How it came about

Dear Friends,I want to share something that was brought to fruition, 2 years back.

One evening in 2001, a sudden pack up was declared at the location of the first Tamil film I had signed,Pugall(The film never got completed) ...

We were shooting at Mahanantwadi in the Wayanad hills.. Though my village Dharmadam, was a good 5 hours away,I for some reason,chose to drive down to spend the night there before catching the Flight next morning from Calicut..

As I took the right turn from the Highway entering the vaguely familiar street lined with a few shops with tarpaulin awnings...

Dusk had already fallen,very few people were to be seen and still fewer pale yellow street bulbs lit them,as they walked back to their homes..

I was going home,to "Chaillaiyil house" on the Andalur temple road.

The house where my father Govind Vidyarthi was born in 1912.( govindvidyarthi.blogspot.com )

As my red Sumo stopped by our boundary,(no gates or walls in that part of the world) Mukund da,Ranji chi,Viji chi,Balan Aitan... and many more smiling faces enveloped me...

The tiredness of the drive and the disappointment of the aborted debut project disappeared in the sea of love they showered on me,Govind Aita's son.

As Jethima,(I call her so,thanks to my bengali mother) clad in white hugged me,held my hands,and kept looking at me,her eyes watery ...There was Malayalam in the air...Every one was speaking to me in a language that I didn't know,but that evening,just as every time when I am there...I UNDERSTOOD EVERY WORD.

As we sat in the balcony,and occasionally spilled onto the courtyard,which was next to the well, where I had bathed many a times with buckets full of water drawn by Baba,when I visited during summer vacations as a child...

We sat amidst the mango and tamarind trees and the swishing of the coconut palms...
It was a dark night with no moon, lit only with love.
And it was then that a thought struck me.

I WAS A VERY LUCKY BEING...

Even in the environs of the city...
I had experienced this love, affection and warmth every day of my life from my Father...
There was something about him that endeared him to all he came in touch with.His smile,his calm,his purpose in life and his commitment to service...

He could have remained here in Dharmadam all his life like all his brothers, sisters and relatives...Yet by a strange quirk of fate and initiative,he stepped out,spent years travelling...living many lives...and in one of them he married Reba.

A Kathak teacher Reba, had been a student of greats like Achhan Maharaj and Shambhu Maharaj...And to Ma,Baba I was born.

And today I had returned to the village .

I would be in the village again on another momentous occasion,on the night when Baba was being cremated in Mumbai on 29th Aug 2006. The last rites being done by Ma,Baba's life's partner,while their only child was away...but that will be the subject of another sharing.

My father had stepped out of this village in District Cannanore ,Kerala in the 1930s and did what he did with his life....Academics,theology,politics and finally arts...Including accomplished sojourns into allied fields.

He impacted many lives,was loved by many more and yet he remained by far the epitome of the "unknown Indian".Many a well known expert would visit our home in Laxmi Nagar in East Delhi. They would spend days and hours recording what he spoke in answer to their queries...He would readily share his notes,his research papers, anecdotes from over years of working on the field ...be it during the Freedom struggle or in the years he spent documenting the various performing arts in the remotest regions of India while working in the SANGEET NATAK AKADEMY,Delhi..

Then the books would be published by these authors,with Baba's name mentioned in the acknowledgements...in alphabetical order...

I never ever saw Baba ruing this,but It would really hurt me,to see him go unrecognized...

As I was growing up,I did fantasize,that I will become famous one day and know enough important people who would be on some committee and then will 'manage' my father to be given an award for his contributions...
And then, few years back I realized,that this is not something that would reflect choices Baba made in his life.For someone who never applied for Freedom Fighters pension or for land from the govt from the freedom fighters quota,this would be the ultimate humiliation.

I also realized,that there have been millions before Baba there will be millions after,who will go unrecognized..
That's when I thought of creating something that would really befit his memory...

I thought of celebrating the common person,whose extra ordinariness is never feted...I thought of a yearly felicitation,for the unknown,unsung and the unrecognized.

And thus was born,the idea of VIDYARTHI SAMMAN.

It was an untread path,to organize a felicitation,in distant Kerala...

It was accomplished Sep 1st 2007 at Dharmadom, Kerala & the 2nd Vidyarthi Samman was held on Aug 30th 2008 Kolkata.

Each year,we will continue to travel to a different town,city,state or country...You are invited to be with us on this journey of celebrating the unknown Indian !
The 3rd Vidyarthi Samman will be in Delhi...October 2009. Meet you there..

The ethos of Vidyarthi Samman

'Vidyarthi Samman' is an acknowledgement.
In a world where people judge and evaluate others and then decide to honor or not honor them, Vidyarthi Samman chooses to be a platform which will bring into existence acknowledging people for who they are and not for how they have fared.
Vidyarthi Samman is saying "Thank You", "Congratulations", "We are proud of you" to people who don't fit any criteria of any existing awards.
People who are unknown, unsung, unrecognized and even unseen for the better part of their life will be acknowledged.
For long, only people who have "achieved" have fitted the bill to be felicitated. Vidyarthi Samman will acknowledge the unseen grandmother in a theyyam family, the unsung circus artist who has entertained thousands , the unknown beedi worker; who toiled night and day ensuring his kids got education, the unrecognized government school master who has spent his life……teaching !
These are the kind of "ordinary", people next door who will be honored each year.
Our commitment is to bring about a culture of acknowledgement, where people see it as privilege to thank their mother, teacher, employee, the chemmeen vendor, just about anybody they come in touch with.
Govind Vidyarthi lived a life wherein he respected and acknowledged people not based on their status or achievement, but as recognition of who they were as human beings.
In his memory Vidyarthi Samman will honor and acknowledge 'four ordinary people' each year. Knowing fully well that a billion more await to be acknowledged, we intend to inspire others to acknowledge and thank people around them.