Have you tasted the Salted Berries

[Music]

you must be thinking

what am i doing with this leafy cone in

my hand

right in the middle of this talk well

harry handed me this salted berries

and i’m here to share it with all of you

now who is harry

harry is a little boy from the humming

land

and i have heard that he is going to

change the world

now before i start my talk

let me give a small declaration that

the thoughts that i am going to present

today are my personal thoughts

derived through various experiences

incidents

and research now let me begin with

a very interesting story a story

of two countries the gold land and the

humming land

and harry was a little boy from the

humming land

hummingland was a small island nearby

gold land

now if one must describe this two

countries

these two lands the humming land was

flourished

flourished with exotic flora and

fauna and plenty full of resources and

people over there

lived a traditional life while

the gold land was also flourished it was

flourished

not with the flora and fauna but with

factories

and buildings people over there

were very like modern convenience

and automation was very normal at that

place

people were fairly rich around 60 to 70

people people were rich

enough their pockets were filled they

ate fancy foods more fashionable clothes

automation was very normal what else

they were unhappy they were stressful

and hey they were human beings

human beings who were hard wired with

nature

and it was very natural of them to get

fascinated

by the exotic flora and fauna of the

neighboring

island the humming land that they

exploited

the humming land and the natural

resources to the extent

that they that nothing was left at the

end of the day

most of the exotic flora and fauna were

extinct

now amongst this entire hustle and

bustle

one fine day there comes a little boy

harry to the gold land

now harry right from the forest of the

humming land

got this exotic rare

salted berries which had medicinal

properties and healing properties in it

now when he reached the port of the gold

land

he stopped by the security guard

and he asked the security guard hello

sir

i am hari a little boy from the humming

land

and i have got this exotic rare

salted berries and let me tell you these

are medicinal in properties

this heal your soul and distresses

yourself

and on top of that it will make you live

longer now after listening to this

entire description

the security guard he like he got very

excited

he took harry to his house

at his house was his wife and a little

daughter

so they purchased some berries from

harry now after

uh after taking the berries

harry suggested them sir why don’t you

try these berries

right now right here and you will see

the difference

so with full gusto and full excitement

and with all positive thoughts

running behind his mind the guard takes

a berry

and puts in his mouth while he was doing

this

act his mind was filled with positivity

with hopes that something great is going

to happen to him

something magical is going to happen to

him and he is going to get distressed

and

you know he’s going to get happy this

small

thought itself made him distressful

he was filled with positivity he was of

course happy

and seeing all this his wife said

harry this berries would get exhausted

in few days

what will we do after these berries are

over

on this the little daughter she uttered

mother why don’t we sow the seeds of

this berry

and in in gradually like you know we

will have tens and hundreds and

thousands of berries for us

so the entire family agreed and got

impressed with

this little girl and they sowed the

seeds of

this berry now looking at this entire

incident the neighbors too got inspired

they too imitated or let me

call me social mirrored the act

they purchased the salted berries from

harry

and then they also sowed the soda seeds

of this berry

now this act was again imitated by the

relatives

from relatives to the entire community

from the entire community to the entire

city

so in in some time

the entire city was filled with greenery

it was bedded with plants and trees of

the salted wild berry

now with this sudden change in the

behavior of the people

people becoming happy and distressful

the productivity at work

also improved and private organizations

corporates they started making more

profits

the urban local body also became rich

by now harry had already became a

national hero

he also making started making profits

and he decides to shell off extra

profits for the poor

and the needy now again

taking inspiration from this little

national hero

individuals and corporates they also

started spending their extra profits

on the well-being of the society

and here the individual

social responsibility and the corporate

social responsibility

it started blossoming

now if you see this one act of

imitation one act of imitation

change this entire scenario of the city

and then this chain of social mirroring

it continued from cities

the neighboring cities started imitating

or maybe social mirroring this act

of sowing the seeds and the rest was

history

as you know now after neighboring cities

the districts also started imitating the

same act

from districts it went on to the states

and

at the end the entire nation was bedded

with greenery and vegetation and this

trees of salted berries

the gold land was not only

then flourished with trees and greenery

it also diminished the

existing challenges of the gold land

that was irresponsible consumption

of the resources

now this one act of imitation

as well as

this little boy harry unaware of the

realities of the world

changed the entire scenario of gold land

you still don’t believe that this small

act of imitation can change

