Achievement and Service: The Twin Pillars of our Indian-American Heritage

Below is the keynote Address at North-South Foundation Awards Ceremony at Northwestern University.

Eboo Patel is the Founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core (www.ifyc.org), a Chicago-based international nonprofit organization that brings young people from different faith communities together to build understanding and cooperation. He has a doctorate from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. He is a frequent contributor to the OpEd pages of the Sunday Chicago Tribune and has given talks at Harvard, Princeton and several other prestigious universities.

One of my favorite stories is about a little girl walking along a long expanse of beach littered with thousands of starfish. The starfish had been washed up by the sea, and they were drying out and dying in the sun and wind. The little girl would walk along, pick up a starfish here and there, and throw it back into the sea, saving its life. An old man saw this and walked up to the little girl and said, "Little girl, what are you doing? You can't possibly save all these starfish, so what do your actions matter?" The girl looked at him, picked up a starfish and tossed it back into the sea. She said, "It mattered to that one." That little girl is asking all of us a question: "How can I help others? What is my talent, my ability, my power to make the lives of other people better?"

For those of us who are Indian-Americans, that is a particularly relevant question. We have both the waters of the holy Ganges and the mighty Mississippi running in our souls, we are part of two great civilizations that call upon us to achieve greatness and serve others.

I grew up as an Indian in this country. I know the challenges of eating puri shak and ghosh palau at home, and pizza and nachos at school. Of feeling like I had to hide my culture from the kids I played basketball with. When I was younger, I felt like the Indian in me and the American in me were at odds with each other. But as I grew older, I recognized that there was a powerful bridge between India and America. That is the bridge of achievement and service.

This is program about academic achievement for young Indian Americans. I commend the leaders of the North South Foundation, and all the parents and participants here, for being involved in such an important endeavor. But I also want to say that our heritage as Indian-Americans tells us that achievement is not an end in itself. Achievement is a crucial step towards serving others. In his time, Mahatma Gandhi was one of the few Indians with a law degree from London. And what did he do with that monumental achievement? He tried to take care of the poorest of the poor, the ones that others spat upon. He trained his energies on freeing a nation. Instead of using his achievement only for his own profit, he lived simply and focused on serving others.

Martin Luther King, the great American hero, said in one of his later speeches:
"If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don't want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize -- that isn't important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards -- that's not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity."

I remember my parents telling me that it was my responsibility as an Indian, a Muslim and an American to do my best and to serve others. When school became very challenging and the homework piled up, the one extracurricular activity my parents would not let me drop was my service activities. I grew up being a volunteer, through both my religious community and the YMCA. I grew up learning that helping others was part of the fabric of life.
And my parents set the example. I watched them helping others all the time. My father was a counselor and would help all kinds of people with their problems. My mother taught accounting and she was always giving extra help to her students, whether they were Muslims from Palestine, Jews from Russia, Hindus from Tamil Nadu or anywhere else. My parents always made it clear to me that they were proud of my achievements. They feel blessed that I won a Rhodes scholarship, earned a doctorate at Oxford and have been asked to speak at universities like Harvard and Princeton. But they have always emphasized that they were most proud when I was helping others.

My way of helping others is different than my parents. I set up a nonprofit organization called the Interfaith Youth Core. The purpose of the Interfaith Youth Core is to emphasize that all the worlds great religions teach us to serve others. The Interfaith Youth Core brings young people from temples, mosques, churches and gurudwaras together to serve others. We are trying to live up to the example of Mahatma Gandhi and Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Muslim and Hindu, working together to help others and free India. We are trying to be like Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Joshua Heschel, Christian and Jew, marching together in Selma during the Civil Rights Movement.

I want to invite all of you to learn more about my organization. You can do this by typing "Interfaith Youth Core" into your search engine, or going to www.ifyc.org. Perhaps the next Gandhi or King or Ghaffar Khan or Dorothy Day sits in this room.

I want to close by emphasizing the importance of using your achievement to serve others. Many times we compare achievement to climbing a mountain. Getting a good grade in a class or doing well on an exam or winning an award at a program like this is like reaching the peak. I want to read you a piece by the Chicago poet Marc Smith on how we can use the achievement of reaching the peak of a mountain to help others.

When you get to the top of the mountain
Pull the next one up.
Then there'll be two of you
Roped together at the waist
Tired and proud, knowing the mountain,
Knowing the human force it took
To bring both of you there.
And when the second one has finished
Taking in the view,
Satisfied by the heat and perspiration under the wool,
Let her pull the next one up;
Man or woman, climber of mountains.
Pull the next hand over
The last jagged rock
To become three.
And see the rope that's tied to your waist
Tied to the next man's waist,
Tied to the next woman's waist,
Tied to the first man's waist,
To first woman's waist ... and pull the rope!
Next man up, next woman up.
Sharing a place, sharing a vision.
Room enough for all on all the mountain peaks.
Force enough for all
To hold all the hanging bodies
Dangling in the deep recesses of the mountain's belly
Steady ... until they have the courage ...
Until they know the courage ...
Until they understand
To pull the next man up
Pull the next woman up
Pull the next up
Up
Up.

Imagine 6.1 billion of us on top of that mountain. No poverty, no hunger, no despair. This will be the generation that achieves Gandhi's dream of wiping every tear from every face.

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