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hey good morning how are you i'm doing good how are you doing today very well thank you so yes we are live on living my promise page yeah and so as everyone all our viewers know that we do this live session every saturday we bring in one of our promises or someone who's prominent in the space of philanthropy or social sector talk to an audience uh i hope today will be a wonderful and fantastic session uh for the audience here uh we have with us mr tv srinivasan he is a retired executive coach so he's a currently he's an executive coach he's a retired corporate professional uh he's also a rotary rotarian or a rotary club member in bangalore and uh he's a community service volunteer tv street uh has uh spent most of his life uh you know working life in japan and other southeast asian countries uh sir would you like to tell us something about yourself hey uh before we go too far sushant i want to make a statement here this is this is the first time i'm doing something as an interview in a long time and especially life so if i'm nervous or if i ramble along i want you to stop me and uh yeah because uh i don't want to waste the time of of people who might have you know uh logged in to hear me speak so that's a qualification qualifier statement so tell me about myself i think as you introduce i um i was born in delhi i i studied in india and i somewhere in when i was probably 35 the company i worked for transferred me out of india to singapore um was supposed to be a three four year assignment ended up being eight or nine years and then from there instead of returning to india the i got posted to japan so i spent about 27 years from 1981 to 2008. uh is you know in asia pacific so singapore hong kong taiwan and tokyo were places where i lived and worked from and then i returned to india in 2008 uh with you know so i retired from dupont but then i didn't retire from from working or so so that's my family is a small family i have a daughter um we have my father-in-law staying with us uh he's 99 this year amazing yeah so uh so viewers who are not aware of your promise let me introduce them in the promise uh living with promise is an initiative for ordinary indians with a net worth of above one core who can come forward to pledge 50 of their wealth for philanthropic causes either in their lifetime or in their bills so far we have 54 indians wonderful indians from all across the country who have uh you know signed up to the living took the living promise pledge uh this is this is a moral commitment this is not an ngo it's a group of community of givers who are giving back to the society for for various causes uh if you are interested please go on to www website check out our promises and the criteria that we have for you to join thank you sir how is life during logged on you know i i feel we are very blessed life first for me or for my for my family uh has has really not um been been destroyed or affected as as much as it has for a lot of other people so you know so he's just fortunate my work goes on because i do a lot of my work on the phone um my uh you know we live in a community where there happens to be a a you know store for groceries and others and that has been taken care of by the association and fortunately you know we've all been safe and staying healthy so knock down has not affected me as much as perfect maybe many many other families yeah yeah so yeah welcome audience i hope already i'll uh start asking questions to mr tv if at any point of time if you have any questions that you want tv streaming to answer please post them in the comment section on the living my promise page so sir you spend most of your life working in one of the most developed and organized countries like singapore and japan why did you come back to india that's easy home is home is home home in india and my permanent address never changes is this somewhere in india so and i think maybe the other other this would be that um since i said when we spent time outside was mostly in asia um you know we were we were always a guest we always saw as stay there as as being a guest and so you didn't want to overstay your welcome okay but but how do you think life is different when compared with living in countries like japan and india well life well life is very different uh and again it depends on what you compare to so i guess moving from tokyo to bangalore uh is like night and day for especially for my wife so and if she still grapples with it see she wishes that someday we could be back in japan i guess but um yeah so it's very different however um you know the circumstance outside is what it is you you are how you react to it how you respond to it is in your control so yeah once we decide that um you know home is here and this is where i'd come to to retire uh you make adjustments and uh you're thankful for the good times and you you know deal with and make make the times that you live today good again yeah so usually life and retirement is you know laid back for a lot of senior citizens but you took the living by promise pledge and you're also actively managing your portfolio and philanthropy tell us a little bit about how you plan for this how did i plan for this well i think there are two questions there right i mean about what is retirement so for me um i guess very early in life when i was 24 and i was in i was in um in california that time for a training program i was left and this gentleman who was my trainer on on friday the second week on friday told me that there's a farewell party this afternoon for me and i'm retiring from the company and i said uh so what are you going to do and he said i just bought a plane i'm going to learn to fly he was 55 years old my father was 60 and i know my father retired at the age of 55 or 58. so it changed my belief at that time when you believe that you know retirement means when you get to 55 and after that you you don't do something uh that was the first instance then later on in um when i was in japan and in taiwan my clients were or my customers their owners and others whom i was i was maybe interacting we're in the 70s or 80s and leading a full active life running a company you know playing golf you know having