An Insightful Weekend at Hubli

Was at Hubli this week­end. I always feel more com­fort­able stay­ing in an ashram than a hotel. I stayed at the Sid­dha­rood­ha Mut­ta in Hubli. The Mutt is a “hang­out” space in the evenings where the young and old alike are seen in a joy­ous mood, chit chat­ting, run­ning around or med­i­tat­ing.

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. The evening aarthi, bha­jans and araad­hana left me in tears. We talk of busi­ness­es, invest­ments and growth but here is a man who feeds thou­sands of peo­ple dai­ly absolute­ly free of cost. Sad­hgu­ru Sid­dhaa­rood­ha was a great Advai­ta Vedan­tin and a Yogi who trav­elled the length and breadth of India before set­tling in Hubli.

In between work­shops and ses­sions that I han­dle , it was nice to be a par­tic­i­pant and lis­ten­er for a change. It was an insight­ful week­end at the Devel­op­ment Dia­logue 2016 orga­nized by Desh­pande Foun­da­tion in Hubli. The event was packed with inspir­ing talks and pan­el dis­cus­sions for 1.5 days that show­cased the immense work done by social orga­ni­za­tions. The orga­niz­ers were thought­ful enough to pro­vide lot of scope for one-one inter­ac­tions. Devel­op­ment Dia­logue was a con­flu­ence of Non-Prof­it and For-Prof­it orga­ni­za­tions work­ing towards a social cause. It was heart­en­ing to see the par­tic­i­pa­tion of gov­ern­ment offi­cers who are key stake­hold­ers in ensur­ing the suc­cess of social ini­tia­tives. This is the sec­ond time I am hear­ing Prof. Yunus live and every time he has left a last­ing impres­sion. A man of action, Prof. Yunus said ‘I did­n’t come with a big idea. I just respond­ed to the sit­u­a­tion. And step by step it devel­oped’. Mega ini­tia­tives like Akshaya Patra (that pro­vides mid-day meals to more than 1.4 mil­lion chil­dren, show­cased in the pan­el talks) are tes­ti­mo­ni­als to how sim­ple yet con­sis­tent work with integri­ty can help orga­ni­za­tions achieve great scales. Scal­a­bil­i­ty with speed was some­thing that almost all speak­ers empha­sized at the event. Dr. Desh­pande and his team have cre­at­ed an ecosys­tem to nur­ture social action and the fruit is vis­i­ble to through won­der­ful­ly trained young boys and girls who were run­ning around orga­niz­ing the whole event.

Got a chance to vis­it the beau­ti­ful 900 year old Chan­dra­mouleswara Tem­ple in Hubli before the event. It is a small tem­ple locat­ed close to the Unkal Lake. The whole tem­ple is con­struct­ed with inter­lock­ing pieces of archi­tec­ture. It is a small tem­ple but a pri­vate “dar­shan” of Lord Chan­dra­mouleswara and a qui­et med­i­ta­tion was a good start to the excit­ing week­end.

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