Why Idea of Life Stories By Ajit?
Ever since, I had started reading and following people who have been world famous, I had always been questioning myself.
Can only people who have become super successful and world famous inspire people?
Over the course of my life, I have chanced to meet and learn a lot from people who have been extremely inspiring. Many of them were not these super successful people who we often hear and read about, but common lesser known people who too had overcome extreme crisis in life like no less than a phoenix.
I met them all around wherever I ventured, on bus stands, railway stations, while travelling and in the societies and places I have grown up in. They were no less inspiring than the TATA’s, BIRLA’s, AMBANI’s, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs of the world.
I have always been looking around for their stories but I could never find them at any store.
The reason is more than obvious, which is, that who will unnecessarily waste their time in knowing and writing about these lesser known people, not so famous people?
I wanted to showcase to the world the stories of such lesser known but no less inspiring people than the people who we have often been hearing about as inspirational.
Now that I am recognized enough as an author, I am taking this initiative, ‘Life Stories by Ajit’ for a noble cause, to inspire people through real stories of real people.
What inspired me to take up this project that has now turned into an initiative as a noble cause?
Taking up this project at this point in my life, when I am tied up with multiple writing projects, training, public speaking and narration, was not easy. The reason is so noble and inspiring that this initiative is no more an additional project for me, but something that would probably motivate me to finish all of my other projects also on time.
It has become a cause, because the kind of response that I received with one single message that I had broadcasted to my whatsapp contacts was overwhelming.
I posted a message to them mentioning the idea of launching this series and I received about 743 responses in a matter of six hours. I got exhausted thanking each one of them that day. Though only about fifteen odd stories out of them were worthy of falling in line with the objective of #LifeStoriesByAjit Series.
So I have decided that even after the first year’s 10 stories 10 months commitment to the world is through, this series, this initiative would continue so that the objective of this cause, which is to inspire people world over continues.
Why I chose ‘The Vent Machine’ as an exclusive platform to showcase the life stories to the world?
The idea of doing something of this kind has been brewing up inside me, from very long. I had actually been following, reading, and meeting a lot of people only because of this idea in mind.
Then one fine day, the thought of designing this series “Life Stories by Ajit” cropped inside my mind. The next big question after the ideation stage was the presentation and the promotion part of it.
One day, while I was casually browsing through one of the blog post links, that one of my recent acquaintances had sent me across, passed before my eyes with a flash of burning light.
The post was by Ms. Surabhi Pandey and the blog was THE VENT MACHINE.
I had hardly known her personally till that time. It was only at the book launch event of my second book, I think I know you…Karunya, Do I? , held at the New Delhi World Book Fair in January 2018, had I come to know of her.
The first reason of choosing The Vent Machine was the word “VENT” she has used in naming her blog, which was also primarily the reason why I started off on this journey of weaving words as a writer and then as a storyteller, to vent.
Second reason was the way, Ms. Surabhi Pandey, the founder and the curator of this blog, The Vent Machine conducts herself online. Her mannerisms and the thought process which if I can correctly guess was to create a platform, a forum where she and the likes like her can vent out
Third reason was the presentation of her blog. The way she has chosen, the kind of people to write upon on her blog and the thought process behind doing what she is trying to do through her blog, quite naturally aligned with my internal wiring.
How I and THE VENT MACHINE with its founder Ms. Surabhi Pandey connect on empathizing for the world?
I think me and this platform by Ms. Surabhi Pandey together form the perfect collaboration for this initiative, an unheard empathetic partnership, for a cause so big, one which probably even the two of us cannot envisage right now.
We are living in a world today where depression is a common mental disorder with more than 300 million people across all age groups suffering from it.
Close to 800,000 people die due to suicide every year with all the more shocking statistics of suicide being the second leading cause of death in 15-29 year olds. Not only depression, there are so many other physical and mental disorders people get diseased with because of the various medical and emotional reasons in their life.
And the best way to come out of them, the strongest way, is to get inspired by people who have either suffered or are suffering from similar problems and have come out of it much more strongly to lead a mainstream life.
What can people seek from the series?
People in general, can expect as I have repeated in all of my promotional posts, real stories of real people.
I remember someone coming back to me and asking what do you mean by real people. So for me what I mean as ‘real people’ is the common-unknown-not so famous people who have rock solid mettle to not only fight with the extreme problems in life, but come out heroically from them as real heroes.
Real Stories, because these are stories as memoirs, as biographical narration, and includes a warm, heart to heart interaction, a rendezvous in a question-answer format.
What can readers expect?
Readers can expect some REAL STUFF; biographical works of people who would make you wonder and force you to re-think the way you do. You as readers must have read a lot of biographies, mostly of people who were already very famous. That probably would have been the biggest reason of picking those biographies at the first place. Isn’t it?
I am going to present before the world unheard, not so famous people with a story not only worth reading and knowing them but taking inspiration from them to change their own life for good.
Subscribe to The Official Website of Ajit Panicker for all my latest works and updates.
Subscribe to The Vent Machine for the Life Stories by Ajit.
Read The first announcement about ‘The Fervent Collaboration with The Vent Machine’.
Read The Vent Machine welcomes Ajit Panicker on board.
Check out this exclusive tab on Life Stories by Ajit on The Vent machine with the first life story getting published on 25th December 2018, this Christmas.
Nice to see you are blossming flowers all around. Had the opportunity to hear your part of story in ‘MS Talks’ conference. Keep the good work going.