having good dinners whatever enjoying life so i figured at that time that life doesn't end you know when i retire and it's really a transition it's not a transformation you don't go from working to you know stop working so that was the first thing uh then the second thing was i you know at that time actually i took this i took the pledge it wasn't public at that time it was just within my family or you know maybe some people knew about it which is that i would spend most of my i mean thirty percent of my time in community service thirty percent of my time staying connected with the world so i would work which is where the executive coaching came in and thirty percent of the time for my family you know i have elder sisters i have i have um uncles and fathers who i said i could probably devote some time to help them so sorry it was a neat so that's what for me it's a transition and uh so it was clear to me when i when i was doing it that this is what i wanted to do going forward i also thought that if i live up to my up to the 90s then um you know i've got 25 years of probably good good life ahead of me so i i would it would be terrible if i wasted my time sitting at home and watching television or or you know and of course i was not going to go into the forest and meditate they seemed the right thing to do so how how do you think is it different the transition right now uh is is it far different or is it how is it different no actually it's different in in a bit different it's far different because when you're working and when you you know before it's a full-time job right you're if you're leading a business or managing a business whatever you it's so it's it's uh it's not an eight to five kind of a work it's it's a full-time occupation so here there's a lot more freedom on how how you spend your time where you spend your time um but the big difference for me is uh the satisfaction you get out of doing what you do where you can see the impact of your actions or your work uh versus where you work in a large corporation where sometimes it's really not clear what what is the impact that you you had on the on the on the people that you yeah yeah uh you know you have taken the living with promise pledge uh how are you going about your philanthropic activities good question so how am i going about it um so i think you mentioned so i'm a rotarian so um rotary has 30 i mean for those who may not be aware road tree and lions international rotary international lines and drastically probably the world's largest community service based organizations and rotary teaches you a lot of things so one of the things rotary um teaches you is that you know you involve people through through projects so you know and you bring people with different skills and professions to them to that space uh so i did i do three things right so one is through rotary which is where micrometer first the other is i select ngos based on recommendations or based on my interactions and they may come through rotary or they may come through friends and family that i'm introduced to in views and the third is i do my own you know into in cases where i might donate to an individual cause or an association or a group something um so that's that's how i'm going about it i i you know i don't know if i answered your question sushant but uh that's how i'm going about yeah you know there are several individuals in your age group who have made some modest wealth uh and whose children are well settled how do you think they can engage in philanthropy how can they engage in philanthropy i think the starting points first of all i'm assuming i mean i'm not receiving i i think it's because in my interactions everybody is doing something i mean it's not like people in my you know people like like me middle class or middle are not i was not like they're not doing but what they might be doing is what what one would call mostly donations so it is one i mean kind of in you know it's it's for the short term it's not uh with a long term view of um of transforming society or transforming and into the individual's life so so that's probably what people are doing but how can they get engaged so i think they can get engaged if they if they took this long view okay of what is it that i do to actually impact the lives of of many or the lives of you but impact their lives you know in a way that it transforms so that's i think the first thing then if there is a will to give then i'm sure they'll find ways to do it yeah uh but when i think you know people need more than uh you know just will kind of uh you know figure figure this out can you give them something more practical and how to go about how to go about okay so let me let me put it in the three buckets like i told you so rotary so if you want to give and you're not really sure how to go about it uh in your town or city there's going to be this in your vicinity there will be a rotary club or alliance club or some other charitable organization that's operating and so if you're uncomfortable about you know just giving it and not knowing what's happening with it since those clubs their projects are in in the in the vicinity of the club you will be able to actually donate to a cause and maybe go and see for yourself how it's being used so for example in my club we run a crash uh we do um you know um hot screening camps with in association with an injury and i'll talk about that so uh so you can get involved so that's you so so if you take that route so these are established organizations that are that are devoted to community service so you bring your health to it so maybe here it's it's important to also say something it's not just about money right giving is about everything that you have so you have time and you have talent which is you know your skills and ability and the third one and the third part is money so yes to a great extent philanthropy you know means giving giving your treasure but it also you can be a philanthropist with you if you don't have that much treasure to give you can give your time and you can give your talent to the cost right so that's how i would define giving rather than just the borderline so yes living my promise pledges about you know greater than 50 of your wealth