Heights of ???

I read an article a while back about a company rep that came to town to look over a potential site for their business. Took a ride about the town and refused to locate in that town because there was too much litter along the roadways. To this company rep that meant the towns people had no pride.
What is so hard about hanging onto the trash and throwing it away in a trash can when the person reaches his destination?

A very interesting day!

Hello everyone, I am not really in a bloggy mood right now but still cant stop writing down this one.

First of all i want to say , what a great time i had yesterday! It was weird to say the least!

It was around 3 on a friday afternoon telling myself " I am bored! ". Not really bored but being bombarded with all problems at the same time! was frustrated to the core!

I have been moved to a new project recently and not in very good terms with ma team mates till yesterday. You folks will know why at the end of this blog..

Suddenly a colleague of mine says lets go out we have some work. I was shocked in fact mixed reactions. Honestly, I used to think "the guy " is also like the other men are men types.

He said " Pooh we have got some gift from country vacations and have to go and collect it with my wife" . And as he was not married he wanted me to join him. I said a big NO!!! After he pleaded i thought chalo yaar we will go!

He was not that happy with the way i sat on his bike but i enjoyed the ride. We landed in the so called place where we were ought to collect the gift. We were made to sit there which looked like a match making one, with a volunteer explaining about "Country vacations" to a couple and there were around 12 to 13 volunteers.

The overall incident was looking odd but funny. The volunteer cleared his throat and started off " Are you married? " . With that proud grin of making someone fool we told na we are just engaged.

He smiled and started his mission gun of questions. He asks him a question from an application from sort of thingy and then turns towards me and asks the same question "Sir" being replaced with "Madam". And not to forget the accent please... Madam.as if he is hungry and eaten the last part of the word. Bhaskar, the volunteer was in his usual marketing attire, formal wear with a tie. Once he was done with the application form he started asking about or favorites. You folks will not believe , i got to know this colleague of mine more which i would not have even after working with him for around 2 months. He ran out of questions and he started telling about his love story and the difficulties he faces to meet her..poor chap. He was doing all this cause he wanted approval from his manager to go ahead with the presentation , please note all this while he was not giving one. He used to often raise his arm and look at his manager infact three of them, each one at three different levels. One of them comes to the desk like a dude and asks few questions and hints Bhaskar to go ahead with the presentation.

Then he starts off with amount X and this colleague of mine is curious to know the amount which ll be necessary to be a member. After going round the world he comes and at last discloses the amount X as in these reality shows.

They wanted to tell yes to the offer then and there but my collegeue wanted to take his moms premission to go ahead with the payment. For this they did not agree as they had their fundas like some special offer that this etc. So atlast they decided to give the gifts and chase us away.

In the middle of all these this hero of our story went out and sent me a text asking a sorry and there lies his sweetness. I told him that is okie..you know i was just being nice to him.

After all this we took the gift and went to Mc Ds where we had burgers and from there back to office as i was supposed to catch my 9 pm shuttle from my office.

He dropped his bike near the golguppa fella and ordered one plate exclusively for me as he knew i liked it. The way he spoke with the guy showed his down to earth attitude and i just kept looking at him from the corner of my eyes as i hopped in those not so lovely golguppas into my mouth.

There are so many small small gestures which made me realize the characteristics of this guy. He looks very rude and bad to be really honest but my guess was wrong. May be this is why they say looks can be deceptive. He has concern for everybody but never shows it off. He knows how to make others happy. But still he says "i am selfish". He hates being in love or people in love i dunno the reason for him to hate love. He is a cool dude with a happy go luck attitude. He is a typical Punjabi Libra guy with loads of energy and enthusiasm in things he likes to do. He has this strong psychological aptitude . Gentle personality being attracted by competitive people and can expect challenges from him. And not to forget, his sense of humor and yeah how can i forget this, his sense of dressing and style. Never sticks to one look and likes change.

While i was thinking all this on the way back, he struggles and digs into his pockets with great difficulty and lends me the white rumaal ( hand kerchief ) as he knew i had dust allergy. Dint feel like using it though but some corner of my mind i was silently telling myself " Buddy am sorry i misunderstood you" and the noise just faded away with the wind.

As i came back to my desk i see a note signed by him saying " thanks a lot 4 coming"
Good to be friends with someone like him cause he is weird and its good to be one at times.

