By YKA Staff:
This year, Deepak Ramola brought some precious messages that he’s collected over his lifetime to CONVERGE 2016. The actor, spoken word poet, lyricist and life-skills educator began his talk today with a short poem he’d written about the fleeting moments of time:
“Woh lamha jo tumne de diya kisiko
Woh na lautega, na tumhare bulane se, na mere chahne se.”
(Those moments that you’ve given to someone else, those will never return, not at your command, nor to answer my prayer)
What followed were ten minutes of sheer inspiration as Ramola elaborated, through a series of anecdotes from his life, what pushes him to be the person that he is. Ramola is the co-founder of Project Fuel, which collects life lessons from the world-over to share with others in the form of interactive messages and sessions. Here are the three most important lessons about human interactions that we can take away from Deepak Ramola’s talk at CONVERGE 2016:
Every Individual That You Meet Has Something Different To Offer To You
Ramola spoke about an art project that he began, wherein he asked his two artist friends to paint under an empty hijab what they thought was under there. The project soon gathered momentum and became a global phenomenon wherein thousands of paintings poured in, each with a different identity under the hijab.
Drawing from this, Ramola asked an important question: Is it right, then, to call all hijabis terrorist, when each one of them has a different tale to tell?
The Trouble With Stereotyping Is, It Is Always Incomplete
Another factor that motivates Ramola to travel everywhere in search of his stories is the value of getting the story straight from the horse’s mouth. He said: “Don’t just read, learn from others’ life lessons.”
Ramola underscored the importance of getting the whole story from the individual, rather than getting incomplete pieces through word-of-mouth. To Ramola, each individual has something unique to offer. As he said, “There are 7.447 billion people in the world, which means 7.447 stories to learn from.”
Never Underestimate What You Can Do For A Person
As a final lesson, Ramola said: “The idea of talking to people is glamourised in this country.” He further spoke about the importance of simply taking some time off to speak to a person, to lose that initial inhibition and listen to what they have to say. The role you play might not be obvious to you, but you might be doing something for the other person without realising it.
Concluding aptly, he said: “Don’t make your own a stranger.”