but as we as we know most of our promises are not just giving their wealth they are giving their time and their talent to to the cause right so that's one way to get started if you're if you're if you feel you don't have you know you're not comfortable with partying with your treasure of sharing with your treasure then start sharing time and just start sharing your talent and then it will probably get you comfortable to support support that organizations with your treasure too so that's the rotary way so the ngo way so for me in the initial how did i get started you know it started if i recall correctly i was in japan um was visiting tokyo happened to get together with the indian community he talked about what they do and how you know what he believed could have could be done and i realized what a great work they were doing so it was easy to write a check at that time then all the other ngos came to my this attention through friends they would talk to me say hey listen to me you know when i would ask them what can i do well they would usually suggest something uh so maybe as an example i'll give you how how my giving started and how it increased so uh actually i trust is an organization that does the you know addresses congenital heart disease in children so they so what i wanna so one of my relatives actually mentioned about it saying uh this lady probably shouldn't have you know set up this uh ngo and the cost of one operation for a child that is that has chp is uh 75 000 rupees so you know if you started i started with that paying for one site and then i increased it to paying for maybe two children or three children and then i got talking to talking to one day and she said i you know i want to actually you know expand this into bangalore most of their activities were tamilnadu based so when that happened so i you know and i was a time so i brought the rotary club and i showed a trust together and the forties hospital became a partner so we so the club funded the purchase of an ultra sound machine uh shoulda trust took the responsibility for the doctors and not getting getting connected to the hospital for this hospital at that time and um so today we run these camps where you screen children and then when you identify a child that child is taken forward with the help of fortis hospital to get the surgery done to correct the defect and so the child will now live a normal life so if you take so so that's how the connection to an ngo takes place you know you get connected so that's what happened to me i saw my passion was for education uh initially and then children's health became an adjacent space when you when you deal with children you found that if they you know uh because they were poor or because they were any uh their help was what not was as much a important thing to address so that got me there and now you know i'm expanding to youth engagement or youth uh so that's the end your part and the last part is i think i think these individuals today you know there are you know whether it's uh you know so this would be more in my donation space you know at the moment like right now for covid uh you know there was the community was uh they you know was going to provide food to some somewhere uh small community that is outside our our complex so you you know you just contribute that's more like a one-time contribution or uh you know what one of my i um i get a service i mean i get a driver service uh you know when i need a car when i when i don't want to drive and uh so when this happened uh he's not an ola driver he's just a driver who was you know who you hired by the hour and suddenly he lost his this so you know he didn't ask but i felt that you know he would probably benefit because i knew he had two daughters who were in school and uh so it was you know so anyway so those kinds of things happen you know once you decide you're going to and you have the money to to support people you so in this case with the in the individual case it's not about time or talent it's just treasure in the case of ngo it can it can be just pleasure or it can be treasure time and balance or it can be just measured in time and in the case of the rotary you try to give all three yeah uh you know most people in your age uh you know might have apprehensions about unforeseen medical expenses especially in times like covered right and how did you like practically plan for those contingencies um before coming into philanthropy i mean people would feel a lot of insecurity and you know might not want to part with the treasure that you've been speaking of apprehensions so how did you kind of plan for those conveniences how did you kind of overcome those apprehensions that you had you know it's a good ques interesting question so i when you when you work in a corporation or you work in business you come across the need to have um you know do a scenario planning right so because you cannot so maybe i should say so there's a book that i picked up on one of my trips it's called the art of the long view and basically what this thought says in the art of the long view is you can't predict the future accurately nobody can but if you can say that whatever the future i've prepared for it then you know you're in a good shape and you need to just you know know about you know what you what you would look at so take so this is in terms of scenario planning for my life or for the family right so given the advances in medicine stem cell therapy you know various things um and knowing that you know longevity has been increasing over the years so when i was born probably the longevity for indian male was probably 60 years or something and you know by the time i was 40 or something that that number had moved up by probably another five or ten years and i'm sure now it's even higher uh so uh i one of the scenarios is i might live to 120. so when i retire am i just going to think about it as 10 years more to go or do i think about it as hey almost another lifetime you know i have in front of me the other scenario is hey you you know you um it's the worst kicks right the case is you know you uh you hear you get hit by a car or you you're in a plane and the plane goes down right so in that case you know you you don't know