminated in a “Mind Without Fear”, which took up the theme Rabindranath Tagore’s famous “Where the mind is without fear.” Winding up with the national anthem sung by Ms Pal’s students – boys dressed in white kurta-pyjama and holding lighted candles – this part of the programme got a standing ovation.
There were certainly glitches, and lacunae that had to be filled in at the last moment. But through it all, there were a number of things that emerged. First, we learned that the spirit of Sophia College and Sophia Hostel are very much alive: one could not have a more practical application of the College goals. Second, somehow, the entire effort, for all the tension and stress involved, created a strong sense of bonding among the hostelites. Then, they discovered that there is both more generosity and more callousness in the world than they had expected. And that somehow, if one kept going, the former outshone the latter; that somehow the warm-hearted generosity with which they flung themselves into their effort roused a matching generosity in many. (They were amazed at the number of people who could not come for the concert because of prior engagements, but nevertheless wanted to contribute to the cause!) And finally – that the difficult becomes possible if one cares enough and works hard enough.
Ananda Amritmahal rscj
Province of India
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