HALLI SUMMER CAMP- A Detailed Report- Part 2

Day 3: 1st May '10

After the success of the painting class during Day2 and looking at the amount of interest shown by the kids towards it, it was decided that we go for another activity on arts and crafts. So the first half of Day3 was dedicated to "Mask Making". the children designed different kinds of masks using colour papers, paints, crayons, etc. guided yet again by Mrs. Sandhya who had taken the painting classes for them. This was probably the most exciting activity for the kids in the entire summer camp and the look of happiness on their faces after they completed their respective masks and were allowed to wear them over their faces, was really priceless !! It was followed by a long photo-session which included a lot of cheering and shouting.
Since all this consumed a lot of time, even brunch got delayed and after that, few of the major activities were postponed to Day4. But the children had another exciting thing in store, especially the guys. Mr. Makrand, or "MAC" as he's popularly known as, demonstrated rope climbing, and quick learners that they were, the boys hardly took any time to learn it and do it themselves. Even some of the volunteers tried their hand at this, and were pretty successful. At the same time, the girls continued to be trained by Anil on swiftness and agility.

Day 4: 2nd May '10

The day kick-started with a very useful session by Mr. Bhanuchandran, who's a professional speaker on career guidance. He spoke about the different aspects that together make up an ideal life, the key points to be considered by a student while deciding about his/her career and various other such useful topics. Some of the children expressed their dreams and ambitions- one of the girls wanted to be a Kannada teacher in future, one guy aspired to be a software engineer, other kids had various other such goals. At the end of the session, they were asked to prepare a CAREER MAP as a home work, illustrating the path that they need to take up to achieve their respective goals.
This was followed by another session of science experiments by Vidya, Girish, Vinay, Seetha and a few others. But this was a lot different from that on Day2, as it was not a typical classroom session but instead the kids were divided into 3 groups and were shown some practical demonstrations of a few concepts like- formation of spectrum, role of O2 and CO2 in combustion, inertia, etc.
Post brunch, they got another very interesting session by Jayanth on computers, where he actually dismantled a CPU and showed them the different components, explaining how each thing works. Even though the children were already exposed to some basic concepts about computers, this was something they had never come across so it was fascinating for them to realize how a computer actually looks from inside. Finally Anupam and I came up with another short session on English and today they learnt how to converse with another person in English when you meet him/her for the first time. So this was about Weekend-2. Overall a very packed and useful 2 days, which inspired us to continue the camp for two more days and hoping to cover a lot more interesting and useful stuff in the last week.

Click here to see pics of Summer Camp- Weekend 2.
To know more about Aashayein Foundation, visit our official blog by clicking here.

HALLI SUMMER CAMP- A Detailed Report- Part 1

DAY 1 : 24th Apr '10

Well, HALLI SUMMER CAMP- something which we were looking forward to ever since we started thinking about it, was finally about to begin. It was all set! All of us gathered near Bake Point at 7.30 am and it was heartening to see all the volunteers pouring in with loads of excitement and determination. The village was around 25 km from Mysore and we reached there pretty much on time, i.e 9 am. The kids were instructed to be present in the school by that time, but when we reached there, we could hardly find anyone. We waited for half an hour more and still no sign of kids!! All of us started getting cold feet as this was something we never expected to happen. Is that it? Did the summer camp turn into a big fiasco even before it started ? Have the children forgotten about the camp ? Or have they decided against coming? So many questions in mind, no answers. Then suddenly at around 9.45, we saw a bunch of kids walking into the school. First hint of smile on our faces. And then it started.. They started pouring in and soon by around 10 am, there were atleast around 30- 35 of them! We had planned for 50 but this was not a bad number at all to start with. And from then on we never looked back!

Jayanth started off with an ice-breaking session to let the kids know each other better. Initially they seemed to be a bit uncomfortable but very soon they let out their inhibitions and started actively participating in the events that followed.
Vinay, Girish and Vidya came up with some simple science experiments to explain a few concepts to the children in a very interesting manner. Transmission of heat(like radiation, conduction etc), transmission of light(reflection, refraction) etc. were some of the topics covered and the kids showed a lot of interest in them. The effort taken by Vinay and Girish to find out the Kannada words for all these scientific terms, to be able to explain everything to them in their mother tongue, was seriously commendable.
After that it was brunch time. We made it a point to take food for them on all days of the camp and the kids loved it. After the break, we wanted to do something more in the classroom for a while before their outdoor activities began. So it was time for a short session on spoken English. Anupam and I didn't actually take a session as such, but it was just an attempt to find out how much English they knew. We soon realized they could hardly manage to speak in English so it was a much bigger challenge. We managed to teach them some simple words and their opposites to start with. Soon after that, it was time for some outdoor action! Under the supervision of Anil, the "official fitness expert" of AF-Mysore, we took the kids to the nearby grounds and made them play a few games. They had loads of fun and so did the volunteers.
After that it was time to call it a day. One down, many more to go. But we were certainly happy with the kinda start we got.

