Starting a company is a dream that many have, but not all get to making it into reality with their heart and soul. The journey of Human Library Cafe wasn’t easy and neither was the journey a cakewalk, but if it was one certain thing through and through, it was rewarding! We have immense gratitude in our hearts for all our family members of HLC. The curtain rose and set many a times, but the larger play that we were a part of, played on! It all started with a very palpable and clear vision, and I questioned myself every moment to chisel the exact core values and ambitions that would drive the society as well as my company.
When I was a child basically a teenager I was more focused to help people, young children ,slum people and I realized that they lack in basic capacities and spaces where they can be motivated to go for studies and therefore I started YOUNG ASSOCIATION ,there were lot of challenges forming this and first one was to make a team of same welfare mindset, then motivating the parents of the children ,that time we were also not getting any government fund nor any financial support, the children were not having any idea how and what to study ,student of class 5 were not even knowing the alphabets properly, we motivated them for studies and extra-curricular activities. As a teenager I was having lot of obstacles in my life, but overcome all with a sweet smile because I was always having a mindset to prove myself better from others and I realized whenever you want to do something great in your life because a lot of people will be snatching you from back, will be demotivating, or would disrupt. I remember when we started going to government schools, they were not allowing us to teach because they understood that we were aware that nothing is done from their end because of all these reasons they were disliking us. This was a situation of balancing the two different boats at the same time, which means a situation where we need to make the venture by earning profit and bilaterally do the social cause and we assured that students don’t pay for the sessions, our motto was that revenue should come from the management of the schools and participants i.e, students should not pay a single peny. Overcoming all these hindrances I managed with my team.
It was an ambiguous situation for me when I did my intermediate as I was preparing for IIT and was having a goal to become an engineer, but was very clear if I clear IIT then only I will go for that otherwise wont. Unfortunately, I couldn’t crack, was totally a vague situation, by luckily, I choose something in which I was very good since my school times. I was a good orator, was having a great interest in it.I choose a course of Journalism thinking I would get an opportunity to speak in TV, radios etc. I pursued it from DU. Slowly and gradually I realized when you join any industry you will not get the chance to directly become the supreme same, I was not getting chance to do the anchoring but at the same time I was a part of Young Association and that influenced me more to work with children, so my whole picture was to help them.
Here comes the next stair of my life, when I shifted Varanasi for my masters. My whole NGO work was in Delhi and I shifted to Varanasi I got some couple of time to think upon myself, What actually I am doing????Who am I ??????What I want to do? And that was the time I focused on myself ,I started writing poetries, doing stage shows, by time passes I started interviewing people and fortunately got golden opportunities to interview lot of eminent personalities like CNR RAO, the Bharat Ratna Awardee, Javed Akhtar, Kailash Kher, Pandit Birju Maharaj, Pandit Hariprasad Chourasia, hundred big personalities from Padma Shri to Padma Vibhushan to Bharat Ratna and that became the changing face of my life. Interaction with them, actually made me believe in myself and my idea of Human Library Cafe thinking if my life and perception has been changed after interacting with people obviously it will also change the mindset of those people who are vague with their perspective and career HLC is a sequestered where books have the power to speak, motivate, make you feel relaxed, and even have a galla time. A place where we can converge personalities, where we can talk, sing, learn or dance. It is a cafe were a cup of coffee is offered with a bowl of crispy moments. A place for the people who are not vague about their future goals. HLC was served over 100000 children as of now. We established our first cafe in 2021 in Varanasi where we had human books and were able to compile several arena like, education, acting, dramatics, sports. HLC has been awardee with BEST SOCIAL IMPACT VENTURE under BOMBAY STOCK EXCHANGE,I personally have been awarded by Rabindranath Tagaore for Rural Development work which I did in Bihar under Young Association. HLC have been featured in EDU Times, Daily Hunts.
I live on the principle that how you respond to your team and things, make a great difference. I believe in meeting my mates time and back and pushing text to give the expression that they are valued, trusted, and always attended above everything. I always believe in thinking out of the box, same do my team mates. The key knot I tied is ‘come what may ,we don’t have to leave any stone unturned’, society is our first shelter , if that will not be filthy ,our homes to won’t. It should always be ‘WE’ not every time ‘I’ Adding fuel to the fire for the budding entreprenuers make Consistency ,perserverance and innovations your major pillars and just follow 3H’s in your life i.e, Hardwork, Humanity, Honesty and reach the highest peak of success when you think of everyone ,almighty thinks silently about you and that is more fruitful.