when it is but you could happen anytime right so that's not a long term so somewhere in the middle is the third one so i i figured that you know given my help in our family's health and given maybe the genes that uh we'll probably live to the 90s so i need to think about 25 years when i retired number one number two in from my business this i learned that there are risks in every scenario and what it is about how do you negate those risks how do you how do you win but that happens how do you manage so if you're given it part you know so if you talk about uh medical emergency which is probably one of the biggest items that people worry about about how you know what it will cost for medical so if you're in india you know that your medical expenses are not the same as if you are in the u.s so if i was in japan or u.s and i was retiring there you would need a lot more money to cater for your medical but you have insurance so you can't take insurance and you know yes it's if it happens you know it's there to there too and if it happens when you know much later in life so there my daughter knows and while i have not put together a living will but uh really uh she knows that uh you know that it will be a case of what is it called drdrd is it or something do a dn dnr do not resuscitate so yes things could go wrong but uh you know so that's i'm not worried about it at this point okay but so that's one part the other part is that maybe this came to me as i work on uh work on my coaching side of the book which is and i think the modern these people talk about mindset right it's what you believe so if you believe that you know you don't have enough or you know you you will run out of money then you behave a certain mission right you worry about it all the time probably and you try to save it now be careful uh but if you believe that there's 20 and that it's really not you know money that i think as steve jobs said you spent all this time making lots of money and then finally that hospital bed when he realized this is the most expensive night all that money does not do you anything yeah so i think by this to that is yes it could happen if it happens and also be it i've i'm prepared and if it doesn't happen great because then the path that i've chosen to start with my or share with my fortune is you're good also good yeah yeah uh so you know like most people would do why not leave behind wealth for your children or you know simply secure future generations of your you know lineage why give back to society yeah so you know i think that it comes first of all i have a small family but yeah you can talk about you know generations for their plan for the next next several generations but you know so it's not in my control to plan plan for them you know they will make their own plans uh and secondly it's not like they'll have nothing but it's like you don't need more than what you need but maybe here in my particular case i'm very fortunate my daughter when she was 12 i think she told suzata when she took her out shopping and bought her a very nice dress uh she said i'm not don't do this i don't i don't think i will i will lead the kind of life where i will need such expensive clothes and for that you know she graduated from college and she's she her life has been in social development and so she in fact is now helping me with making sure that there is that we can increase the impact of of our of the family is giving and there's a very close close ally so whether i give it to her i know it'll again go into the same this she will spend it on on on charity or on philanthropy she's not going to go and buy herself a car or you know something else so yeah i think one can so i think of course if you listen to gates and other people you want you want to give your children the chance to for them to be successful and to and to get the pleasure out of you know earning their own own money or whatever is the benchmark they set for themselves yeah yeah uh so you have personally gone through some organizations you work with some organizations and found them and supported them but there is this great misconception or there is this perception in the society that you know that money might be misused by ngos or one a donor might get cheated how do you know that your money is giving the desired impact you wish to see and it is going for the causes how do you kind of plan through this or how do you know this yeah so first of all it's not a black and white situation right so it's not like um all ngos or wherever you put your money is going to be used exactly the way you you you thought they were going to use it or you wanted them to use it on the other hand it's not like all of them are you're not going to misuse it or not use it so i think first of all so if you are in under maybe that's why i'll come back to if you have a will to give you know this should not be a barrier you will identify you can identify ngos and like in your financial this they tell you about diversify so if you're concerned about it go and you know pick 10 ngos in this in the same space rather than give it all to one in you 9 out of 10 will probably do a good job of using that one one out of ten might not but but you know rather than second guess or think that this could happen and they have to worry about it if you know that that money will still be spent uh for for for somebody's benefit uh versus you know um for nobody's benefit and maybe you know this reminds me of what he refunded prestige constructions in bangalore you know was also a rotarian and he was being felicitated for giving quarter million dollars to rotary international and in his speech uh he answered it this way he said listen you you come into this world with nothing when you leave this world you're wrapped in one piece of you can't take any of it away with you yeah so so it should you know so this thing about but ngos is the is a is a channel right yeah why you why you do it is because you believe that you know you can you know you you've got you want to share your fortune or your good fortune with a lot more people than just your family right the family can afford to share so if you have that you know uh so that's the starting point that's the why and what you do is you know