DAY 2 : 25th Apr '10

The USP of Day 2 was painting and so we had arranged for an expert from Infosys- Mrs. Sandhya to come and give some basic tips to the kids on drawing and painting. At the end of it, the children were asked to make a painting each, using their own ideas and creativity. All the necessary logistics were provided by us and they came up with some wonderful pieces of art, each better than the other. The post-brunch session was similar to Day 1 where we started with our English session helping them to form simple sentences in English. Anil's outdoor session on Day2 included some serious agility training for both boys and girls.
So that's about the first two days. Will be back with more about the subsequent weeks so keep reading. :)

Click here to see pics of Summer Camp- Weekend 1.
To know more about Aashayein Foundation, visit our official blog by clicking here.

HALLI SUMMER CAMP- A Prelude

It was probably around noon on a Sunday, after yet another "SBS". A group of Aashayein Foundation volunteers sitting in a café and sipping coffee, all with worried faces. All plans of conducting a summer camp going in vain. Govt. schools in Mysore not co-operating, not enough kids in any of the orphanages, we volunteers were trying to make the last forlorn attempts in making it work, but it didn’t look likely. Suddenly out of nowhere, one of us just comes up with a thought- Why not have the summer camp in a village? And that was it- in the next 3-4 hours, we managed to choose a village and even go there and find out the possibilities. At the end of the day, we knew for sure- WE WERE GONNA HAVE THE SUMMER CAMP AND WE KNEW WHERE!

So it was “Destination Hadinaru” from then on. Around 25 km from Mysore, the village is quite apt for our exciting project. A school has around 800 odd kids, out of which we’ve chosen 50 for our camp this time and all 50 of them have just passed their 9^th grade. Few of us have already met those kids and they seemed to be highly excited about the whole thing! So the last two weekends have been pretty busy for all of us in trying to chalk out the whole plan. One can clearly feel the excitement and the jitter building up with all the volunteers who are trying their level best to make this event a success.

Starting from the 24^th of April, the camp will go on for 3 weekends from 9 am to 1 pm. Some interesting science experiments, basic training on Vedic maths, fitness and agility training, career guidance, morale boosting sessions, basic training on computers and internet, painting, crafts etc. are some of the highlights of the camp. Plans are still on to include more exciting stuff in the stipulated time period of 6 days.

It’s the first big event that our 3-month-old AF- Mysore is taking up and we know it’s not gonna be easy. But all we know is, we have enough potential and zeal in us to make this work. As the saying goes "There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."

PS: For those who don't know about the organization I work for and are interested to find out, please visit our official AF-Mysore blog- http://afmysore.blogspot.com/

A STRANGE BUT IDEAL COMPARISON

One, my favourite English author and the other, one of my favourite Indian directors. Mixing them together in the same blog was never my idea until now! It sometimes happens that a weird idea strikes your mind and you feel great about it! So did I, when I decided I was gonna write about ARTHUR HAILEY and MADHUR BHANDARKAR!!

First, the Wiki versions-

And now my version-

Arthur Hailey is easily my favourite author of all times. I seldom read books other than mystery, suspense and stuff and I keep looking for some real good ones in this genre. I must say, in this regard, that I am real lucky to have discovered Hailey. The first book I read of his was ‘AIRPORT’ and that was it! I’ve been a huge fan ever since! One amazing book I must say. Not everybody will agree with me coz they felt it was kinda boring and slow. But let me give you my explanation.

Hailey brings out “facts” in his books like nobody else does. Once he chooses a topic for his book, as far as I know, he spends a year or so just for collecting information about it. He then takes another year or so to make up a story with it. And then he writes his book in his own unique style. The first half of his book is usually very slow and languid, he takes his own time to introduce all the characters and give us the complete picture of the theme of the book. Like in ‘Airport’, he describes each and every aspect about an airport and tells us things about it which we could never even know by ourselves. Some weird things keep happening in the airport and there seems to be absolutely no connection between those incidents. It’s only towards the end that he makes us privy to the actual plot of the book and then in the end, he puts all the pieces together and comes up with a climax which is, well, mind-blowing to say the least! Oh and by the way, ‘Airport’ is one of the very few books which are “1-day-stories” and I find that highly exciting! Anyway, so that was about Airport. I’ll come back to it later.

