blaze

(result of some long exposure experimentation at the celebrations on World Music Day or some such, Alliance Francais, some time last month. a bevy of Bharathnatyam dancers were performing a particularly intricate piece involving lamps held in each hand. my four seconds of exposure caught a swivelling flourish of lamps, hence the lines. kinda like how it turned out:) )


PS: Got a rather heart-warming email today, from one of the volunteers who came for the event at the construction site last saturday. In this mail, Rohy describes his experience at the show. Putting it inside a cut since it's a little long.

Hey Folks,

How r u all doing?? No I am writing this mail to inform you about my onsite visit this Saturday. This is a different kind of Onsite experience… read on to find out about my experience.

Saturday being “The Day” holds a lot of importance for working professionals. On the last Friday I got a mail from one of my friend asking for volunteers for some kind of social activity (oh god!! I thought I didn’t even bother to read the entire mail). The timing of the activity waved the red flag for me; it was 8 early in the morning. To think about such things on a Saturday was blasphemy to me. But then I got interested cos it was Fatima (a cool dudette and a decent friend of mine) who was talking about this. Not knowing much details about the entire thing, I agreed to be a volunteer (Shucks man!!! I know I ought to give something back to the society but not as early as 8 AM on a Saturday morning). It was not that I was new to all this, but I had my apprehensions about this activities as this has become more of a fad than service mindedness (No I am not biased, just openly quoting my point of view). I gave my commitment and set my cells (not the mobile device, I am talking about my brain cellsJ) a reminder.

Early Saturday morning came faster than it should have; I woke up and zoomed out on my bykz to reach the destination with a very bad navigator (I am not taking his name and getting sued). So the journey itself was arduous and tiresome. Reaching the destination we found nobody nearby whom we could ask as to where the activities were taking place (Now C’mon I was not expecting a welcoming committee, just directions).

Finally a volunteer turned up and waved us to the location. Getting introduced we moved on to the school. The location was a huge construction site with a lot of hutments/make shift tents of laborers over there.

The school was a 3-4 concrete room affair. We spotted a huge volunteer gang who seemed to be engrossed in various activities. Let me tell you about the kids, there were around 70-80 of them, from 1 year olds to 10-11 age group. Some of them were shouting, a few kids were crying, a few were in their own world. There were even a few who were carrying the other young ones (wow!!! That’s called shouldering responsibility at young age).

I stepped into one of the class rooms of the school and was taken aback by what I saw. It was wonderfully decorated with color paper, ribbons, balloons, multiplication tables, weekdays and number table stuck on creative charts all over. The school does not have the modern amenities the other kids have but it looked livelier. For the first time I realized a center of learning can be mad so colorful (now I understand y crèche’s are such a hit and so colorful).

All of us volunteers got introduced and interacted with the anchor from the NGO and got to know more about the project and activities. Then I noticed every one of them was a working professional and some in the academics who had come all the way to do this. This got me thinking about their motivation, is it inherent character of human being to serve or do we need motivation to do it (now lets not get into philosophy).

The day included many activities like balancing the ball on spoon, jalebi race and other such activities. It was joyous to see the kids enjoying themselves. The kids had great fun and they showed good enthusiasm. Some kids danced and exhibited their talents. In the whole process we oldies (L) had equal amount of fun, the enthusiasm was contagious and spread like wild fire. I suppose we had more fun than the kids, dancing and interacting with them.

I wondered what should be the motivation for these kids to go to school. They live in such downtrodden conditions and carry many loads on their head (not literally). These are the next generation of our country in a deprived environment, this fact made me a little sad. Now I understood the joy of giving something to the society, how it matters that each of us do one bit, the future of these children entirely depends on their spirit. This spirit was what we were supposed to enthuse and excite, set that into a newer mode of learning. The aim of the Activity was now clear.

At the end of the day it was giving them medals (Craft Work of a few creative volunteers) and lunch. We finished our lunch and conducted one last activity, collage making and creative painting.

Looking back, I think it is such a beautiful cause that brought together individuals from different working fields to dedicate their creative energies together. It was the spirit of doing something for these kids, the innate desire of every individual to make meaningful use of their time, money and potential that made this event memorable one.

All in all it was a meaningful way to spend a weekend, there is another meet scheduled this week. So looking for many more such meaningful weekends



Regards,

Rohy


Thanks Rohy!

We are looking for more accounts like this. If you were present for the event last Saturday and have something to share about the experience, please send a mail to bangalore at ivolunteer dot org dot in.(put demerzel at gmail dot com in the CC).

Go to www.ivolunteer.org.in to know more about iVolunteer. We can always use more help!