SRI'S Blog

The July month fund raising Program done by the Rotary Club that I am part of,  was  a roller coaster event . We went through several swings in  plan , execution ,support , guidance etc., . Planning for this event began some five months back .  The reason to do the fund raising event was compulsive. Rtn Saravanan ( Sara ) was a man possessed with this purpose ,to help out children suffering from Congenial Heart Disease  (CHD )  He took it upon himself to establish a fund that will help these young kids get their lives back. Once he explained us the purpose , we all signed up to do the event that will raise funds , that at a minimum will help perform 200 surgeries a year. The fund raising committee met several times ( I was part of this  ). The key decision was to decide on the nature of the fund raiser. Normally fund raisers are done through musical concerts or dramas etc. But Sara had different ideas . He did not want the regular musical show. H...

Couple of weeks back ,t hey were the Most Trending on all social media suddenly .  All for right reasons – Any sport that involves women probable has a lesser following than a sport where men are involved and if it was Cricket , it has to be Tendulkar’s ,  the Kapil Dev and Kohlis of the world that would attract attention from the elite down to the common man . Everyone will talk about them -- Who would bother about a Mithali Raj or a Harmanpreet Kaur ? Do the names ring a bell ? It did and  people did bother about Mithali and the team that played in the Women’s Cricket Cup. Suddenly the whole of India was following the Indian women’s  teams progress in the World cup . There was live coverage - Airports , restaurants and the like were showing the matches . Everyone was talking about them . There were several FB posts . All these augured well for the Women in action . Was it unusual for a world cup to happen ? No , not at all . The Women’s world cup has bee...

We were invited to visit the above NGO by the Founder who had  so much energy , zeal , enthusiasm . When he met us in Chennai in mid of June , we were  floored by his energy and his vision of what he wanted to do. So , over this Saturday ( 8 th July ) ,decided to do a day trip to the area , where this NGO operates and which is at the foothills of the Yelagiri hills.. Strangely, decided to take the train rather than the car drive and found it most comfortable The Founder indicated that he will pick us at the Jolarpettai stations but we decline politely and said we will come to the small village where his office was. The hostel and the office of the NGO  is located at Mullai village , Nimmiyampet ,in Vanniyambadi around 200 Kms away from Chennai on the Chennai – Bangalore Highway.  We were greeted by this person with warmth and love and he had driven all by himself to get to the village from his home which is on top of the Yelagiri hills. I offered to driv...

So, when the trip was announced some four months back , the booking was close to around 60 people ( read Rotarians and families ) joining in . The bus could take 45—Sriram the Champ of the trip would have preferred 30—that was his number that he could take as a group and talk with attention undivided  . So we had a waitlist and a RAC set up. But finally , due to various reasons – people may not have seen through the four months’ time window on planning  – marriages coming up right on the trip days, some illness , general drop outs , the group that finally made the trip was a bunch of 28 – Rotarians . their spouses …. That was a number which delighted Sriram Two main reasons why these trips become so successful – First one , the Organiser Renjit Joseph who is a master in this – Renjit has been thanklessly doing this job of arranging either an outstation trip or Heritage ones as this for the past 13 years or more for our Rotary Club. So , what is special that makes pe...

It would be not be possible for me  not to write about Roger Federer and his 18 th Grand slam win at the 2017 Australian Open – to me , a diehard Federer fan , it was one of the most astonishing comebacks from injury to win the title and when no one  including himself was expecting him to do so. The final itself was a fantastic match – Up against his nemesis and old rival Nadal ( who himself was coming back from injury )—Federer had all odds stacked against him – his record was poor against Nadal—especially in the finals of a Grand Slam event – he had not won a Grand slam since Wimbledon 2012. He had been in the finals subsequently, but was outfoxed by Djokovic.. He was no longer young –  He was coming back after a six month layoff --It was two old veterans clashing – Few things happened in the draw that may have helped both men get to the finals – Andy Murray was sent packing by Mischa Zverev and Djokovic by an inspired Dennis Istomin who played inspirationa...

