Anti Reservation Rally In Hyderabad - My Experiences

Today we conducted anti reservation rally in Hyderabad. Rally was successful by any means. Complete media coverage and 100s of IT professionals and students. It was heartening to see such response. When I reached in the morning 9.30 not many people were around. I was little nervous. But then slowly slowly people started coming. Many came by auto many came walking many came in cars. By 10.45 when we started rally we were group of around 500 people. It was astonishing. What a site it was. I am really proud of those who came. Not only because they supported our cause but more importantly as I said they had what is needed to get up and get counted. They came they got counted and they did what all was needed. It was a very peaceful but very energetic very youthful rally. People were roaring. There were few chaotic moments but all in all it was very very pleasing to see so many people came to oppose what they believed was a wrong move by the government. Most of them had no self interest. They just came to oppose it because they felt it wasn't the right step taken by the government of India. It was roughly 3kms rally. During rally it was very pleasing to see water pouches getting distributed, water bottles getting distributed. And no one was counting how much they spent on that. People were helping to make gathering feel comfortable in scorching heat. It was 40C but it was no match wit the heat in the brain of the people. People continuously shouted slogans almost thru entire walk. It was very democratic rally in a sense but also little chaotic. People were breaking cordons and walking in front of front banner. Well, that was bound to happen as I was just an initiator and organizer of rally not the leader of the rally. They didn’t come because of me, but they were there for a cause they believed in. Though I could have assumed leadership in a sense but I never felt the need. I was more than happy to see people’s anger and energy getting tangible form. One very interesting part is that people didn’t let this rally hijacked by any NGO or any institute. Well even I wouldn’t have let that happen in any case but as I was observing few people were interested in giving speech. One guy was from Bharat Uday NGO and he was planning to contest election in 2009. What a way to get a platform. But he didn’t succeed that’s another case. One mistake I made was that I should have read out the memorandum before the gathering and asked them to refrain from giving statements beyond these lines. So that’s the learning for me. But I’m glad that it truly remained general public rally. When I look one week back from this moment it looks amazing that one thought of doing something about my anger towards current reservation proposal of the government and getting this rally done looks very satisfactory. It was two phased effort. 1st I wrote 1 blog and sent it to my friends. It was like litmus test. I got many positive replies and suddenly I made statement that I’m organizing rally. I was little reluctant. I wasn’t sure of the outcome. So I just discussed my idea with Parikshit and he gave me tremendous confidence of gathering people. He said we will gather people don’t worry; you go ahead and plan it. It really boosted my confidence. Then I talked to Amit (I came to know through a guy in Bangalore who organized couple of rallies) over phone he wanted to do something but he sounded little reluctant as me. I thought lets try it at the max it will be one fiasco. So, I drafted one mail saying ‘Walk for a cause’ and sent it to Parikshit, Amit and Puravbhai on 17th may 2.40am in the night. By 17th afternoon news was spread like wild fire. People were contacting from every walk of life. I was pleased and also got confidence that many people are feeling the same way as I do. And there was no looking back. In this journey I met many wonderful human beings. They took responsibility on their own. They not only got up and got counted but actively canvassed and tried to find people who would get up and get counted. Team of Saurabh, Amit, Naveen and Gaurav was amazing. They were very energetic, lively, fun loving and frank group of people. I observed they had very good bonding also. Then I met Abhijit. He was also very open hearted, warm person willing to do something. They started parallel work and started working on their own. In fact more than me. Then I met group of students Yashwant, Karthikeyan and two of his friends. They were little pessimist in the first meeting but I found them very hard working next day onwards. Their batteries were fully charged and charged up further.