Another person who made a deep impression was the 16-year old Babar Ali, the youngest school master in the world, teaching hundreds of children in his backyard, while spending his days going to school himself. Babar Ali is my Hero.
Gandhian Anupam Mishra's apparent nonchalance of the celebratory achievements of Indian business in the world economy was evident in his eloquent speech. He has devoted his entire life to sustainability and creating bottomup tools, way before 'water harvesting' was a buzz word.
Photographer Ryan Lobo's powerful images from Afghanisthan, Liberia and Delhi made an impact as he described his life's philosophy: "I followed compassion which lead to fulfillment and everything else (fame, name and money) just followed." Dr. Anil Gupta's talk 'Minds on the Margins are not Marginal' is also definitely worth a look when its out, so is Shaffi Mather's who is out to bust corrupt officials through his new entrepreneurial venture. Some of the other talks I enjoyed include Biologist Charles Anderson and his dragonfly-tracking mission, artist A. Balasubramanium and his poetic endevours to 'make dust from nothing' and the legendary performances by Usha Utthup, Sidi Goma and Sivamani.
Meeting the other TEDIndia Fellows was the biggest personal highlight of the conference for me. This enthusiastic and exceptionally talented group included people who had committed their lives to rescuing wildlife, teaching slum children, building race-cars, studying primate behaviour, writing novels and much more. At 18, Ashish Patra was the youngest Fellow, making microbial fuel cells at home (how I wish I had met him when we were doing the ‘Energy Autonomy'project). And Ashish’s biggest worry in the party later was “How am I going to finish my homework?!” I made friends for life, people whom I will continue to learn from, and share with.
I left inspired. With questions for myself that I want to spend time in the coming year answering, and new missions I am ready to embark upon (nodding to the gift card!) Most importantly, with a reassured commitment and focus towards Superflux and what we would like it to be.
But with also a few questions about what the role of a critical perspective is, in this sort of a gathering. Will India’s future mean following a path of progress and development that has clearly proven wrong for the environment? Or will we look for alternatives, explore other possible futures, and have the courage to risk new approaches that are sustainably profitable to its one billion+ people?
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