With family , I attended the annual Agaram Foundation meet on Jan 8 th  and what a good decision, it was to go with family, especially my daughter . As most of you may be  aware , the Agaram Foundation supports educational needs of needy children – this is at the College level— The event  was on a Sunday early morning and we spent around four hours at the event – by the time we came out , there was lot emotion , tears but joy on seeing and hearing out great success stories that were narrated on stage by the ones that benefitted from this excellent Foundation set by Actor Suriya and his brother and family. Great work  done to reach where they are today but I am sure they are going to scale this pretty heavily. I have had the good fortune to work with the Agaram team on many occasions ( Ford works with this NGO on various initiatives ) but this was the first time that I got to hear firsthand  the lovely journey of various successful students . The A...

One more trip with families –  Five of them this time and with age group starting from Eight years to 77 ! and the visit was to  temples closer to the Mangalore belt. Planning had to be done well in advance for it was the ‘Season “ . I will not dwell in to the temples and their importance – You could easily get details of the temples from “Google Swami” . But I thought of penning down few things that really made the trip , a memorable one— Tickets If I said the  guy  ( one amongst us) who booked the tickets went bonkers  , it would have been an understatement . We wanted to leave on 23 rd evening . So, tickets were booked but we ended up with  Wait listed tickets for 14 of us . Railway Pundits after lot of algorithms  and backend work , concluded  and advised us that we had no chance of getting tickets confirmed . May be three or four of the fourteen will get confirmed but not all was the verdict. So , we had to do Plan B. To our plea...

I went through two incidents on Diwali Day when most things just gets shut down – Interesting experience –  On a normal day ,  things that could get fixed so easily with no effort,  can turn in to a frustrating experience on a day when the whole town celebrates..  Incident 1 : First over lunch , my daughter had the wires of her braces come off half way—She was uncomfortable –The dental clinic that she goes normally is a 5 minute drive—We went there and it was shut down totally… The problem was not urgent but had to be fixed – I just kept driving along the roads looking for all Dental clinics and whatever we could find,  were closed. I tried the mobile phone to look up at more dental clinics in and around and it is at this point , the connection will not work .  With no luck in finding Dental Clinics , went to the closest Hospital that did Day Surgeries at this place. That was deserted as well . We are asked to go to Emergency , where the duty doct...

Visiting schools and Interacting with School children is fun. And, if it happens to be a school far away from the hustle and bustle of a city, it can only be better!! This visit was  long overdue. Earlier this year, we planned to visit the school in February  but due to  my tight work schedules , had to move it  to this week of August. As most are aware , the Ford Digital Literacy program reaches out far and wide across the country. Among many schools / Colleges/ NGO’s / Institutions that benefitted was this school that is located at MadhaPattinam, some 25 Kms ( approx. ) from the  Tenkasi  Town in Tirunelveli District. A colleague from  Ford ( thank you Geetha Paulmani ) recommended this school for Computer donations last year. Ford made  computers available to the school. The school put up a computer lab  that enabled the much needed access to Computer Education for close to 1700 children. Just as background, the school was s...

Bhutan was a destination  that looked very palatable for a nice , leisure holiday with closeness to nature  and going as a group was something that would add to the merry. Five families  , all known to each other for probable two decades  decided to join in. One of the things that we agreed was to use a Travel Agency service  for the trip.  After the usual quotes from different vendors , we narrowed down on a vendor that was good in terms of cost , reputation  and the package that was offered met our expectations in terms of the stay arrangements and food . We also requested that the ten of us be given a separate vehicle , so that we could go as one group and avoid other travelers that may be in the same package . Some things that worked so well because of using a tour operator : 1.     The arrangements were spotless – pick up from Airport to drop back after seven days – 2.     Everything worked on time – start in ...