like whether it's your time or whether it's your money or whether it's your talent you and that's that's the what part of it you know what you would give and in my case it was time allocation the starting point was time allocation i said 30 percent of my time will go in staying connected with business and world which is where my executive coaching comes in 30 of my time is for my family and thirty percent of it is for community service then how do you do it i got connected with rotary i identify the ngos through friends and family and of course there's plenty of males and others that come to you around so that's that's why why this of take one out yeah but but you know you have you had access to networks people who could give you a reference right uh how do you suggest someone who doesn't have that luxury of you know somebody giving a referral of a organization what do you suggest how do they kind of find okay so first of all it's if uh yes i had the network because i trusted them you know in terms of making a recommendation that's all but if you take an you know portal as a portal or an organization like you india right you have this week that they run every year right and and then if you go to the group india this you choose a cause they have already done the work of whether you call it due diligence or whatever about you know ngos right so that is and as i mentioned if people know that rotary and lions club and you know maybe even um you know akshay patra you know you know they built up a reputation of doing good so there is a there is an organization nearby so if you really want to go you know just give it something but so the difference for me is between giving it to akshay patra and some other organization in the same space is i don't know how what why the money really does plenty of money they do a great job but if there's a smaller organization that's actually taking care of smaller schools in rural areas where akshay patra is not able to go with their big big trucks that to me is something that i can i can probably have a bigger impact on my my contribution there so first of all so my this is this is really not a problem you know all of us have resources but much more than what we think we we have and you just have to open that up whether it's your brothers and sisters whose network you can get into or whether it's your classmates from school you know so if you went to college whether your class classmates from college i mean we all have actually a much bigger network that we can influence than uh probably we think yeah yeah uh so viewers who are watching this live session if you have any questions for tv streaming please section on this live video uh section on the living my promise page uh sir you know you're saying there are a lot of networks that we can tap into people can do more um do you see rotarians becoming living by promise pledges because you know always all rotarians are giving some amount of you know percent of their income how do you see them you know becoming potential promises for living with promise pledge again rotarians are human are professionals like other persons so yes they happen to be members of rotary clubs for their their rotarians many of them are probably doing uh you know as i know many of them are doing because um so take this completely different this if if i run a foundation right if i actually set up an ngo like we had we had the guptas right goons a couple of sessions ago we had guptas talk about their life is that foundation so it's not fifty percent sixty percent what it's it's entire wealth going there so rotarian there are many rotarians who have their own ngos and rotarians as i said become rotarians or they are very active because that is what rotary clubs are there for it's about community service so whether they will you know they will make a pledge uh is i think an individual decision but i think that many rotarians are probably are doing it already you know they start without a pledge okay okay one of the things that that we always observe is you know most indians prefer donating to places of worship uh in the hope that it will reach their beneficiaries why is it difficult to donate to other ngos when compared to religious trust is it difficult to do i guess okay so you are making a assumption here that you know uh that religious trust for or temp or a religious organization are able to raise funds uh better than an ngo um probably true but what is it i mean yeah so so again i can only talk for myself right so um and so so yes you know my family is not uh you know we do believe in a supreme power of god and yes we have a you know 80 at home so we do we do you know pray but um so i'll tell you what happened in my case so when i when i was when my father died i was outside the country and uh so if you are in japan there is no way i'm there that's fine there is there is not an easy way to actually perform the necessary rituals right my mother said why don't you just feed some poor so whether you gave money to feed the poor or you went and fed the poor so it was more about so that so maybe my mother i should give credit to my mother she you know you know it is not like you know you need to go and give it to god because then god will take care of you you do what is right and you know to help so that's why that's what i uh i believe but surely on the other hand i'll say so i have given to her to her cause which is a religious trust where i know that they're running schools and they're running you know hospitals and stuff so the money i'm giving is not for you know for a puja for for my family's you know where a good help or or whatever but it's really for their for the good work they are doing in you know around the community so i think it should you know some some people yes would would rather rather spend money on a on a hoven or a or a big whatever and and but that's how they feel good if they feel you know that's ultimately what everybody wants right you want to feel good so if they feel good by giving their i shouldn't i don't have anything to say tell them you should do that uh but hopefully they will also find that giving to an ngo which is which is as i said doing some good work whether it's education whether it is with