After hectic tours and training programs all over the country, it is time to sit and make an overall assessment of our situation. The last few months have been a round of travel, travel, and more travel! We have had a number of training programs, interactions with people from various backgrounds, and most importantly made very serious attempts to consolidate the gains made by the publicity accorded to us by a TRP-hungry visual media and sensation-loving print media. We are under no delusions that we are enjoying any support from them due to sympathy for our cause, but we would like to use them like they would like to do the same to us.

In the past few months, we have had extensive media coverage due to a variety of factors as I assess them. They have lost credibility with the public due to their uninhibited coverage of a number of so-called paranormal phenomena, some of which are obviously laughable! Besides, their advertisements publicised as news and lopsided coverage of many events have caused a serious loss of credibility even among the superstition-loving people of our country. This might have led to their desire to increase their levels of credibility by covering the so-called “other side” which we represent. Again, it may be the novelty of our presentation that might have been a cause. All said and done, whatever the motives may be, we got excellent media coverage during our last series of training programs in UP and Delhi.

It started with a TV channel called India TV, whose Lucknow bureau chief had come for a training program of ours there. She was quite impressed by the presentation and invited me for a shoot at their Lucknow studio. It went on exceedingly well and must have gotten good TRPs. The very next day, I was invited by them to their Delhi studio the next time I made a trip there. From Lucknow, our next training program was at Allahabad. On the third day of the same, we had the very attractive “fire” items like firewalking, dipping hands into “boiling” oil, etc. These were covered by half a dozen TV channels and a good section of the print media. The next day, I was invited to the studio of a channel called Sahara TV for two separate sessions for their two channels an hour apart. Following that, another one called Live India invited me for a live session. As soon as that was over, I was asked whether I would go to Delhi the very next day as their guest. I had to refuse as the training program was to be over the next day and we had to go to Meerut on the way to Baghpat.

On our way to Meerut, I had a call from the same channel asking whether I could come to their studio from Meerut railway station itself. That was the beginning of another round of media coverage. Our Baghpat training program got fantastic coverage from as many as twenty channels and a dozen newspapers with photographs. We had two young women sitting in a pit taking “samadhi.” After they came out, they walked on burning embers for added effect! The publicity was such that two of the channels broadcast it live with OB vans. That was followed by features and studio invitations from many channels. In fact, in the last two months, we have had good media coverage showing that rationalism is also an exciting thing, more than superstition.

In July, I was invited to Delhi for a program called INSPIRE, which was to get the younger generation interested in basic sciences. There were lectures by a number of eminent scientists and also hands-on programs. We had the opportunity to interact with about 120 young, bright minds, and our emphasis was on rational thinking being the root cause for all scientific processes. This was well received by the student participants, and even the volunteers from the college, Miranda House of Delhi University, wanted a presentation and had many interactions. On a free day, I used the opportunity to go to some resettlement colonies and had interactions with the underprivileged sections of society.

Orissa, or Odisha as its newly proposed name is, is a state full of contradictions—rich mineral wealth with starvation deaths, a long history of rational thought with superstitions of all sorts, conversions, communal riots, and many such. There are many organisations there, and even a magazine called Charcha devoted to the propagation of rational thinking is brought out quarterly. There are a number of organisations and activists. Now, we want to consolidate that into a movement, well-organised and having representation from all over the state. Last month, when I paid a visit to Bhubaneswar and Konark, we tried to do that. We are planning to have a state-level meeting and also have training camps for activists in the month of October.

The same process is now taking place in Karnataka too. We have a number of individuals and organisations in many places. But there is a need to consolidate these into a cohesive movement. In this direction, we have taken a number of steps. In March, we conducted a meeting at Bangalore. One was held in the month of June at Dharwad to cover the northwestern part. Now we have plans for meets at Hassan and Kodagu in the month of August, and for the northeastern parts in September. With these, we plan to have a state-level convention followed by an organisation having a statewide presence.

In Uttar Pradesh, various organisations and individuals have expressed interest in building up the movement. We plan to build this up into a statewide movement with representatives from all over and a bank of activists to tackle claims of the paranormal. In Delhi, too, some of our activists have planned to organise some interested persons and start building up a movement. One weakness we have noticed is that the movement is very weak in the metropolitan cities! This is to be corrected, and there is a great need for representation in the political and commercial capitals of the country. Here I mean Delhi and Mumbai, where we are almost non-existent.

We have been putting our maximum energies into getting the younger generation interested in the movement. When I meet them, I do get reminded of my younger days when I was fired with the enthusiasm to change the world, and I find that fire raging even when I am on the wrong side of fifty. We do have youngsters with such enthusiasm, and it is a fond hope that we can build them up into a movement of the younger generation. The website nirmukta.com and the Nirmukta community are a step in this direction, and we do hope that they will take over the task.