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