The iVolunteer Journey

It was way back in school when we rode our cycles to Ashakirana and Jeevan Sandhya ashrams to give our squirrel share towards those who eagerly waited for the visitors who rarely visited the Ashrams which was few kms away from city. We did not even know that our presence made them so happy, and the old grannies telling us the same stories over and over like we were hearing it the first time. Then Urbanisation (I came to Bangalore from Chickmaglur) ruined it all. New place, loads to study and no money at all cringed all those qualities by time.

When I met Sayeesh at a trek, I had no idea that he could show me a platform to live those days again. Thanks a ton to him for that.
Diwali celebration at Surabhi(17Oct09): The first ever event where I met Prarthana, Vijayanand etc. So much life this girl has I tell you. Those Tiny tots singing and dancing with her and the others too were kids among these little blessed ones. I loved that day. I wanted to sing along and dance, but I was shy. I was happy that I spent my Diwali the best way ever.
Diwali Celebration at Reception Centre(18Oct09): The same enthu continued at the reception centre. We painted diyas, we bursted crackers, took lotsa photographs and ate sweets. Somewhere my heart bled for those little girls there, they needed more time counselling and not clothes or money I felt. More at:http://bloagomaniac.blogspot.com/2010/01/feedback-to-ivolunteer.html

My entry to iVolunteer(14Nov09): After the two events, nonetheless I was tempted to be a part of such things then after. I made it to the orientation of iVolunteer and decided to give as much as I could. I only prayed that the enthu should persist forever, unlike few who just register for the sake of it.  More than anything its the satisfaction you get at the end of the day. And its worth it.. Orientation is so much fun, one should try it, you get to meet new friends, come up with innovations and loads of fun.

Walkathon(5Dec2009): There was a lot to do for the walkathon, however apart from busy work we found enough time to walk for a cause and were mesmerised at the talent those kids had. We spent quality time at the event and watched kids dance and sing.

Dignity Donor launch(24 January 2010): This was a BIG event, and I will never forget the time spent volunteering for this event, the launch of the Dignity Donor Magazine for elderly and Chai Masti/coffee sanje club opened in Bangalore on this day. More at    : http://bloagomaniac.blogspot.com/2010/01/dignity-donor-launch-2010.html

Introduction to Asha Foundation: Honestly there was a little mean streak when I wanted to be a part of Asha. I dont know somewhere inside an evil grin smirked when Archana spoke about street plays done for HIV/AIDS awareness. My innerself(selfish) said , "hey this was what you always wanted to do too: a streetplay". I plunged at it like I was waiting for. I said YESSS.. I became a part of Orientation programme by Asha and there I met Emal, Chitra, Nikhil etc. Day 1 at the orientation was a little uncomforting because I was not used to many of those terms(which NOW I can proudly talk about) related to sex and of course if not the person who can spread awareness cannot talk about them, who else can??!!!.
And the funniest part was the skit rehearsal. Oh God! our stomach ached laughing. Either when The Bad Boy Badri offered the good boy Ganesh to visit a sex worker and Good boy joyously telling "lets go"(remember he is the good boy, he is supposed to refuse!!) or when Karthik coming to the doctor(me!!) and almost pouncing on the doctor to scare her to death while aking "Doctor how is my wife now?"

First Skit at the Police Academy(30Jan2010): It was Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary, and we entered the Police academy right at the time when all the cadets were mourning. I was proud to be the part of the respect shown. Cadets were very disciplined. The session went well and so was the skit. My first Aids Awareness session :)

Sessions for Metro Construction Workers/IVRCL(8March10-16Apr10): Followed by this, were the series of sessions done for the Metro construction workers. We had to do this in Hindi, and most(all) of us were south Indians. Imagine our Hindi, we did manage and well indeed. I missed a last couple of sessions though, but will be a part of future events for sure.

THE SUNFEAST 10K WORLD(23May10): I have no words to describe the fun, contentment we got from this event. This MUST be the biggest event so far in my volunteering journey. The time spent cutting paper, painting, making masks etc reminded us of our school days. All came up with innovative ideas and dirtied(colored) our hands giving life to it. Run was splendid with calling out messages and slogans. The Thank you Bangalore Police and Traffic police voices made me very happy. They deserved to be thanked. Ugly was to see empty bottles and plastic discarded :( we ran for a cause or to cause pollution?? I was thinking about this when I heard everything was cleared in no time after the marathon. That was real quick and definitely commendable.

