INSPIRATION
Popat Savla: A Humble Love Affair with Life (Source: ServiceSpace.org Blog - Posted by Nipun Mehta on Oct 5, 2020) Nipun Mehta is the founder of ServiceSpace, an incubator of projects that works at the intersection of volunteerism, technology and gift-economy. What started as an experiment with four friends in the Silicon Valley has now grown to a global ecosystem of over 500,000 members that has delivered millions of dollars in service for free. Nipun has received many awards, including the Jefferson Award for Public Service, Wavy Gravy’s Humanitarian award, and Dalai Lama’s Unsung Hero of Compassion.
Both of us drove up together to a holy site, somewhere on the hills of Los Angeles. Except it was Sunday. And this shrine of the revered India mystic, Yogananda, is closed on Sundays. “If it’s closed, why are we going there?” I asked my friend. “Who knows, maybe it’ll open. Not all gates open by man-made rules.” Okay, I can dig that. We arrived, and sure enough, the giant gate was closed and there was absolutely no human in sight. “Well, we tried,” I stated. With his usual jokester smile, my friend replied with a Zen koan: “Surrender works only after full effort.” He got out of the car. I stayed back, since I wasn’t quite sure how the 50 feet walk between the car and the front gate would change anything. Lo and behold, right as he beelines for the shuttered gate, a nun comes out of nowhere, appearing to walk in at the same time. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Still, this is a public place (where George Harrison’s funeral was held), and no one is just going to open it up for two random visitors. Yet, much to my jawdropping amazement, she opened the place for just the two of us. It defied all logic. The entire 10acre Lake Shrine, just the two of us. Amidst the sacred ambiance of Yogananda and lush natural beauty, we walked in silence and sat in meditation. It all felt pre-ordained somehow, as if my friend was one divine hoodwink ahead of the rest of us. That friend was Popat Savla. He just passed away. If this were just one episode, I might’ve chalked it off to happenstance. With Popat Uncle, though, it was a regular affair. Always a lover of pithy lines, I can hear him saying: “I don’t believe in miracles. I rely on them.” Anyone who actually walked in his shoes might’ve felt the same way. He grew up sleeping on the streets of India, studying at night under streetlights, becoming the exemplary public school kid who always got scholarships. “Then I married my good luck charm,” he would share with a sheepish smile, about his life-
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long marriage with Kalpana Aunty. You could tell how much they cared for each other, because right after his sweet comment, he felt very comfortable throwing in a joke: “But, you know about the three rings of marriage? Engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering.” Not to be outdone, Kalpana Aunty would retort with her crackled laugh, “I agree.”
Life was generous to Popat Uncle, and he was generous back to life. He immigrated to the US as an engineer, dabbled in real estate, and at a specific turning point in his life, in the 90s, he consciously dedicated his life to service. Our paths intersected soon after that. We met in a rather peculiar way. ServiceSpace had just started, and we were interviewing nonprofits who wanted us to build them a website. Popat Uncle was a volunteer with one of those nonprofits. As volunteers accepted and completed the project, Popat Uncle intuitively felt that something was different here. At that time, we hardly had any history, and yet, he felt an inexplicable affinity with our radical