Sorry??You asked me his name is it? How about calling him Robin Hood? :P

Father's Love

Reading "Father's Secrets," an article, I was reminded of my own father, who was with HMT as a general manager.

He is one amazing person in my life.
He being a BE graduate, washes his clothes, does gardening, and showers unconditional love and affection to his family memebers.

We talk about "maa ki mamta" (maternal love) and tend to forget about fathers.

Ma dad spent his time and money without consulting his wife for his family. He forgot that there was a life for himself in the process. Now i want to make sure i keep him happy and give him all the luxuries he had when he was a manager. I want to see him like a KING... always..

He loves and supports me as i encounter my life but he did not spare me from life's lessons.
He did not interfere with my right to grow, to make mistakes and learn from them. He supports my right to autonomy. He can never become impatient with me and never diminished ma achievements. He taught me beauty is secondary to character and self respect and experiencing meaning in life. He helped me build my character, understand responsibilities and assited me in finding solutions to problems. He encouraged me to take risks , new challenges, overcome obstacles and deal with real world.

Every morning he gets up at 6 to leave me to the bus stop. That one glass of water he gives, is enough for me to survive the whole day. Once we are set to leave to the bus stop, he gives those handful of badams with so much love my goodnes.. i am fortunate enough to get a dad like him.
And as he waves me good bye he says to himself " Although you will always be " my little girl", I will respect you as a woman in the years to come".

After ma office, on the way back home, i just text him saying am close by and he comes and waits for me. I know i should not be doing this with him but i am helpless.. how i wish ma company listens to me some day and extends the cab route till ma home. And once he sees me he feels as if his day is complete and that makes mine too.. And we share a "dairy milk fruit n nut" chocolate and honestly its not the chocolate but the moment which is sweet.

He is ma only biggest asset! He ROCKS!!! And there is so much to learn from him.

Here i take my OATH to keep my dad happy and cheerful,

* I will love you dad, unconditionally today and the days to come.

Love ya DAD!

I call them specially abled....

Dint force myself out of my bed,cause of the excitement awaited for me that day..i am talking about 21st Feb 2009, Saturday morning when i was supposed to go visit "Chintamani" as a part of rural survey.

I am never punctual...but this day i realized at times even i can be. I was asked to come to majestic, a bus depot where u find almost 50% of Bangalore population,by 6:30.Considering the long distance i had to travel to reach the place i was ready by 5:30 and by 6:25 i was there..

We were supposed to leave majestic by 6:30. All thanks to Yogesh,one of my colleagues, Adarsh,our IAS officer to be and his friend Naveen,an architect, we left majestic by 7:35. By we i meant,Neetu,Myself,Shilpa,Krishna,Yogesh,Adarash,Naveen in the order of being more punctual to least.

Krishna was made the financial co-coordinator for the day,he took the tickets and we started off..

I personally enjoy traveling and it was a feast to my eyes..I was amazed to see that almost 90% of the public was up by the cock crow..and they were busy moving on with their stuff.I saw an old lady putting beautiful kolam before the house..school kids walking to school with their so called bags heavier than them...an old man and his show shop..finding it really tough to repair a shoe...a cute guy in his 3/4th yawning...a mid-aged women with her flower shop..watering those lovely fresh flowers..a fight between a Lorrie driver and a bus driver...mountains...farm fields...chicken farms...cattle..guys on hero cycles...small kids running behind their mommy s with a tire and a stick...people getting off and and getting in the bus...uncles with their ground nut basket..huuuge idols made out of sugar and the flies around them...guy with his cucumber vandi...ma friends in bus sleeping and on and on and on...and how can i forget the monacco biscuit offered and the soothing Kishore da's songs.

We reached chintamani main bus stop by 10:15 am. Lead by Shilpa we walked in search of APD office(Association for physically disabled)...Shilpa being lead was followed by Krishna,myself,Yogesh,Neetu,Naveen and then came rolling, Adarsh. Within mins we were before the APD office...we were greeted by Kumar sir. After which we went to a hotel accompanied by shreeshaila, a specially abled himself, and a worker of APD. I am a gr8 fan of idly vada and sambhar.We had idly vada and kesaribath.

