TadEkam Blog

A sevak’s account from Kangundi Bouldering Festival — January 2026

By Sangeeta Shetty (Sangi)
TadEkam Sevaka • Social Media Seva, Kangundi Bouldering Festival 2026
Instagram: @snshetty22 • kangundiboulder.com

When the opportunity came to offer seva at Kangundi, my first thought was not spiritual. It was not even particularly noble.

It was: What on earth can I do here?

I am not a rock climber. I had no extraordinary skills to offer. In my mind, if I was very lucky, I might be able to help people find their seats at the event. That was the full extent of what I imagined I could give to a festival that — I would later discover — Mahavatar Babaji, Guruji Naushir, and Swami Dattapadanandji had been quietly orchestrating for years. A festival rooted not just in adventure sports but in a divine instruction: to protect Bharat’s ancient culture through the power of tourism. Not culture for tourism — tourism for culture.

The Universe, as it always does, had other ideas about my role.

A day before we left for Kangundi, Seema Tai told me that I would be handling social media for the festival.

I want to be very precise about my reaction. It was not excitement. It was not even quiet anxiety. It was pure, undiluted panic.

I do not have followers. The videos I make are amateur at best — I film things at strange angles, forget to steady my hands, and occasionally capture twenty seconds of beautiful footage of the ground before realising what has happened. Who was going to watch my videos? Why was I being trusted with something this important?

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What I Was Walking Into

The truth was, I had absolutely no idea about the scale of what I was stepping into.

I did not know that the TadEkam team had already poured a full year of sleepless nights, countless planning meetings, and the kind of quiet, relentless dedication that only seva produces into making Kangundi what it was becoming. I did not know that Babaji and Guruji Naushir had given the instruction for this project — that it was not simply a bouldering festival but a sacred act of offering, rooted in a principle set from the very beginning: Adventure Tourism to protect and promote the living culture of Kangundi. #ClimbInCulture.

I did not know that Swami Dattapadanandji had stood at the ancient Inselberg of Kangundi in November 2025 and declared it a Living Shivling — carrying vibrations akin to Mount Kailash itself. That Lord Shiva was extending an open invitation to every climber, every sadhak, every seeker, to climb Him and surrender their burdens. That we were not organising an event. We were preparing a sacred space for thousands of people to encounter the divine on the face of a rock in a small village in Chittoor District.

I was walking into something much larger than a bouldering festival. And I did not know it yet.

My first meeting with Major General Sanjay Vishwasrao was the moment the fog lifted — and was immediately replaced by a different, larger fog of overwhelm. As he walked us through everything that was happening and what would be expected, I sat very still and thought, very clearly: Oh my God. How am I going to do all of this? I am not skilled enough for any of this.

I have since learned that this is exactly what Babaji and Guruji want you to feel. Not because they enjoy watching people panic — though I am told Guruji had a particular smile for these moments — but because the moment you understand that you are not sufficient on your own is the moment you become available for something larger to work through you.

I did not know this then. Kangundi would teach me.

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What Kangundi Did to Me

I cannot tell you exactly when the transformation happened. There was no single moment. No flash of light. No divine voice saying: relax, Sangi, it’s going to be fine.

There was just Kangundi. And the work. And the people.

The warmth with which the villagers received us — as if we were family returning after a long absence rather than strangers arriving for the first time. This, I understood later, was the fruit of TadEkam’s two years of patient, loving seva in this village: the kind of work that does not just build infrastructure but changes the very quality of a community’s heart.

The sight of climbers from across the country — from Nagaland, Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru — scaling ancient granite boulders on a hillside that Lord Shiva himself inhabited, laughing with local Yanadi tribal guides who knew every crevice and shadow of those rocks by name.

The Mahabharata Natakam performances — the non-bouldering moments that carried the truest heartbeat of the festival. Traditions centuries old, nearly forgotten by the wider world, kept alive by the people of Kangundi — now being celebrated on a stage before hundreds of visitors from across Bharat. That image — the painted faces of performers, the firelight, the sound of ancient rhythms in the open Andhra night — is the image I carry most from those days. It is the image that most perfectly captures what Babaji, Guruji Naushir, and Swami Dattapadanandji have built here.

Somewhere between all the tasks, the deadlines, the social media posts, the rushed meals and the sleepless nights, something happened that I did not notice until it had already happened.

I forgot to be afraid.

I forgot to check whether my videos were good enough. I forgot to worry about my follower count. I forgot to calculate whether my contribution was big or small. The pure joy of seeing smiling faces — of a child looking into my camera with complete ease, of a climber reaching the top of a boulder and looking out at the valley with that expression that means nothing can touch me right now — that joy crowded out every other thought. The collective intention of the TadEkam family to give everything for this festival — that is what I will carry longest. Not any individual moment. The quality of the collective heart.

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The Squirrel and the Ram Setu

Guruji Naushir taught that seva is sadhna — that selfless service is itself a form of spiritual practice, as rigorous and as purifying as any meditation. I think I understood this intellectually before Kangundi. I felt it in my body at Kangundi.

There is a story from the Ramayana that kept coming back to me during those days. While mighty warriors — Hanuman Ji, Nal, Neel, and the great Vanara Sena — were building the Ram Setu to reach Lanka, a tiny squirrel was also at work. It would run to the ocean, wet its fur in the water, roll in the sand, and then carry those tiny grains to the bridge, shaking its body so the grains would fall into place. The great warriors almost dismissed it. Lord Rama did not. He picked up the squirrel and stroked it gently with his fingers — and that is why, it is said, squirrels carry the marks of Rama’s fingers on their backs to this day.

The squirrel’s grains of sand were not insignificant. They were exactly sufficient. Because Rama needed them. And because the squirrel had given everything it had.

Standing in Kangundi, holding my phone at an imperfect angle, filming a moment that might be watched by seventeen people or seventeen thousand — I felt like that squirrel. Simply carrying what I could carry. Offering what I had to offer to Babaji, to Guruji Naushir, to Swami Dattapadanandji, to the Living Shivling that watched over all of us from the hillside. No more. No less.

“Seva is not about the size of your contribution. It is about the sincerity and the joy behind it.”

Babaji and Guruji did not need a master filmmaker. They needed someone willing to show up and press record and pour love into it. That, I could do. That, I did.

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What I Carry Home

The friendships formed in those few days feel like ones I have had for years. That, too, is TadEkam’s gift: there is no hierarchy of importance in the seva itself, no senior sevak and junior sevak. There is only the work and the love you bring to it. The collective intention to give everything — that is the family.

I came to Kangundi asking what I could possibly contribute. I left understanding that the question itself was the wrong one. The right question is not what can I give but am I willing to give what I have?

And the answer, I now know, is yes. Whatever I have. Whatever I am. Tiny grains of sand and all.

Babaji, Guruji Naushir, and Swami Dattapadanandji have built something in Kangundi that is not just a bouldering destination. They have created a place where an ancient rock becomes a Shivling, where a village’s forgotten traditions become the heart of a cultural festival, where a woman with an amateur camera and no followers can show up and be of genuine use.

So, if there is one thing seva has taught me, it is this: you do not need extraordinary skills to make a difference. You need only a willing heart. And the willingness to carry a few grains of sand.

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Sangeeta Shetty (Sangi)

TadEkam Sevaka  •  Social Media Seva, Kangundi Bouldering Festival, January 2026
Instagram: @snshetty22
kangundiboulder.com

सेवा भी साधना • साधना ही शक्ती • तद् एकम्

Sewa Bhi Sadhna  |  Sadhna Hi Shakti  |  Tad Ekam