FINALLY.. All I wrote this was only to show how happy we feel doing things we like to. In less than a years Journey with iVolunteer I have had so much fun and happiness volunteering. I got many new friends, exposure to various events and a lot of good experience. Its never too late to start doing what we want to.
If something good I have done and rejoiced it, it has to be this :) There is a long way to go.. Thanks everyone for granting my tiny wishes directly or indirectly.

Travelogue – The ESCAPE ROAD Trek

Preface:
To be honest this trek was not in the TBD of my trekking list. I barely had heard about this and when I did not want one of the long weekends to be wasted in the cozy malls and shopping lanes of Bangalore, I decided to be a part of this trek. Called the ESCAPE ROAD TREK, or the Kodaikanal to Munar Trek, was the one which got few of my friends and me occupied.
We gathered at Shantinagar bus stop (or BMTC), at around 7.30 PM.  Bus was at 9.07pm and we wanted to be there much before to distribute the things amongst ourselves.  Few of us had light dinner at Kadamba – inside BMTC and few refrained from eating.
The bus started from BMTC by 10pm (not sure why did he wait for so long).

 
Chapter 1:  When two soul-mates Met.

 
We reached Kodaikanal at 6.30 AM. Weather was beautiful (needless to say, It is KODAIKANAL  afterall!!) We found Meenakshi Bhavan - a typical south Indian vegerarian hotel , all painted green in and out. We decided to get freshened up there while we waited for Kodai Mani – the Guide and Raksha –another friend who was to join us from Chennai. There was not enough food for 13 people, hence the restaurant guy made us wait for long and finally we had our breakfast by 11 AM. Raksha joined us in the mean while; however Kodai Mani was not yet in the scene.
Finally, the Guide Veluswamy reached the place instead of Kodai Mani, where the minibus and we were waiting. We started our drive from Kodaikanal to Poondi.  It was panoramic to see the sparsely crowded villages and brownish-red hay carpeting the coniferous forest.  Freshly grown carrots were being washed, collected in the gunny bags and were getting loaded to the trucks. It was so tempting to eat such luscious orange carrots but we were not as lucky since we didn’t stop to buy some,
We reached Poondi at 2 PM. Veluswamy gave us 2 options of trekking. 1. An 8 hour difficult trek and 2. A 6 hour moderate. No points for guessing, yes we took up the 8 hour one.
About 4kms from Poondi was a small waterfall where we took played in water and had our lunch. It was beautiful to see the spectrum of colors beneath the water, which formed an inverted rainbow. We started from the water fall after lunch.  Then again started the hay carpeted beautiful orange-red forest. We walked our way and found the first Bison leg, which a carnivore would have had and left behind.  We continued our trek into the woods. Veluswamy showed us a Giant Indian Squirrel jumping from tree to tree and we also heard wild hens. It started getting darker and the trail till then was just fine. Then the trek started getting tougher with less / no light and confusing stretch. At times Veluswamy himself lost his path, he didn’t even have a good torch, hence afraid to lose Veluswamy who was ahead and since I had a good head lamp, I followed him everywhere he went. Sometimes we had to return back the same way(not a very long distance though). Some paths were thorny, narrow and dangerous. We had to literally crawl at places and at places the cliff was really scary.

It was about 10pm when we were pretty tired and took a pit-stop since Raksha was feeling giddy. It was then, we saw the orange moon. It looked as though someone had lit a light on the sky. All of us had no idea how long would it take more since Veluswamy told its an 8 hour  trek and it was already past 8 hrs.

This was also the time when Siva met  his soulmate Kishore, just like how Harry Met Sally. He held his hands and walked with him all through the trek. He declared it so loud that all of us laughed to our hearts content forgetting the long trek.

