Applying for Youth Research Fellowship...

Applying for Youth Research Fellowship

- Anand Vaidya

I came to know of Pukar Youth Fellowship project in April 2010 through one of my friends. I visited their website and was totally impressed by the idea behind this fellowship and the vision & mission of Arjun Appadurai.

The whole night I was thinking about how to form a group and what topic should I take for research or rather whom should I give this opportunity to. I had a very little time in my hand to apply for the fellowship. Then I thought of Vaibhav Padhye, who is my cousin and is physically disabled. That's it. I had decided my group. Yes, I want to give this opportunity to people, who are physically disabled, to learn something new.

That decided, main challenge was to how to form this group. I remembered visiting MBA Foundation some months back for Vaibhav. I called their office in Powai and took an appointment with Mrs Meenakshi Balsubramanian (Founder & Director of MBA Foundation).

I explained my idea of forming this group for pukar research fellowship, Meenakshi ma'm liked the idea very much and lent her support. She gave me contact number of our most energetic team member Ms Manisha Bhurke.

I called up Manisha. As I was talking to her I felt that yes I can do it,may be it was her positive energy...she immediately forwarded me contact details of potential team members.

Now I got a team of 7 members...myself, Vaibhav, Amod (my brother), Manisha, Yogesh, Akhil & Chanda. My family also took responsibility to find some members for my team, that's how I added 2 more members...Yasmin & Rohan. And through one of Vaibhav's friend, I found my 10th member...Ashok.

I was really happy that at least I have formed my team successfully...thanks to Meenakshi ma'm, Manisha & my family members.

We then filled up the form and applied for the fellowship...soon we were called for the interview at the Pukar office in Bandra on 28 May,2010. Myself, Vaibhav, Amod, Manisha, Yasmin, Rohan & Ashok appeared for the interview. We were interviewed by Marinha, Amrapali & Rajendra. We all loved the interview process since we were only asked to talk about ourselves and about mumbai city. I think this was the most enjoyable interview we ever had.

having some snacks at PUKAR Office after
our interview was over...(l-r) Vaibhav,
Rohan, Yasmin, Ashok, Manisha, Anand

Then I was contacted by Marinha on 14 June,2010 that our group has been selected...I didn't know what to say...I was so happy for our team...but yes a day before this I was really nervous...I had questions like whether we will be selected or not ? if not selected what should I tell my team members ? how will I face them since they had put so much trust on me ?

Thanks to Pukar that they gave us this opportunity and also showed confidence in us...

But soon a problem came...my cousin Vaibhav could not continue with us due to some personal problems...he was very enthusiastic but he had to opt out of this project...he gave us his best wishes...and now we were left with one member less...Manisha took the responsibility and added one member...Sharda.

So finally we were a 10 member team ready to learn something new.