Kesaribath was awesomely awesome.

After which we were back in APD office. We sat there and discussed with Kishore sir about the association.He introduced Kavitha and Sreeshaila...who were working with APD...He said they are covering almost 450 villages. They help specially abled people fight against their disability...He requested one thing from us...English speaking classes...He said they were finding it tough to communicate when foreigners come to them...they asked us to arrange some sessions to improve their fluency...We agreed and said we will do the best to arrange for few sessions.

He introduces us to shreeshiala ans kavitha, specailly abled themselves and were among APD workers. We were split into 2 groups, one would go to chintamani.lead bu shreeshaila and the other would go to shrinivasapure lead by kavita.

Our group was lead by kavita and by our group i meant myself, shilpa and krishna. We had to travel som distance when compared to the other group. We left to the bus stop and were looking for a bus which will put us in "gavanapalli". Meanwhile we were talking to kavitha. Her spirit and her energy amazed me. She said initially she had few problems joining the association and now that she is a part of it she feels very proud of it. She gives the credit completely to "Kumar sir",
the association head in there.

We got the bus,but it dint show any signs of moving from that place, it was still hungry and wanted more people i guess. Meanwhile a government bus from no where came and was going to gavanapalli we just ran into that bus. And i forgot about spoorthi, whom we met in this bus.
cuddling her mom with good day biscuit and in her new gown looked very cute..


Since it is small town everybody knows kavita and vice-versa. The conductor was cheerful and he was asking her,her well being. She introduced us to him. During conversation we learn t that this driver "venteshwarlu" owns mango plants,cows and breeds silk worms and on top works for govt as conductor. We IT guys have to think about this.."alternate career option".He was kind enough to invite us during april to his field so that we can relish the mangoes we agreed to it and got down. From there we were supposed to go in an auto to "Byrganapalli". Since there were no autos, we decided we will visit a house which has a kid suffering from "Cerebral Palsy". Please refer to "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy" link for more info about "CP".The boys name is Habeeb. He cannot move his legs and arms normally. They say one half of the body will not function normally for such kids. APD has given such kids a wheel chair sort of thing and have trained their parents how to handle such kids, physical exercises, giving them bath and etc. And APD workers like kavitha will visit these houses often and make sure all these is being done.
My eyes were filled with tears when i saw the kid. Indeed a gr8 work APD is doing.

From here we got an auto and head towards "byrganapalli". The rick was strange. Normally a rick in here can carry at the max four adults...but believe me the rick in which we were going was carrying around 15 adults..

We landed in "Byrganapalli". Here firstly we visited an adult physically disabled person. All thanks to memory i am not able to recollect his name. He is i guess the other side of 50 and hapily living with his third wife :) When we went to his house he was just then back from a wedding and was taking rest. He cannot walk normally. He earns his bread and butter by making ropes for tying cows and other cattle. He says it is heriditory and he is following his parents. He dint hesitate when we asked him to show how he exactly does that. Pulled the strings and started weaving. Cheers to him!

From here we headed towards Sridhara's house. Sridhara being blind is thought mobility at hoome and school by these APD workers. In the above snap the one in blue salwar is our "Kavitha". Sridhara was dressed in his blue t-shirt and was extremely extremely shy to talk to us. Not a single word came out from his mouth. Also i heard he goes to school all by himself all thanks to APD and its workers and their generosity. We gave up after several efforts to make Sridhar speak up. Told thanks to his grand parents and parents and left from there.

From here on the way back we met "Ramu". He was cooking lunch for his sister and himself. Anybody on earth would feel pity on his plight. He cannot stand properly, in fact cant do anything properly. But still he was able to cook and do other routing things. People and girls around stayed looking at him suffering but dint give a hand in what he was doing. Our country is really backward in humanity is what struck me dat moment. We need people like kavitha to help these who are gr8ly in need of help,care and love.
He was finding it tough to even break those small sticks in pieces..just imagine his situation. :(

From his place went to the main road where we were supposed to get an auto to land in anand ashram where lunch was arranged for us ,"iVolunteers". We sat on the stone bench in front of a small shop. Took booti and mitai from that shop for all of us. We were accompanied by raju another specailly abled..who is also a member of APD. A granny came running to the shop with her cover full of puffed rice and addedd to dem was a handful of groundnuts. She was asking the lady in the shop "My husband was scolding me..That i have not got enough groundnuts in the puffed rice..and the lady was generous enough to put few more nuts without expecting extra money..
I guess the grandpa might be happy after that...:) We got the auto and headed towards anand ashram.

