Sonal Makarand Kokate from Pune, India, describe herself as a fly on the wall that simply observes. Not too vocal in large social gatherings, she is good with one to one conversation. A linguist with a Bachelor in German, Masters in French, Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism and a Diploma in Screenplay Writing from FTII, Pune, Sonal is quite humble in revealing her credentials to others.
At twenty-six, she may appear fragile at a first glance but having gone through many struggles after her parents death at an early age, Sonal is tenacious and has the strength to pave a path for herself.
She has worked as a door-to-door newspaper campaigner, customer sales associate in men’s dept., instructional designer for an e-learning company, editor and researcher in Ameya Publications and Maharashtra Herald and senior copy editor for the Times of India, Pune.
She was planning to pursue Masters in Developmental Planning and Administration when her education loan fell through. Her friend Saurabh Arora, also a Program Officer, Communications and Fund raising in SEEDS, suggested her to try her hand at volunteering in Leh. Sonal welcomed the idea.
Sonal wants to be a farmer one day, build a house on a farm, raise livestock and grow crops. She felt that it was also an opportunity for her to learn about the building technology that could help her later in building her house on the farm.
This is her first venture in the mountains. “ To be in such a beautiful place and yet there are so many hardships… living here everyday and surviving is such a struggle for people, I have realized that now.”, says Sonal. She feels that if people have to struggle every day to live then they tend to become bitter towards life but surprisingly it is not the case here.
Her volunteering for Aranyavaak as a trekking and a rock-climbing instructor in Pune and for an NGO Aakansha, as a summer program coordinator for the underprivileged kids has been a personal based work, coordinating tasks mainly with the manager. Here she feels that there are different levels of work and coordinating with so many different things is quite difficult. It’s a race against time…a race against weather.
Sonal’s volunteering work in Leh involved making and loading blocks, maintaining site reports, preparing daily progress reports, maintaining stock registers and payment of labour. The most satisfying experience so far for Sonal has been churning blocks in the Rural Building Center, surrounded by mountains and listening to the melodious humming of the labourers while at work.
In 2009, Sonal took a sabbatical from work and even though she has been working for past eight years, sitting at home made her feel worthless. In our society, ‘doing something’ is relative in terms of ‘earning money’. After coming to Leh and meeting the SEEDS team, specially a fellow volunteer Abhishek Kumar Tiwari, SEEDS architect Kamal Chawla and the project manager Rekha Shenoy, she now feels that there are many options which she can pursue and it does not have to be necessarily about money or her career leading somewhere. According to Sonal, ‘Doing something you like and deriving satisfaction from it is something I have learnt from past ten days in Leh’.
One of the people whom she most admires is SEEDS Master Mason Ramesh Bhai, from Gujarat. She feels that ‘to make a difference’ for her generation comes from so many influences but him being a conventional person, married with four kids, it is remarkable that he is doing something which is very different. Sonal also thinks highly of Rekha Shenoy, Project Manager, SEEDS-LEDeG Shelter Project, whom she finds very patient with people and likes the way she includes her team in every possible way.
Sonal likes reading books, writing poetry and loves editing. Her favourite authors are Noam Chomsky, Krishnamurthy, Joseph Campbell, Murakami, Dostoevsky and Milan Kundera. She enjoys books that has strong father figure theme. Harry Potter series is something that she loves reading again and again, Dumbledore being her favourite character.
After the death of her father, her husband Mack has been a constant support in her life. According to her, he is the rational logical one who has given direction to her otherwise vagabond life. Sonal is also proud of the way she has raised her younger brother Amod.
To work as a teacher in a govt. school and learn sign language (for teaching deaf and dumb people) are some of the pursuits she wants to engage in future. Sonal has now left for Pune with a reaffirmation of faith that its all right to chase ones dreams that gives one happiness and satisfaction.
Copyright (text and photo)- SEEDS INDIA/Sarika Gulati
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