By Mr. Vipin Prabhakar
- A former student of Swami's Institute
Swami Sends Me to School in Ooty
Swami
always says that unless God wills it, nothing can
happen. It was at the age of seven, when after an
entrance exam and an interview, I was chosen for the 3rd
standard in the Sri Sathya Sai Vidya Vihar, Ootacamund.
My parents had neither seen Swami before nor had even
heard of Him.
It came as a surprise to
my family that though I had taken the examination in
Puttaparthi, I was selected for the Ooty School. My
father was not particularly comfortable about admitting
me to a school in Ooty, but He willed it and both of us
left for Ooty. Once we reached the school, there was no
looking back. My father was very inspired by the school
and above all by the school Principal.
Having joined the Ooty
School in the 3rd standard, it was a sweet journey all
the way. In the year 1990, it was decided to close down
the Ooty School and all of us were transferred to
Parthi. After completing my 10th standard, though I was
interested in the science group, I was picked for the
commerce group. Again there was a debate in the house as
my family was not very keen on my pursuing the commerce
line. But He willed it, and I went on to complete my
Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from Brindavan Campus,
and then an MBA from Parthi.
Entering the Business World
After completing my MBA
degree in 2002, I was going to take my first step into
the competitive world of business. The competition was
fierce and fear of unemployment loomed large, but then I
knew He was always there with me.
There was only one
question that my relatives, neighbors and anyone I knew
asked me. "Were there no placements in your Institute,
or did you not get placed?" My answer was straight and
simple. "Swami gave me world class education right from
K.G. to P.G. without charging even a single penny.
Having gotten the best MBA degree from a top institute,
can I not secure a job myself? It is my conviction that
any student from this Institute will get the job of his
liking within a period of 6 months after completion of
the academic program, and I am sure I will not be an
exception."
I came out of the portals
of the Institute in June 2002 and exactly 6 months later
I landed up as a Purchase Officer in Asia's premier
Aerospace Industry – Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. My
selection was nothing short of a miracle and was all
accomplished by His Divine Will.
A
First-Rate Job, Through His Will
It
is a well-known fact that it is not easy to get a
first-rate job in the public sector. HAL had posted
their advertisement in the month of June in all the
leading newspapers and on the Internet. Like any other
candidate, I put in my application. To my
disappointment, I did not find my name on the short list
for the entrance exam. I did not take this to heart,
although it was disconcerting that having scored 91% in
MFM (Masters in Financial Management), my name was not
included. I tried to think of all the possible reasons
for this.
A week before the exam, I
received my call card through the post. This was nothing
short of a miracle! It was the most pleasant surprise of
my life and my joy knew no bounds. But my preparations
for the exam were nil.
I came to Parthi, took
Bhagavan's blessings and took the exam in Bangalore.
Later I discovered that at least a thousand candidates
had appeared for the test. I was fairly confident of
being called for an interview. Two months went by but
there was no response from HAL. In fact, I even forgot
about this job and continued my part-time lectureship in
a degree college that I had taken up in June.
All of a sudden, in
September, I got a call for the interview. This was
going to be my first interview and I was competing with
more than a hundred candidates for only fifteen posts. I
went for the interview fully prepared in all areas of
Materials, Management and Finance. However, to my utter
surprise, all the members of the interview panel only
asked me questions about Swami. All of them were
impressed with my answers. Swami was in Bangalore then,
and at the end of the interview they asked me for the
darshan timings and about the best route to reach
Brindavan. The rest is history. I was one of the fifteen
candidates selected.
This job was very
important to me because the company my father worked at
was in financial distress and all the employees were
offered retirement under the Voluntary Retirement
Scheme. As it turned out, both my appointment and my
father's retirement came about on the exact same day in
December 2002.
Spreading Swami's
Message
After
a year of training in Bangalore, in January 2004 I was
posted in my home town of Hyderabad. HAL-Hyderabad
consists of around 3000 employees. During my first
month, I was on job rotation in all the departments. In
each of these departments, apart from work, everyone had
questions to ask about Swami. By the end of the month, I
did not know if I had been able to spread Swami's
message adequately, but I knew that many people had sent
in applications for admitting their children to school
in Parthi. Later that year, when I came to Prashanti
Nilayam for Swami's darshan, I met several of my
co-workers who had come to see Him for the first time.
But as every coin has two
sides, there were also a handful of colleagues who
criticized Swami. Whenever I came across these people, I
did not try to convince them that Baba is God because I
knew it would lead to unnecessary arguments. I would
only say, "I am not telling you to believe that He is
God or to start worshipping Him. I am only informing you
about the amount of service He has been doing for
humanity. A free world class hospital for the poor,
premier education from K.G. to P.G., clean drinking
water for the poorest villages, etc. Tell me any other
individual or government agency which has accomplished
anything even close to this. If, at the minimum, we try
to walk in His footsteps, the world would definitely be
a better place to live in."
Slowly, word spread in the
company that a Sai student had joined HAL-Hyderabad. And
now it was our Executive Director himself who called me
for an informal discussion about Swami. The following
week, the Executive Director visited Shivam (the Sai
Center in Hyderabad) and also bought some books on
Bhagavan Baba.
A
Miracle at HAL
We were coming to the end
of the financial year 2004-05, and our production seemed
nowhere close to our target goals. One night, at around
11:00 p.m., when I was asleep, the Executive Director
rang me up. He sounded perturbed. He asked me, "Can't
Swami do something? Why don't you pray?" I replied,
"Swami always says 'Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma
Phaleshu Kadachana' – "Act and don't think about
the fruits." Though I could not convince him with this
reply, I satisfied him by saying that I would pray. This
material target, however, was never in my daily prayers.
But then to the utter surprise of the entire division
and HAL as a whole, all the materials required for
production started pouring in from our suppliers and the
employees worked three shifts and today HAL–Hyderabad
has exceeded its targets by a significant margin.
Truly, anything is
possible when He wills it.
Thank you, Jai Sai Ram!
- Courtesy:
'Fragrance''
-
Heart2Heart Team