THE PASSION PROJECT : PART I | Spurthi Kolipaka
As far as I can retreat to retrieve into depths of my mature mind, there has always been this one obsessive idea that has propelled me through my professional life – “Why work doesn’t feel like work for some people?”. Some people seem to breeze through the weekdays, hardly waiting for the weekend to come and when it does, they simply carry on working, oblivious of the calendar constraints. Monday morning blues is not a relevant thing for them. They get up every day rejuvenated with a sense of excitement for the day ahead and what they are about to achieve. These are of course people who have found their passion in life that is now leading them purposefully in whatever they do. And yet, as we have these real-life examples strutting around, it seems like an almost-alien concept that doing something you love, professionally, is even a remote possibility. It’s just a myth they say, something out of a fantasy film they feel. “Nobody is that happy with their job”. But that is exactly the point. For these people, what the do isn’t a mere job, it is the joy of their existence. I have stumbled through life, trying to find that joy for myself. And while I still may be an amateur, I thought to seek out the experts who may help shed some light to find what we all are looking for. This series encapsulates those people who have not only found their passion but are living it. And I hope their stories will inspire you to live your purpose too.
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“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.”
– Ferdinand Foch
“Hi!”, quipped a voice on the other end of the phone as I sat nervously tapping my pen on the pad, dialing in to a former acquaintance in the middle of a Saturday. Spurthi Kolipaka was someone that I had met for a short second a few years ago but who had remarkably left a deep impression. Her sunny personality was fueled by a fire within that you could see right away, flickering behind her eyes as she talked about her work with a passion and purpose. Back then I remember thinking that this person means business, and even now, I could still hear that silent intensity behind the introductory greet from her. She hadn’t changed, but that fire certainly seemed to have grown. It had in fact spread across the whole state. Spurthi had single-handedly mobilized volunteers, citizens, and the government in her endeavor to establish a Women’s Commission in Telangana. It was unbelievable and unacceptable to her that a body which looks after grievance redressal, policy changes, and even remedial legislative measures is not only without a chairperson but completely unfunctional. And to that end, she rolled up her sleeves and got to work. Spurthi and her team worked tirelessly for months to spread the word, make people aware of the gaping problem, and gain traction for the movement. After nearly three years, the Telangana government finally ceded and appointed a chairperson, a win not only for Spurthi and her team but for every female in the state. It was to this force of feminine movement that I had called that particular afternoon and thus an opportunity for my nervous ticks to make an appearance.
I explained her the reason behind the rendezvous that I was ringing her for. She patiently listened to my rant with the occasional acknowledgement. I finally finished, out of breath, “So that is why I wanted to write more and tell stories about people who have found their passion you know. Because I feel it has become such an alien concept. Nobody believes in chasing what they love anymore.” She paused for a moment and then spoke with consideration, “Your story is actually quite relatable to me. We have had similar experiences.” Turns out, she too was an electrical engineering graduate, the four years culminating to a corporate job in the IT industry. We both had yearnings to do something more than the cubicle and the coding that we were surrounded with and so started volunteered at a non-profit for children at risk. The only difference was that she was on route to become a seasoned social veteran while I still had years of experimental jobs, lacking internships, and tumultuous higher studies before finally circling back to corporate world.
“So how did you understand that this is what you wanted to do,” I asked her eagerly. “I think it was a path which I stumbled upon while actively experimenting. For 24 years I had lived inside a well. Even a restaurant just a few kilometers farther away in the same city would be a whole new world for me. But I was always optimistic and curious. I knew that I didn’t want to do a corporate job. So I decided to get out there, interact with others, understand the diversity around me. But how can I ever find that diversity if I am constantly in the same company. How can I celebrate the diversity if I don’t travel?”. So, she hit the road, grabbed an opportunity to work at an NGO, went to the rural depths of the country, applied for a social work course, and dig her heels into the community causes some more. “I started that journey of understanding my shortcomings and biases. I always thought that I will go out there and do what I feel is best for the community but very quickly I learnt that I was there to support them in the best way I could. In a way I was unlearning. And I have carried that process of unlearning with me ever since.”
Spurthi has left a trail of triumphs as she took on this path. Apart from the Women’s Commission, she has been a part of numerous non-profits. She has travelled miles across the country, working with people from borders of Tamil Nadu to rural Rajasthan to central Delhi within sectors like water, sanitation, girl child advocacy and education. She was one of the first community fundraising fellows in a reputed NGO when starting out and mobilized a base of 300 volunteers to raise over 18 lakh rupees in just one year. She is one of the illustrious alumni of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Her thesis at the institution in Sircilla handlooms was notable and considered by the state government as well. And that is just a sliver of the amazing things she has done. The places that she has travelled probably would take up a whole separate Wikipedia page for itself.