It was still getting harder with dead ends and cliffs welcoming our way, when I heard a scream. My heart almost came to my mouth, but it was Raksha who screamed like that trying to avoid a fall. Added to that Vinay got inspired seeing the orange moon and started his Mohini(ghost) stories to scare me to death.
We reached the peak by 12am and rested for a while. It was again the same carpeted area and was so nice to sit and relax there. Veluswamy confirmed it was another 10 mins walk, which gave us so much relief. We found a shrine along the way and took photos to prove our valery 
We reached the watch tower in 30 minutes and moon behind the watch tower looked fantabulous. Jyothimani, Veluswamys younger brother welcomed us and the hot campfire was such a prize for the 25k trek.
We had MTR ready to eat (!!! Trust me you wont be anymore ready to eat if you eat that) bisibele bhath and rajma chawal. My toungue, stomach and nose didn’t welcome its intake and I reluctantly wasted a lot of it. We crashed to bed(sorry sleeping mats or sleeping mates accrodng to Dinesh) at 2am. It was very cold and we were happy to hit the bags after a long trek.
Siva and Kishore were more than happy to have found their soulmates at this trek.

Chapter 2: The making of Payasam.    

 
We woke up at around 7 in the morning, to find hot coffee /  tea waiting for us. Life is so content when you get your cuppa early morning.  Revathy  called me for a morning walk, but Dinesh gestured me towards Daison and Siva who were walking outside with Aquafiina and Sprite bottles. I understood the gesture and stayed back at the IB :P
We started our 12k trek at 11 am and the grassland was very beautiful with yellow-green grass. A tiny green tree snake welcomed us at the entrance. We walked about 3km and found a small pond. The water was so cold and sweet, it felt like heaven. We fetched enough water, suddenly veluswamy beckoned us to follow him quietly. We saw a herd of Bisons about 200m. Vinay and Deepak walked towards them in one way, Daison and Yash from the other. I followed Daison and Yash to see the herd from closer. We saw them from about another 50m distance, when they all ran away from there.
We went atop and started cooking there. At 3000m above sea level, the view was marvelous with mist covered mountains and valleys all around. After  serving the first round of soup in the water bottles, we started cooking rice too. I found there was not enough rice for all, so went to soak some more rice. I poured the contents of a small packet only to realize that the second time what I poured was not rice but sugar. We had cashews and raisins and what more! a yummy kheer/pudding was prepared from Dinesh’s Idea.
We cleared the place and trekked back. Found two more green tree snakes on the way.  Veluswamy spotted another  Bison raring just  above a green hut. Yash, Daison, Dinesh and I ran to death to see the Bison from close. It  was really close. Say 6-8m away from us. But when the noise increased, even that ran away from us. On enquiring Veluswamy about the green hut, he said it costed  Rs 2500 per day. It looked tidy and beautiful from outside. But we could not afford at that point of time.
We reached the  IB back by 6.30 and for our surprise, there was another group present there where we were supposed to be. The guy who was with them told in Malayalam,(to the ones who knew Malayalam among us), to leave the place since we did not have permission to stay or even enter the forest. We didn’t have a place to stay and it was too late to trek back…BING!!!! Guess where we got to stay??? Yess, the same green hut. They allowed us to stay there only cos we were 5 girls in the group 

We cooked magi for dinner and had he same there. We had a lot of fun. Guys  teasing us of  sharing the same blanket, kicking session after hitting the sleeping bags and loud, rhythmic snores.
Thus the story of Making Payasam out of Rice became a legend.

Chapter 3: Shhhhhh!!!!!!! Humans

 
We woke up by 6.30 and some were still sleeping. Dinesh made real nice hot tea, but unfortunately , the sub-collectors gang which refuge us  had used our cups, we had to drink it directly from the vessels. Revathy and I decked ourselves with the yellow flowers too. We saw a black monkey which sat there for enough time as though it was asked to pose.

Started from the Green Hut, we went back to the IB and found that the sub-collectors gang  was gone. We cooked rice, Onion sabji and daal. This much needed lunch was followed by Doodh ka alwa made using desi Ghee – courtesy Dinesh.
We started our trek back at 12.30am. that was the same way we came until the hay carpeted area, when veluswamy broke the news that the tigers are seen most of the times at this stretch where we sat the first day (night as Siva says – it  was his 'first night' trek :P)
We found a lot of porcupine thorns too. The trail back was very nice. The ascend and descend was so steep and repeated so long.
When we reached Kovilur – the village the expression on our face  was priceless. We saw a normal human habitation after 3 days. We were all happy but scared that humans will run away from us, hence we had to say SHHHHH HUMANS!!!

Chapter 4: Trivia of the return journey..

