All it takes to transform a hopeless teenager is one caring adult
This year marks twenty-five years since I first met Swami Mitrananda ji — Swami M — at a time when I was an aimless, hopeless nineteen-year-old. I was in my second year of a B.Com degree, drifting through life with no clue as to what lay ahead. Unremarkable in every sense of the word — short, stout, drowning in self-doubt — I could barely string together a sentence in English without stammering. My school years had been a long, arduous attempt to conceal my academic failures. I had barely scraped through my exams, perhaps with the exception of grade twelve, and I lived all through the 14 years of formal schooling with the weight of having brought nothing but shame and disappointment to my parents.
It didn’t help that our family endured over a decade of financial hardship. We lost our only home — a modest 700-square-foot two-bedroom apartment — to a bank loan default. My father’s provident fund and the voluntary retirement package he had received after leaving a collapsing company vanished into thin air. Scarcity and fear dictated our every move. Fear and a scarcity mindset dominated our lives so much that when I was in my final year in college, my Dad, out of utter helplessness, planned to get someone to help me secure a job as a ticket collector in the Railways. My mother, as always, shielded me from his well-meaning but stifling plans. But that is a story for another time.
Then, at my lowest, I encountered Swami M. He was a young monk then, speaking at a youth camp organized by Chinmaya Mission’s youth wing, Chinmaya Yuva Kendra (CHYK). I remember sitting there, mesmerized, hanging onto every word. His clarity of thought, his deep sense of purpose — it was unlike anything I had ever encountered. That night, I couldn’t sleep. How could someone be so inspired, so inspiring?
I stopped going to college. Instead, I lingered around Swami M for the next three years, hoping, at the very least, to be a poor imitation of him.
He took me under his wing, just as he did with hundreds of other young people. His methods were unorthodox — teaching through theater, motorbiking, trekking across the Himalayas. But they worked. Bit by bit, two decades of fear and conditioning began to melt away. He saw through my dull-wittedness but still handed me responsibilities, believing that one day, I would bloom.
Those three years formed the foundation of everything significant in my life. I discovered the meditative quality of motorbiking when Swami M took me on a ride from Mumbai to Madras. Today, I have biked across seventeen countries and counting. My first brush with theater, under his guidance, shaped my career as a workshop facilitator and educator. When he entrusted me with teaching moral science classes at Chinmaya Vidyalaya, it planted the first seed of possibility: could I, perhaps, be an educator?
Even my personal life bears his imprint. It was through CHYK that I met Deepa, my wife — a woman whose economic and social circles would have been entirely out of my reach otherwise. My first job, after completing business school, was at Grow Talent, a leadership development firm. That opportunity arose from a chance meeting with Anil Sachdev, a devotee of Swami Chinmayananda, at a Chinmaya Ashram in Dharamshala — a trip Swami M had both sponsored and invited me to join. My journey as an educator, spanning nearly two decades, has been a relentless pursuit of the truth — a lesson relentlessly impressed upon me by Swami M.
But his influence extended beyond me. He and CHYK lifted my entire family out of financial quagmire. When my father was jobless at a crucial juncture in our lives, Swami M found him a position that paid 8,000 rupees a month — a lifeline. My mother, who had never worked for a salary in her life, got a job at the Chinmaya Mission bookstore for 3,000 rupees a month. Anyone who has experienced financial hardships would intuitively know that this meager salary is all that stands between hope and total breakdown of a family.
And CHYK itself operated with quiet generosity. When there were trips I could not afford, no one ever asked me for money. There was an unspoken rule among senior members — those who couldn’t pay would still be included. In 2001, on a trip to Rishikesh, CHYK had arranged a whitewater rafting experience. Unable to pay the 500-rupee fee, I stayed back, unnoticed — or so I thought. Swami M, ever perceptive, quietly covered the cost.
Months later, there was a trip to Mount Kailash. I didn’t even bother pretending I could afford it. Again, without hesitation, Swami M paid my way for he knew the impact of such a trip on my spiritual growth. Years later, when I saved enough from my salary, I repaid the sum, but how does one ever repay an act of selfless love?
CHYK gave me more than I ever deserved. My younger brother, Prasanna, was also fortunate to work under Swami M. One of our family’s biggest blessings and sources of joy is Prasanna’s life partner, Arunima. But I doubt Prasanna would have met Arunima if not for common friends from CHYK. Swami M and CHYK were not just a support system; they were a force multiplier. In just over a decade, they propelled our family up the professional, social, and economic ladder.
Students with grit and intelligence often experience such force multipliers when they make it to institutes of repute like IITs or IIMs. But for academic dunces like me, it was CHYK. It included me into an aspirational cohort and gave me a shot I never earned, and for that, I am eternally grateful.
As I embark on a renewed journey to build world-class K-12 schools, one question will always guide me: Twenty years from now, will my body of work make Swami M proud?