We reached "Anand ashram" by around 3:00 we were there. The other group was already there with hungry stomachs waiting for us. We all sat together and had nice desi food. It had chapathis,lovely carrot burji, rice,sambhar,curds and finally the kheer..yum yum..

There was this guy called "Anand" who deaf and he was teaching other APD workers the sign language. We joined the class and learnt few signs and it was gr8 fun. Anand is like any other normal person..he makes fun ,pulls legs and smiles always.. :)

After this we had a small discussion with APD workers as to how all this started. We could not control our laugh when neetu started snoring..poor thingy she was that very tired..From the discussion we realised that APD has come a long long way to reach wherever it is now...And there were people from bank and other areas helping them out as and when needed...:) APD makes a note of each and every person who has donated to the association and on every new year sends thanks giving and new year wishes for all of them. Is'nt something really good about APD?Prabhakar, Ravi, Srisailam, Basavaraj, Sivanna, Aruna, Ananda were part of the meeting.

After this we had photo sessions with APD members in and around "Anand Ashram". I forgot to tell ya folks...this ashram was formed by "santho ramaswamy" for physically disabled people.

From here we went to APD tailoring institute...We saw lovely creations from people in here...der were around 4 to 5 girls here learning tailoring which would be their source of income at some later point of time :) Its again a boon from APD to specially abled people.

That brings to the end of our survey...From here we left to kodigehalli cross by 5:30 where we would get bus to chintamani and from there back to Bangalore. We sipped nice tea in this cross and after a long wait got a bus to chintamani main bus stop. We reached the main bus stop by 6:15 and a bus to Bangalore was already there waiting to leave. We boarded the bus and left.
On the way back,an artist in himself,Mr.Adarsh gifted me with ma sketch.He is indeed..the artist of a millennium...We reached Bangalore by 9 :15 p.m and i reached home by 10:15..Came home and slept.

To summarise..I would call these physically disabled, specially abled cause they do everything a normal person can , with their added disability..Every individual who is normal should lend their helping hand in some way or the other..dont make them realise that they are not normal..spend ample time with them..or the smallest possible time with them and treat them as any other second person..

Ever get the feeling that you have a higher calling? You know... That you have a special purpose on this earth?

Volunteering with iVolunteer makes you feel this.

Reasons:
Not only gives you the opportunity to give back, it gives you something to do. You'll still have plenty of time for exploring local ruins or minds of aged. iVolunteering gave me an opportunity to do the same. It helped me see the world with a purpose.
But one word of warning, don't set out to change the world -- you'll be disappointed to learn that the world doesn't necessarily need changing. The best goal is to challenge yourself everyday, test your patience, and open your mind and heart. Be of some sort of help to the aged who are badly in need of a helping hand.
By volunteering with iVolunteer, I learnt so much about myself. You did things that I never imagined I was capable of. The biggest difference i noticed at the end of the day was not external but was the difference inside of myself. Most importantly, I will be changed forever because I will have greater understanding of what is life.
Unlike paid employment, volunteering provides a more flexible schedule and varying time commitments. You may choose to participate in a work camp which is the best part of iVolunteering.
I enjoy meeting the residents of OM-ASHRAM, socialising, chatting and having fun. I have met lots of new people though volunteering with iVolunteer and it has helped me build up my confidence. I would recommend volunteering iVolunteer to any prospective volunteers.
Volunteering gives me a feeling of responsibility and positive self-esteem. Through volunteering I have acquired personal fulfillment by serving others, confidence, work experience and, moreover, I have experienced a real sense of team spirit.
Whenever I go to OM-ASHRAM, I am met with smiles, everyone is very happy to see us. Every time I come it is memorable, we all have a laugh and a joke. I feel happy that I am helping people to do something that they want to do. The other volunteers I work with are a great support.
Volunteering has also made me more aware of the different types of disability, which are much more varied than the disabilities I came across with rural APD survey. It has taught me that everyone should be treated on an equal basis.
I would encourage other people to get involved.