The bus from Kovilur was at 5.15 and we had just reached Kovilur at 4.45. we had our tea/coffee and got into the bus. From Kovilur, bus left to Munnar, though the driver was fast, the roads were so curvy, surrounded by tea estates all around. Such hairpin curves churned our stomach..
We reached Munnar and had our dinner at Saravana Bhavan. It was difficult to make it to the 11.15pm bus from Coimbatore. We got a bus from Munnar to Udumal pet, which we reached by 11.30om.
From UdumalPet, we got into a bus which took us to Cimbatore. We reached Coimbatore and got into another bus which went to salem. By 5.30 we reached salem and bid bye to Raksha who had to go to Chennai. 
We got into Bangalore bus from salem at 5.30 am. The bus stopped for breakfast at some place and we were freaked out when a grape seller got into the bus. After 3 days of grape diet, none us would have had bough grapes  even for free.

We all reached Bangalore by 11 and had to hibernate back to the routine Monday morning mode.

Altogether this trek topped the best treks list and left behind a lot of sweet memories.

Gallery:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3 

Those Little Girls...

She was so excited about her new school. It was a bigger school so she was all happy that there will be more new friends. Just like her, she thought a lot more girls, they will join their hands with her and play, they sing and learn new songs, they dance with her for the funny songs they sing and laugh, she thought she will be happy. Her old school was small and old. This school was new. Why not, its one of the best schools in town.


The entrance exam was not tough at all. She did it in no time. English grammar questions were cake walk and mathematics was so much fun. She solved that geometry question in a jiffy and beamed with pride that the exam was so easy. Head mistress came to her guardian and told she faired really well and was welcome to the school. She did not know it was a great thing to have got an admission in that school. All she knew was – bigger the school, better the friends will be.

She loved her new bag and the smell of new books. It was also her first new Bicycle. It was only a few days which passed and she was asked to speak English there. It was easy to write English but to speak? She was scared. Scared that she is from a small school where no one spoke English and her first language was a native language. She never knew English was such an important language. Now was the time for her to learn but they already wanted everyone in the class to speak English. She had so many things to say, but only afraid that she would say it wrong and they will laugh at her. So, she kept to herself. Only amused how well the others speak.



One told her, that they didn’t want to sit with her. She asked her to sit down. She wanted to ask why. She was told that she studied in a smaller, native language school that’s why. She cried, Soaked her old school skirt with tears. She sat down and cried again untill the teacher came to the class. Teacher asked her why was she sitting down. She didn’t know how to form a sentence to say, “They want me to sit down on the basis of my old school”. Such a simple sentence she couldn’t open her mouth to say this. She could write but the teacher would not have had the seriousness to read. For the teacher all the kids were same. (That’s what she thought until they too started liking those little girls with good dresses and rich dads) she told the girl in her native language that she will do better than her in the test.

And she did. She fared better than her. And she even told her that she fared better than her. The other little girl laughed and said it was only to make a dumb girl like u study hard, so that you fair better. She believed her. She too was young but not small. She stayed behind all through the years. She could not impress others with her old clothes or oiled hair. Mother always would pour a can of oil and these good kids ran away from her. They were young to see what she was inside. However, she made 2-3 friends and they were the world to her.



After 10 years they all wanted to meet. She wanted to see them what have they made out of themselves. She met them all on ‘the’ day. She saw none had changed. They all saw her so well dressed and groomed so well. Their eyes could not believe and some even said that she had changed a lot. The ones who had asked her to sit down did not acknowledge her. They did not want to believe what she had become from what she was. They are still too young, small they are. . .

Wondering whose story is it? :)  Guess….

Aji Sunthe Ho..

Aji sunthe ho.. how shyly the newlywed bride would call her husband. How would he come behind her wagging(exaggeration :P) his tail. I always dreamt about all this, but strongly and strangely was against the arranged marriage rules. I always felt that the guys who are willing for arranged marriage are the ones who are totally deprived of having girlfriend(s), un-handsome(am sure this word is not in dictionary, cos I discovered it!), and DUMB in a nutshell.