a safety whether it is environment uh health i think hopefully they will they will also find satisfaction out of giving giving so it will be for the ngo to sell sell its uh unique proposition to attract those funds but but i wanted to understand from you you know uh what is the satisfaction that you cannot fill up out of philanthropy doing your activities uh how do i or do you see you know i think i think again you know you you um the satisfaction out of actually seeing a smile on somebody's face is greater than the satisfaction you get out of your own smile okay so so and that's i mean you have to experience it the satisfaction you get out of seeing a child especially in my case so for example we you know there's a bridge school that that was one of the first first ngos that my club got started in and so the blitz school is you know children in slums who are not able to go to the local school uh and and who've been out of school for some some time to catch up uh so you see a child there you know who's six or seven or eight or something and then now today i go to the fun to their annual function and i see this 15 year old or six 17 year old now actually has got into christ college in bangalore and is on stage uh you know and you can see that difference in that in in that child's you know life maybe or whatever and that gives you much greater satisfaction than probably as i said a one-time donation to something so for me for me i think i i don't know don't ask me why but it's uh it's just one of those things like i get a lot more kick out of out of helping a cause then i get out of going for dinner and spending money on myself yeah i just wanted to ask you you know does philanthropy solve problems do you think philanthropy solves any problems out there and what is the kind of impact that you see that we can achieve through philanthropy you know a tough question for me to answer but uh so as i said if you and this is where again my daughter comes in to help me here she does monitoring and evaluation and it is all about impact assessment and as you know impact or outcomes are take much longer to measure so you know you have to go with some kind of belief that by doing this it will have the desired outcome uh you'll get some some outcomes that you don't desire but uh so i think if you say the challenge receivability uh the answer is yes definitely yes because in especially in a country like india where uh you know we still abort 60 percent poor uh 40 percent may be you know not in that category anymore but there's plenty of people plenty of work you can do to to impact lives of the for likes of the needy so can you tell us about the different causes that you've been supporting and and what is the impact that you've seen out of that oh okay because i told you my initial this was education yeah right so the impact there is one of so and again so there are several educational institutions that i support it's not one uh but i've seen one increase their impact on on on thousands of you know two three thousand kids today versus um you know whether you know so they started ten years ago right they started with islam of hundreds hundred kids they said it i think was it hundred kids they have probably hundred uh so now they they they impact the education of two three thousand children uh another one um wouldn't go to school their children would go to school right there so at a different approach but yeah so the and these are this is where i said those kids have gone through school so they're from all to school they got into school because the ngo supported them through transitioning to a main school and from the main school some of them and all of them who who passed out of the 10th class went on to continue study and these were girl children also and also from communities where you know the parents they struggled with it some parents took the girls out of school saying the girls shouldn't be educated because they will you know then be a problem for for their husbands so you know so that but that's so that's what the other other other education is this which also started with somewhat similar decided to build a school so they you know instead of the bridge school it started with starting kids in first four grades then sixth grade and then up to high you know up to the tenth class today right so and again so now three four hundred so i think the number of children are for 50 or something and these 450 children will go through and and get out of school and they'll be at a point where they can you know go for skills training or whatever and and can can have a life versus you know otherwise you know and so many of these children are children of today's housemates or drivers or whatever but their children hopefully will will be able to go go to a different level rather than you know go and join work in the same house that their mothers looked so i've seen that impact in that side in the case of health as i told you if you take the care work that you know aishwarya does with congenital heart disease this you know this child is weak you know is looking sick and then on the mother of course my parents are worried and after the surgery this child is running around is now back in you know it's not only in school is active and you know that this child is going to have a normal life whatever it whatever the life is that we don't know but it is definitely will live longer than would have lived if if that surgery hasn't taken the correction hadn't taken place so so i can see the impact so if you ask me have i seen it the answer is very much so yes so again so i saw other projects that we have in rotary also you can see the impact that you're having on on so so one of our audience is asking you a question how has rotary changed you as a person um so i think yeah so rotary has made has enabled me to get a lot more clarity about about giving uh it has opened enough it so it has helped me actually as i said have have more impact for example so take this uh so the chd that i'm very very close to so while i while i while while the require well what citra wanted was to you know run this program in bangalore and karnataka to do the scanning how is the scanning taking place my rotary club members are the ones