The next book I read of his was ‘HOTEL’. Well, no prizes for guessing what it was about, but I have to tell you, he tells us things about the functioning of a hotel beyond the boundaries of our knowledge about it- right from the restaurant, to the kitchen, the rooms, the reception, the staff, just everything. And it amazes me to see how he can actually come up with a story to link all these specifics.

Anyway, this was the time I decided to read all his books and then they followed one by one. ‘MONEYCHANGERS’ was about a bank and the problems it faced during times of crisis. And then I happened to read a book of his which I felt was even better than Airport and which is still among my all-time favourites. It’s called ‘THE FINAL DIAGNOSIS’ and is about a hospital, and in particular, about its pathology unit. I didn’t find the theme all that interesting in the beginning but the way he takes it forward just left me spellbound! It kept me glued to it till the last page. After that, I read two more- ‘OVERLOAD’ was about an electric power distribution company and ‘STRONG MEDICINE’ was about a pharmaceutical company. I still have to read a few of his books and I’ll talk about them later. Right now to sum it up, he’s one genius whose style of writing has impressed me more than anybody else (probably except James Hadley Chase)!

It’s now time to introduce the second one- Mr.Madhur Bhandarkar! I’m sure all of you have heard about him and watched his movies but might not have liked them as much as I did. But that doesn’t stop me from talking about him, it never does right? Anyway, it’s also the time to tell you why exactly I decided to club these two in the same blog. Madhur is a director who again, like Hailey, chooses a theme and then makes such a conscientious research in it to bring out a movie, which tells us things we never would have learnt of. For me, Madhur did with ‘PAGE 3’ what Hailey did with Airport; made me a fan first-up! It’s an excellent movie bringing out the deeper side of the urban life and the experiences of a ‘page-3’ reporter. Konkana Sen was splendid and so were all the other actors. I agree it did have a few scenes which were quite disturbing and uncanny but I feel they were very much necessary to give us the absolute picture and I don’t think he’s shown anything that cannot happen in the present world. If you can’t take the truth, then you can’t watch meaningful cinema.

‘CORPORATE’ was the next movie I watched and again, just no words. Loved the movie and loved the way he introduces us to the darker side of the corporate world in India. Madhur also reminds me of Sydney Sheldon at times because all his movies are centered on the heroine, and there’s usually no real hero in his movies. Anyway, after Corporate, I missed watching Traffic Signal because of reasons unknown and I will watch it sometime for sure in spite of its not-so-good reviews.

Well, now comes the ‘show-stopper’ movie !! Going by the comparison again, if Hailey : The Final Diagnosis, then Madhur : ‘FASHION’ !! In other words, easily one of my favourites! Again, I know that a lot of people didn’t like the movie as much and I seriously don’t understand the reason. I had nearly missed this movie, and much later after it was released, fortunately got a chance to watch it on CD. It was not just about the inner side of the fashion industry and the various aspects involved in it, it was about the intense emotions behind everything, even a small fashion show. Priyanka Chopra’s performance was one of the best I’ve seen by any actress in recent times and she fittingly deserved the Best Actress awards she got for it. I’ve developed a very special respect for her ever since, and it’ll remain like that for a long time to come. The last scene where she walks the ramp was par excellence. It was one of the most touching scenes I’ve ever seen. Kudos to Priyanka and Madhur!

For me, apart from their 'modus operandi', there’s another big similarity between the two - I haven’t yet seen the best of them. One of Hailey’s books is called ‘DETECTIVE’ and its supposed to be his best! I somehow never find it in any of the book shops. And with Madhur, it’s Chandni Bar. It’s the film which got him the national award and supposed to be really good and his best. Unfortunately I haven’t got the chance to see that either.

But you know what’s the biggest thing that connects these two according to me? Every time after reading a Hailey book or after watching a Madhur movie, it stays with me for a long time. Even now whenever I see something about a plane or an airport, it’s the book that immediately comes to my mind. And whenever I see a fashion show or something of that sort, its ‘Fashion’. That’s the kind of impact these two leave on me. I keep saying this very often in my blogs and I’m saying it again- I’m not sure if you people share the same opinion. You might find these books and movies highly boring. But I just don’t care. I’ve never considered public opinion and I never will. Just hope you liked the way I’ve written it and hope I didn’t ‘bend your ears’. And as always, comments are very much welcome.

PS- It seems Madhur Bhandarkar’s next movie is called ‘JAIL’. Without a doubt, I'm eagerly looking forward to it! But too sad Arthur Hailey can’t come up with anymore books.