Every morning mom would wake me up with a new story of how Premal, Shyla, Sharda aunties are happier than her, for the only reason that their daughters are married to either COMPUTER engineers or EM-BEE-AES. She also wondered how many Tholas (gold is measured in terms of tholas) of gold they had to give in exchange with those computer engineers slash MBAs. On an average she would calculate atleast once a day how much gold we currently have and how much more to qualify to get an offer from any of these creatures belonging to that category. My reaction always was constant for about two years– a silence or a nod, until mom realized the fact that I am the only unwed girl left in the family!! And the volcano erupted!!!!! When she did not find a sign of interest towards arranged marriage in me, afraid that I will marry some guy who might not be our cast and worried about Shyla, Sharda and Prema moushi’s reaction if I marry a non whatsoever caste guy, she started shouting at me. That day I realized ‘maa’ can become ‘kaali maa’ when she is angry…. I got scared and said “software engineer or MBA jaun asska, migel pashi laamb ani handsome aska…haanv Bangalore soaN bhaihiri vachina” (He should either be and engineer or MBA-I have no clue why I set that criteria must be competition with moushis daughters, he should be taller than me and handsome too, I will not go out of Bangalore)

I could hear mom sighing, it was so loud. Guess she was holding her breathe till I finished my talk(Alas!! I should have spoken for another 15 minutes :P)

So many proposals and I liked this guys picture. He wore a black formal shirt, shades which suited him well and he had short hair with spikes on forehead.. I was glad that “some’” guy from the arranged marriage bucket is still handsome, stylish and not married to anybody else yet. (Marriage market is very risky. One always waits for a better deal and repents that he could have waited for longer for a much better deal. Only few lucky ones hit the jackpot.)

He is Samrat(sorry had to change the name for confidentiality reasons :P). The moment I saw his snap i recollected that my mind unintentionally read his name as SMART and I smiled. I saw his photo several times and imagined my daughter Samita (Samrat + Mamta) playing with us in our own Villa, with swings around, the garden, huge SUVs and sedans parked around and a personal swimming pool and the laptops monitor timed out to show me the dumb screen saver which shook me off my dream.

I was excited when he came online for very few minutes to tell me that he wanted to meet me. I wore a simple denim and t shirt just to impress him(or show off that I am also modern- I could have as well worn a salwar). I knew I didn’t dress up too much. After office I decided to meet him in “some” mall. My colleague Sreelatha found me leaving early from office and asked me the reason, I told her. She said “don’t wear jeans when u r meeting an alliance, it won’t create a good impression” her fully-loaded-Malayali- expert- advice…Kaali zabaan, I cursed her. Hoping to spend a better evening with Samrat.


I parked my scooty and called him up. I wanted to see myself in the mirror before seeing him. call got connected and I hear such a masculine voice, I blushed only imagining my dream coming true. I removed the jacket, felt it was too much for a casual meet, brushed my hair, it always is messy whenever I try hard to set it, another layer of lip gloss that he should not concentrate on my stub nose. Aah! Perfect, and I say “I just reached” only to turn back in response to a tap on my shoulder. Its him. or its HIM!! my question conveniently changed to “ WAS IT HIM IN THE PICTURE?!!!” , I don’t know what color my face turns when this kind of situation occurs. Purplish, blackish, maroon shades of faces, that Samrat only can tell. CHEATER I wanted to shout, the little girl in dream, the villa, sedans, SUVs and everything was crashing with the mute on. Now I realized what I should have read his name as – “SOME RAT”

This little guy, who had posted his close-up pic was almost my height (and I am considered short  ), he weighed approximately 15 kilos less than I did and in his oversized shirt looked like a school kid wearing his elder brothers shirt. I pulled an intensely forced smile on my face and wished him. We went inside the mall and sat in “some” restaurant. He found my pink scooty weirdly out of world and swore will never buy his sister a pink “anything”. He also said that I make crazy faces when I speak. I was/am/will be the most expressive person ever, my face turns all shades, shapes and each expression is always accompanied by my eyes, nose, lips and teeth most of the times. When I am explaining certain things my face literally expresses it. He said I look good when I smiled shyly with my lips closed. God forbid, which implies that I should not be talking??? And am sure he barely had any idea that “I” don’t shut mouth even when am asleep!! Yeah I speak even when am asleep, that’s so normal with me.