the world let me take you to a real life

story a real life harry

now this story is of lakshmi

a waste speaker and i was

lucky enough to talk to her and share my

thoughts on waste management

and irresponsible consumption and

how people are you know improperly

disposing plastic waste

and with time she also started sharing

her thoughts with me

now after few days lakshmi

bought her first smartphone

and the first thing she did after buying

that smartphone

was she downloaded

whatsapp and she shared

two pictures on whatsapp story

one had a picture

of a small puppy in a gutter

his face was stuck in a plastic

container

a plastic container which was probably

thrown by someone in the gutter

thrown irresponsibly in the gutter

lakshmi wanted to put across this

message to me

she had once seen me sharing updates

and awareness on social media because i

used to share it with her i used to show

it to hers let’s see

how we are spreading awareness on this

and she got so inspired i don’t want to

use

the word imitate but she socially

mirrored

my act and she also started sharing

uh started creating awareness through

social media

the next photo that she uploaded along

with this uh

photo of this puppy was

my name written on on it my name written

in a broken english spelling

lakshmi could not write and read it

english

but she was so firm that she wanted to

put across

this message to me and then she wanted

to show

that see i’m also learning i am also i

also want to share

you know and create awareness within

people like you

and she um she roamed around her busty

she asked many people if they know how

to write priyanka in english

and with a lot of effort she somehow

you know managed to write my spelling as

you can see

on the screen from that day

most of the way speakers her friends and

you know people from her busties

they also started imitating this same

act

they instead of songs and quotes and

uh dances on the whatsapp story they

started putting

uh things like this like awareness and

you know how irresponsible consumption

and irresponsib

irresponsible human behavior is

affecting the life on

on land and in water

now from that day lakshmi

became my inspiration

she became a real life harry for me

friends if you observe

harry as well as lakshmi

they both were they they both came from

a background

where they were unaware about the

realities of the world

harry a little boy from a forest from

humming land

and lakshmi a poor way speaker

yet they became the change makers

looking at lakshmi’s act lot of

organizations

started approaching her they started

helping these waste speakers

and this waste speakers become resilient

now

let me also take you to one more story

an inspiring story

again of a female

now this lady came to mumbai

in around maybe 1980s

where there was a sudden drought in

maharashtra

and

people who were working on fields on

farms

lost their job and in search of job and

in search of livelihood

they most of them came to mumbai now

when she came to mumbai

she was uneducated and she chose waste

speaking as her mode of

earning bread and butter now

what she saw was that her

other waste speakers other fellows they

were taking

loan and credits from this bhangarhwalas

or the aggregators as we call them

and this bangar walas or the aggregators

they were giving loans on on interest

rate

as high as 14 to 15 percent

and ultimately this waste speakers they

were not able to repay this loan

and this vicious cycle it never ended

now this lady what she did was with the

help of

various grass-rooted organizations

she formed a self-help group

now this self-help group it started

giving

loan to these needy waste speakers at

interest rate

as low as two percent

and with uh whatever activities

the self-help group did and the profit

what they got from these activities or

the businesses

they equally distributed among the

members

until date this lady

has got over 200 to 250 self-help groups

under her umbrella

isn’t it interesting and isn’t it

inspiring

that that a common man someone who was

just

unaware about the realities of the world

uneducated

made such a big difference in the

society

this lady was then called at various

international conferences

she became a global face

friends with this let us

refuse to excu to you know say

that the system is not working or the

things around us

are not working if you want to

earn money if you are unemployed

sdgs that is sustainable development

goals has already opened avenues for you

if you want to work for zero hunger if

you want to become a change maker

go meet some local restaurants

talk to them go meet some corporates

talk to them for funds go

meet some needy people and form

self-help groups

and sell two times of roti and dal to

this needy people

now for example if you’re selling

one time meal at rupees five

that becomes 10 rupees for two times

right

and if we consider 500 people who are in

need of

you know food on daily basis which i

think is again a small number

but let’s assume it so 500

into 10 per day you earn 5 000 rupees my

friend

now you deduct you know whatever

expenditures you made

but still just imagine the amount that

you would earn

monthly while making a change in the

society

sustainability is like

an old wine in a new bottle it is deeply

rooted within us

even in our ancient indian literature

rigveda it is mentioned that

poverty should be banished and

human beings should consume responsibly

and that one should not consume

everything by themselves

with this i want to leave you with two

questions

one is have you tasted the salted

berries yet

and are you ready to cope up with

uncertainty

because in this world nothing is

certain the only thing that is certain

is uncertainty thank you