who run these camps i don't run the cap right so if i did have rotary and that network to support all that i could have done is said okay here is the money to buy a machine and you know find i will talk to some people but i couldn't organize the cam run the camp and you know set ourselves a goal so we set a goal for in three years we will screen at least 3 000 children and we expect that that would mean at least um you know 10 to 15 children would would um would be identified as needing needing corrective surgery and then you know they would give before so that really has given me structure rotary you know through the rotaries of how they deal with grants it's given me processes to adopt rotary is keeping me young and i say that because my rotary club i am one of the few people who is probably about 60 years of age in the club uh most of my club are people in their 40s or 30s or 50s uh so it keeps me young so that's the other thing rotary has given me uh what else is i mean i don't i guess it's a long list and i didn't think about it but uh yeah rotary is giving me friends so when i came back to bangalore after 27 years uh it's these friends who've helped me so you know it's we call it fellowship through service so when i got hurt it was a rotarian who took me at ten o'clock at night to the to the manipal hospital and then again at six in the morning next day so so roughly has given me you know friends that i can count on uh friends that i and that i enjoy working with and uh projects that uh impact many many more people yeah i just wanted to ask you i mean just know a comment uh this is perception that you know the government is subsidizing schools there are government schools uh you know there is subsidy that the government is providing so people are not very clear as to what is the role of non-profits in this you know where do philanthropy and non-profits fit in in a society what what kind of role are they playing can you explain a bit in your experience what sort of gaps are they feeling you know i i guess what i'm going to lean on is uh segments segments of society or segments so yes the government is doing but it's a broad brush and you know it's not the most efficient system uh because of size or because of other factors right uh so ngos have a you know ngos are run by by people who are passionate for a cause and and they put their full energy and and uh and they said you can see the impact of it you know you're closer to closer to seeing the things so i know this is in fact my uh when i say education is a cause and that's what i do so fight my daughter when i would be talking about increasing our giving so when you go from from 10 12 20 to now this 50 or more so her this was the same that was in certain certain areas like um um like education there are plenty of government projects and other things happening so you don't need to you know go in there but there are you know so they said slum children to in a in a in bangalore who comes from uri bihar whatever various parts of of northeast uh and can't get into the local local system local government schools i don't think the government addresses that they have a program saying out of school children should be back in school but then they don't they don't have the necessary facilities for for such children to get back in into school yeah so yeah i'm just asking what role do philanthropists play my my rotary friend will tell me force multiplier so philanthropy i guess i have four you know they can uh they can you know they can encourage others and they can bring more people to that to to to the cause right yeah yeah so uh i have one last question for you uh why did you take the living promise pledge what motivated you and what do you have to say to people who might be contemplating something like this so first question why did i take the pledge um and i told you i actually you know maybe i didn't i know nothing i took the pledge on living my promise because now it's public okay earlier it was just a you know pledges i said within the family you know you didn't talk about it man if you now ask me why did i do it um i did it because i thought i i actually could could then get more people uh that are my friends or family uh to to get interested in in in giving more so they said i know all of them give so it's not like you know it's going from zero but to give more uh the third third reason maybe why i did when i i know that if you have a goal and if you announce it then you're likely to achieve that goal so if i didn't announce it then you know so the nice thing about giving my pledge is it's a goal it says listen in your lifetime or in your will so that even addresses that other question that you had about you know people are concerned about what kind of medical expenses they might incur but the thing is it's not saying listen you've got to do it right now and give away 50 of your money it's will be good if you did that because you can have a significant impact however if you feel uncomfortable doing that give 30 40 whatever you can give now and the balance can be in your way right so i think uh so why did i take the pledge i took it because i i thought it was time to kind of uh let people know and hopefully it will therefore accelerate uh some some people to motivate some people to step up to the plate uh what was your second question why and then yeah that's all that was my question why did you do that yeah and hopefully now now that you mentioned that you hope to inspire a lot of this to start giving or giving more or uh you know ideally on from my end you know maybe become living my promise uh pledges themselves uh promises themselves so yeah thank you it was a fantastic session that we had with you it's it's very insightful a lot of wisdom i i hope we you know people enjoy this session uh so thank you once again uh uh tv sir uh for coming and taking the time on saturday and doing the session for us thank you thank you very much yeah so viewers are watching uh you know we do this live sessions every saturday next saturday we have another uh promises will be coming and talking about it uh please do check out www.livingmypromise.org website uh for more information thank you once again have a nice day thanks thanks bye you