He noticed my watch. “wow Tommy”… he exclaimed.. amazing! I felt he noticed something nice at least. “My first branded watch” I said, like I had many, this was the only one I had, others were from commercial street, diamond studded, gold plated, 300 bux each. He added he was also thinking of buying Tommy. “Don’t make such face, u look nice when you don’t show your teeth”, he clearly was getting irritated and I embarrassed. Like he sensed it, he jumped out of the seat, his tiny 35 kilo, hairless, brainless, denim shirt clad body (I saw his clean hands – like a girls hand, am sure he was clean all through ;-) ) sprang up like the Tiger character in Winnie the Pooh bear. It made no difference to the sofa, it only looked up to see a tiny posterior rising up and settling back down. I wonder what would the sofa say when I jump up on it like that… It would curse my 4 generations for having borne such a meaty offspring, carrying her 8-9 kilo posterior to the restaurant only to eat and further enhance the same. Nevertheless, he sprang up like the Tiger(google Tiger Winnie the pooh for visual pleasure), and said, “tell me a joke”. Wow, how did he know it was a “joke day” for me today? First joke when I saw this tiny dude while I was shown only top half in the picture, now am here hearing my “review” and then he asks me to tell a joke??!! I said I didn’t remember any, so he conveniently adjusted his bum to place it better and he looked like he is going to disclose the merriest news of his life. But all the enthusiasm was for a PJ which I didn’t even understand and he ended up explaining… I laughed.. laughed at myself, god when am I going home? “ I will tell u another joke”, this time it was even more horrible, but I didn’t want him to explain so I laughed.. “ I will tell u a non veg joke if u don’t mind” , god must be angry on me, “do u mind?” absolutely.. I never thought Jokes needed a disclaimer before told. Do we have to specify the joke genre before telling? I said its ok, am 25 yrs old. He started with a supposedly non veg joke, it was hilarious.. not the joke but this guy who thought it was NON VEG.. I waited for the bill while he continued his series of non veg jokes. Every time he sprang up on the sofa, I felt like hitting him with that electrified bat which kills mosquitoes and flies. Am sure it was enough to electrify him and put him back to the sofa. How would it sound when I hit him with that bat? Pluck! like how it sounds when a mosquito touches it? Or more? Would the tiny hair on his almost bald head get curled? “don’t u know jokes?” he was curious to know. Don’t I know jokes? But I don’t laugh when I see something funny, look at me am not laughing seeing you.. I looked around for fire exit. What If I start shouting fire fire and run towards fire exit? Will he follow me? Or can I take my bag and ask him to excuse me to use the rest room and runaway from there? Not a good idea, he can see the exit. Even better, I will tell him I have a call and save myself? “you don’t know any jokes?? My ex was so humorous, she used to tell me so many jokes”, now I know why is she your EX. She would have ran out of jokes to become ex. I didn’t want to know more. God came in the form of waiter with the bill. He really did look like lord Ganesha to me. I would have tipped him hundred bux after “Some Rat” saw the bill and handed it over to me. “we will share” he said.. good gesture, but it was only a few hundreds, one of us could have paid, “I will pay its ok, I don’t have cash, will pay by card” I said and placed the bill with card, “ok” he said.


Another two months I took to digest the “looks can be deceptive” experience. Beep Beep, exactly after 2 months my phone saw a sms from “SOME RAT”....

“If I have to tell you a fact, you know, even when I speak to my friends about a girl, I talk about moments, the humour, the fun, that I had with you and not that with my ex, BTW I bought a SONY flat screen television with a DVD player and a home theatre system…. “ I found a mosquito killer bat, only the mosquito was not around…

Iconnect - International womens day at calsoft

March 8th is International Women’s day. Members of Spectrum-gurlz club at the BG road facility celebrated International women’s day which is commendable. The club was formed in 2008 and has successfully been organizing, participating and volunteering various events past 2 years. A small briefing about the event is as below. Chain of events started with the secret angel game which kick started on Monday, 26th February. Almost all the girls participated and were very sportive in playing the game. Volunteers took up the responsibility to organize Sudoku and quiz event. Swapna G Nair initiated the quiz event, whereas Saritha M D launched the Sudoku event. Of all the participants in quiz, Subhashini and Benazir and got the maximum answers correct. And Mamatha C M got the Sudoku answers right. On Friday 5th March, Rangoli event was held during the morning session. 9 teams / individuals participated and beautiful Rangolis decorated the games room. Mehendi event was also held in the evening, and a lot of enthusiasts actively participated in drawing beautiful mehendis. Scrumptious lunch was organised on women’s Day, at the canopy. All the women enjoyed the lunch and shared the funny experiences while playing the secret angel disclosure. This gave a very good occasion to the ones who newly joined the club to socialise better and make more new friends. Thanks to the spectrum-gurls club for organising and making the event successful.

