Latest activity

Medical camp held in a government school - twice a month.

Amma & Sandhya been a part of this for sometime now, I joined her today.

The school building (if you can call it one) is a very small old one with walls which lack paint, dark and dingy.
The students had lined up in long queues awaiting their turn with the doctor. Once the Doc examined a student he prescribed the required medicines. Then the students walk into the next room where we stood all set with the medicines. Our task was to read the prescription, put the medicines in a cover and tell the kid what to take, when and how much.
Usually there are about 3-4 volunteers who help with the dispensing of the medicines, but today no one turned up. So we’d asked a few of the kids to help us out. One held out the cover for us to fill the medicines, and another to write the number of pills on the cover.
The medicines ranged from cough syrups, anti-fungal creams, vitamin tablets to eye/ear drops.
There was a sudden commotion when one lady came in all dressed up commanding the children in a stern voice. When I asked one kid who the lady they were referring to as “aunty” was, if it was a teacher , they only giggled and said… she was the aayah… One kid smirked and said she applied so much make up and came only for people to think she was a big shot, but she was actually the aayah who swept and cleaned the school floor. We started laughing uncontrollably at this.
The whole process wen on till 5:30PM after which we stacked up all the medicines, locked up the school and left, telling the children we’d be back after weeks.
Being with children is so much fun…. Whatever the age group or activity may be : )

Aurora - Natural Wonder

I've always been fascinated by the aurora... such a pity we can't view them in this prt of the world!

The Offsite

The offsite was meant to be a team building session – it was that and a lot more….

Friday 10th Feb 06 : Soon after lunch we all packed off into a bus and headed off.. no one except the organizers actually knew where we were going. It was all a big surprise. We had only been told that this was no luxury trip but was one close to nature (whatever that meant) !
It took us a good 2.5 hours to reach Wood Rich resorts. We were welcomed there by Sunny – our guide for the weekend and lots of pakodas and hot tea.

Immediately after that we went into a conference room where we had introductory sessions, where people were paired together and one had to introduce their friend to the rest. The intro had to be about details which the others did not know of. This was good fun – how else would you get to know that the CFO – if he had not been here, would have been a fashion designer…..
After the intro session, we started out with our first activity. We were divided in 4 teams. Each team’s task was to build an “A” frame with 3 pieces of bamboo & pieces of rope – the structure had to be vertical…. One member had to be moved from one end of the field to the other using this structure, the catch being no other team member could touch the bamboo frame. The “A” structure, we could make…. Make it stand vertically… that we could do… but put a person on it and move it without touching it???
After a lot of thinking, doing and re-doing we figured out how to do itÂ…. Though it was not the best of ways to do itÂ… in the process two guys got hurt. One had a real bad fall from the structure and the other one was all bruised from the whole eventÂ….. Were the rest of the activities going to be as dangerous as this.. we could only wait and seeÂ….
We had all been assigned rooms and our room partners had been pre-chosen by the organizers. Got to our rooms, freshened up and went to the bonfire hoping to get something to eat soon..
They had the drinks and the barbecue all set up. It took so long for someone to actually cook something for us Â…everyone was starving by then and wondering when they would serve dinnerÂ… It was a real long wait before dinner was served, but it was really goodÂ… hot parathas made on demand was really yummyÂ…or maybe it was the hunger that made us fell it was goodÂ…
After dinner back some people got back to the bonfire while some others went back to there rooms to sit down and chat awayÂ…
Around 11PM they started playing really loud music and everyone was at the dance floor dancing away like there was no tomorrow.

Saturday 11th Feb 06 : We were supposed to wake up at 5:30AM and go attend the meditation classÂ… I guess only two people actually went for itÂ…
8 AM after breakfast we again got on to the busÂ… we were going to an outside location for a trek-cum-treasure hunt.
After this happened the rappling session. Never in my life did I ever imagine that I would do rappling. Once you are at the rappelf the rocks all set to rapple down – a scary thought crosses your mind. You have to put all your trust in the person holding the safety ropes. You have to fall back and put all your weight in such a way that you are perpendicular to the ground. To take that one first step…. It seems like eternity. Once you get the hang of loosening the rope and making your way down.. its all over even before you realize it. Now, given a chance – I’d love to do it again : )
After this we were again divided into 3 groups. We were given tractor tyre tubes and bamboo and ropes. We had to make a raft, get to the other side of the lake pick up a flag from there and get back to the start point. Our team’s raft structure was really good, we got to the other side of the lake – however we had not planned how we would get back. People could not get up, sit facing the other direction and row back… it was impossible to turn the raft the other way… in the meanwhile because of the strong winds the raft started to drift away.. it went very far off from where the others were and after a lot of effort, got back to the other side…
All tired and hungry we returned to the resort.. thankfully lunch was ready when we got thereÂ…we hogged.
We had about 45 minutes before the next activity that we spent at the poolside.

For the final activity we were again divided into 4 teams, each team had 3 barrels, 2 planks of wood. The task was that all the team members had to move from one end of the badminton court to the other using the barrels and the wooden planks without their feet touching the ground… For the first 20 minutes no one knew how this had to be done, connecting the barrels with the planks – people standing on the planks – the planks would break for sure. Even if you stood on the planks- how would you move forward?
After a lot of thinking and a little hint from Sunny, we realized how it had to be done. Reaching the finishing point was exhilarating!
Back at the conference room we discussed all that we had learnt over the last 2 days… there were lessons for life.. lessons to be applied by us in any given situation. We had learnt the strength of a team as opposed to an individual. Being a team, we could achieve anything – given the fact that we thought in the correct way, planned in the proper manner and put our hearts into it!
We were back on the bus- on our way back home with lots of good memories to treasure for life :)

Rang De - Makes you think

Heard so many views about the movie before watching it. I guess this is the first time that I have heard such varied views about a single movie. Some people loved it while others thought it was a total waste of time. I bought the album as soon as it was released, loved the songs and was waiting to watch it.
Rang De is a mixture of many light moments and serious emotions. Aamir his chirpy, mischievous self. The youngsters in the movie are no different from you and me. All we think about is our studies, our work, our lives. Are we bothered about anything else?
The scenes from the past especially about the Jallianwala Bagh were very moving.
I've studied about the freedom struggle during my school days. At that time it was just something which I had to mug up. Meant nothing to me. But today while watching the movie it shook me up a bit.
Now, I want to know more about the freedom fighters, their lives, the sacrifices they made.

I'm sure Monday I'll get back to work and get immersed in my mundane meaningless life. But I'm glad I am at least thinking .....

My Verdict : Rang De Basanti - it makes you think!