But through all these experiences, she could see something else that was starkly standing out for her, her passion that was consistently tapping on her shoulder. Spurthi realized that she loved being around people and was becoming good at communicating complex things in a simplified fashion to them. She was able to build bridges where chasm of confusion and mistrust had deepened. “So that propelled me to do something that a lot of people questioned, which was to not take a cushy job and be a couch expert, but to travel more and be with the people that I wanted to help. It was not easy, but I knew that what I was doing was much more important than my comfort”, she said. And that to me, is the more difficult part of following something that you are passionate about. How do you balance the practicality and the passion? It is very well to get whisked away by the whimsy of your passion, but when the dusk falls, you still need bed and bread to keep your momentum going. “That was certainly one of the most difficult things that I had to do”, I heard her recalling over the phone. “Coming from a money-conscious, middle-class family, I was always taught to give and never receive. You had to be fiscally responsible. But when I really needed help, the tables turned. Now I was on the receiving end of the charity!”, she chuckled at her past circumstances. A steady support system of her friends came to the rescue and helped her put the ends together. But for Spurthi, that wasn’t the biggest obstacle that she had to overcome to be where she is now. “It is actually not the financial gap that you feel as much as the emotional one. On the days when you know you haven’t been able to live up fully to what your passion is, that is when you are hit the hardest and that is when this support system was even more valuable.” The ups and downs come and go for her, like the tides of the sea that sometime pull you in with enthusiasm or push you out in aghast. But that is how you keep up with your passion. It is important not to look at what you could or couldn’t figure out but how did you get there. Every day is a day to work on your self and your passion. Every day is a day of learning and unlearning.
“There are certainly some dull days but I accept them. I do not live in denial that I chose this path of purpose and everything will be rosy. I accept the failures but never get sidetracked. There is always another way to come back and be more passionate about what you do. And to that end, I do not think that you are born with your passion like you may be with your talent. You explore, you experiment, you fail, and you forge your path. I don’t think I have any talents to speak of. But I will use whatever skills as means to the end of achieving my cause”, she stated with conviction.
But what if we flipped the narrative? What if someone can’t do something that they are passionate about? How would that be? Spurthi took a deep breath and pondered for a moment before answering my upside-down query with contemplation. “My guiding principle has always been how can I help people. My purpose of life is to ensure that no girl or women are ever not able to identity who they are and what they can achieve. If that is taken away from me, I think I will just be in a state of constant boredom. You cannot go to sleep. There is always something unsettling.” For her, that is the perfect way to gauge if you are missing the fire of passion in your life. “Constantly ask yourself. How are we feeling about an activity? Are you feeling truly grateful for the opportunity? Are you starting to feel intolerant? What are your guiding values?”
“But once you find it, it is so much more joyful that you can imagine. It is a feeling of gratitude. You are grateful for this immense opportunity that you have”, she regales with that familiar hint of fire back in her voice. And one of the many brilliant manifestations of that gratitude was her drive to establish a Women’s Commission in Telangana whose benefit many generations to come will reap. “That is what sets apart someone who has a passion, you know. Your passion should not only help you but also help others in some way.”
As we close in on the call, I ask her one last parting question. “What is it that you see yourself doing now, what keeps you going?” She quietly answers, “I don’t know where things will take me now, but I do know that every day I wake up, I want to try to be a better version of myself. I was brought up on binary beliefs. That if you be this, you cannot be that. And I want to change that.” Spurthi told me about an incident that sparked this change in her. She was meeting this great politician, who was in the midst of an election campaign, for an interview. Just a few days before there was this damaging news about him in the papers. The opposition party leader’s driver had slapped him. She had asked him how he had coped with that and he had an amazing perspective on the whole incident. “I don’t hate him for what he did. Imagine the kind of love and loyalty that he might have had for his boss that drove him to take such a step”, he said to her. “I was blown away by how he was able to see beyond right and wrong. The world we live in is like that too, we live in greys. I have always been stuck to black or white. It is obviously my binary belief system coming back to me again but that is I am striving to change, what we have to change in this world. That you can learn and also unlearn. That you can be fearless but also be kind.” I think this is what the story of Spurthi serves as inspiration, much like her name. That you can be this and that too. That you can be passionate about something and live that passion too.
This is first in the series of The Passion Project. To know more about the author and the origination of this series, read here.