Click on Gallery To view the pictures.

Dignity Donor launch 2010

Dignity Donor launch 2010 was held in Piteelu Chowdaiah Memorial Hall this morning - A delegate book launch from the Dignity Foundation. When I received a mail about the event from Smitha Mundodi of Dignity, I assumed it to be just another book launch event and agreed to volunteer the event for elderly.
On reaching the venue at 9AM, I could not believe that the event was very well organized and the registration process had already started. Over 600 elderly – members and non-members of Dignity foundation were at the event place. We finished the registration process and after the welcome drinks(Tea and coffee), went back stage. The 1100 seater hall was almost 60% occupied.

Show was hosted by Dr. Kalpana Sampath.Musical concert started with a Jugal-Bandi of Veena and Flute by none other than Praveen Godakhindi and Dr Suma Sudhindra. It was not just musical but magical. I understood the true meaning of getting carried away. Music can get you involved to such a level that you forget yourself, especially classical. And flute is one such instrument which can touch the inside of u. It is very difficult to play any breath instrument and Praveen Godakhindi’s flute created a magnificent spectrum. All the elderly sitting there would sure have had rejoiced the music. Next was a beautiful Jugal-Bandi of all percussions, accompanied by Anooru Ananatha Krishna with solo instrumental ensemble, B C Manjunatha on Mridangam and S N Narayana Murthy on Ghatam which cheered the audience and a loud applaud reciprocated. Concluded with Bhagyada Lakshmi Baramma played by Dr Suma Sudhindra, the concert proved years of dedication and practice involved to make this day memorable.

Famous Kannada actress, Mrs. Yamuna Murthy was welcomed on stage to speak a few words and then was given a copy of Dignity donor. Very humorous, but sensible was her talk about the plight of old people, and some simple steps for better living.
Then came the much awaited moment. All the honorable guests decorated the stage and I could not but let a scream out seeing Mr. Ramesh Aravind – a honorary Kannada/ Telugu / Tamil actor. I hadn’t seen him from so close ever. He did speak a few words about elderly but not many seemed to follow him(including myself), since his English was too fast and hard to follow.

After the launch and distribution of Dignity Donor, the program was concluded with the National Anthem and the crowd moved towards the buffet lunch. Food was very good and with Karthik – a volunteer from iVolunteer’s blessings who was serving Jalebis, I ate 5 Jalebis just before the lunch.
While winding up with the event, I met Mr. Shyam Sunder Sharma – Training Manager of Tops Security Ltd. He has an incredible sense of humor even in his late 60’s and is so down to earth. Amazing happy go lucky nature one must possess. An attitude one always must look upto.

Best part of the program was the feeling I was left with after the event. So many celebrities in one place and you do not know whom to see. It was like all your favorite candies are kept around u to ponder. It definitely did feel good seeing them, but the attendants were not bad either. The elderly were really sweet and it was a pleasure being at their service(for whatever we did). This was the best event so far I could say. The satisfaction, contentment and a sheer pleasure of having done something that indeed helped me within - apart from a squirrel share to Dignity Foundation.


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Heyy Thanks all of u.. Made my Diwali a wonderful event..

First to start with our Saturday event at the Surabhi foundation. When I saw from outside it was just another Govt. school with minimal facilities and handful children. I hadnt expected as many volunteers and events, since I am a first timer to such activities. I had a goose skin when I saw you all becoming ones aming the little blessings and playing. There was sheer joy and real Diwali pleasure in all of you including kids. You guys all knew what they wanted. And there they got it.. Singing, dancing, games, sweets, craft and Yeah Crackers!!!... It was wonderful...

Sunday at the RC was a little nerving for me. I was terrified when I saw little girls with little toddlers/infants in their hand. I spoke to Mrs Vasantha who said the number has gone up from 6 to 75 and some girls came back often!!.. I feel they need to be given more counselling and time than just clothes, shoes etc.. And lovely was the time spent with them.. I am glad to be a part of the celebration.

I HAVE to comment about the skills these kids have. Amazing!! I did the same event in office and I Bet my colleagues could not make even 50% close to what these kids did... They sure will envy their artistic skills :)

Thanks Prarthana.. for the Reply request in CAPS.. for the first time I composed a mail in 16 minutes and REPLIED .. :D

Cheers guys.. I will be glad to be part of future events ..

Mamta Click on Photographs to view the pictures.