SRI'S Blog

March 23 rd  2018 was a red letter for  this village that houses 25 families of the Irula Community . We had a very nice function to declare this village as free from ODF. A total of 25 individual toilets were built in a very quick time and made available for use for the families . If good things have to happen, they will happen – No one can stop  it – The background to this construction of the first phase of a total of 300 toilets is an interesting one . Bill Ford Better World Challenge awards grants for projects that will significantly improve health and sanitary conditions for people. As part of that US $ 140,000 was awarded to work on improving sanitation and hygiene conditions in India. The Project managed by two lovely ladies based out of Ford US Jennifer Leonard and Nihala choose  the Kanchipuram  district of India, ( being close to the communities that Ford is in and also to facilitate volunteering  ) and 300 SMART toilets were to be

The other day , as I got back home , my mother asked me – Did you read the news on Begum Hamida  passing awayin today’s Hindu ( March 14 th ) ( http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/former-rs-member-begum-hamida-dies-at-101/article23168427.ece ) ?  The news items was somewhere in the middle pages but I certainly did not read it till my mother pointed out . I had no idea of the connection my mother had with this lady . I start to chat and my mother talked about how Begum Hamida had helped her and family to survive. This happened in 1958 some sixty years ago. My grandfather was the Librarian at the National Defence Academy at  Khadakvasla  and he passed away, leaving behind his wife ( my grandmother ), my mother and her two siblings all of a sudden. They had nowhere to go and were broke financially and were lost and had no life to look forward to. It was then that Begum Hamida stepped in to their lives. what would have happened if she had not stepped in , is difficu

Over the last weekend , took a trip down to visit some of the DivyaDesam temples( A  Divya Desam  is one of the 108  Vishnu  temples that are mentioned in the works of the  Alvars  (saints). Of the 108 temples, 105 are in  India , one is in  Nepal , and last two are believed to be outside the Earthly realms ) in and around Sirkazi, a town that is close to 250Kms away from Chennai . There are around 12 temples to visit and we hired a guide who could take us around efficiently and get us darshan . You may ask why a guide but we realized what a good decision it was to hire a guide – Yes, the Google maps will guide us to all these temples but they would not help us with the timings that the temple opening and closing . Most of the 12 temples are private and so the priests choose based on that day , the time they wanted to open and close and sometimes they are open for short periods of time . The guide that we had,  not only knew the terrain but he knew the Priests in the temples pe