As It Happened-2

Please Note:

Date: June 21, 2007
Time: 8-9pm (Your Time in the World)
Planned Action: Turn Off The Switch.

For details, please visit http://www.aidboston.org/LightsOffDay/

Am looking forward to spending the hour without consuming electricity in any form- no computer, no TV, no Mobile, no Microwave, no Light, no Fan, no A/C, no Heater, no Ipod! Since I cannot force my roommate to do the same, it'll be hard to stay indoors at that time. A walk around the area will help, perhaps.

Part 2 begins here...
Balaji's speech was on a Tuesday(May 22nd). I was kind of skeptical about how many people would turn up, considering that the speech was scheduled for 6:30pm, when most of the Qualcomm-ers would still be at work(about 70% Indians in San Diego must be working for Qualcomm, i think), and was pleasantly surprised to see about 30 people turn up before the clock had struck 6:30. By the time the speech started at 7pm, the auditorium which could seat about 60 plus had capacity crowd, and more.
I was awed the very moment i saw Balaji. He was very simple....so simple that he was wearing Hawaii slippers! He looked very much like a guy who gave up Communications and a heap of dollars for his country. Refreshments were served before the speech and it was Balaji all the way from the time he started the speech off by showing a video of a couple of village girls trying to read a paragraph in Tamil- one being reasonably fluent and the other struggling to read words.
His "Padippum Inikkum" campaign has created magic in the government schools in Tamilnadu. To give a sample statistic, "5^th standard children who can read at least small sentences has increased from 58% to 85% in 5 months!" The campaign started off in five districts and having impressed the Tamilnadu government with its results, is now going to be extended to 10. The government wants to project it as its own idea, and it needs to be seen to believe Balaji's reaction to it. He says, "How does it matter? As long as things get done, let the government take all the credit". This essentially underlines the man's character. He is so selfless, generous and humble. He maintains that all his "Padippum Inikkum" campaign has done is to make some kids who had troubles reading to read fluently and that is all. When people like me, who have hardly done anything for the society, get to hear this- the effect is unbelievable.
He went in depth about the campaign. The program basically classifies children in third to fifth standards into five different levels, based on how well they can read. Each level has specific training tools to improve the children's reading skills in that level. The current goal of the program is not to make all children read equally well. The program understands that all children are not equal. Its goal is "only" to improve each kid's reading skills from what it was before starting the program. "Only" Balaji could have framed the previous sentence using the word "only"! He is so modest and is un-accepting of praise that it makes you want to adore him. In essence, each kid is compared only against itself. There is absolutely no pressure on the kid, given that the training tools are totally fun! It is designed in a way that it makes the children want to read! He collects different materials for his campaign wherever he goes. There are people all around the globe providing him with training materials.
The schools in each of these five districts are also classified into three types- A, B and C, based on how co-operative the staff in each of those schools are(most cases there's just one staff, for Tamil atleast!). A-schools are those where the staff were really co-operative and C-schools are the opposite. In C-schools, the staff would not allow "Padippum Inikkum" at all. Most of them felt that it belittled what they were doing and some of them were demanding a pay hike to allow the program be a part of the school curriculum! Given that A-schools would take care of themselves and C-schools had minimal scope, most attention was given to the B-schools(!!). There were volunteers who made rounds to each of these schools on a regular basis, monitoring how well the program was being implemented. The results were staggering, and that's how the Tamilnadu Government took note of the program. They wanted the program to be implemented in all 30 districts of Tamilnadu, but Balaji was very realistic about it and advocated that only 10 districts should be considered for now. He needs crores and crores of rupees to even make it work in 10 districts, and that was the prime motive of his visit to the US this time! He has no doubts that he'll get the required money as and when he needs it and that showed another dimension of the man- a quiet confidence and lots of optimism.
Here are some vital statistics about Padippum Inikkum:
* 4, 50, 000 children from 7300 schools benefitted from the campaign, which lasted from October 2006 to March 2007 in 5 districts.
* 92% of the children have improved their reading skills by at least one level within 5 months.
* Number of schools where more than 70% children can read went up from 78 to 2107!
The speech went until 8:45 pm or so and there were tens of questions and we had to forcefully end the program at 10pm.
We went to one of the volunteers' place to eat some home-cooked dinner and he continued from where he left and answered the questions we had for him through dinner. One of the volunteers, who's an American lady in her late fifties was left in awe hearing him talk. She confessed as much to him. She told him that the fact that he kept his feet firm on earth despite his achievements, and the fact that he's ready to give up all credits as long as things keep happening are things that she doesn't get to see in day to day life. He replied by saying that he felt she was placing him high on a pedestal and that what he was doing was very small. She said, "See. That's what I am talking about", and we all had to agree...
It was almost 1 am when i finally reached home that night. I was so excited by what i got to see and hear. There was an exclusive meeting for the volunteers that evening and I couldn't wait for it to get started. There was also this party my company had organized that day in celebration of the successful launch of the product that my team was working on. That was at "Dave & Busters" at 3pm and the meet with Balaji was at 6:30pm. So, a busy day was awaiting me and it hardly took me a minute to goto sleep after i went to bed that night...
More about the informal talk with Balaji, HH Sri Sri Tridandi Srimannarayana Ramanuja Chinna Jeeyar Swamiji's talk about Vedas, Mantras and Meditation, my trip to the Rocky Mountain National Park, Dr. Menon's talk and Ravi and Aravinda's visit in my upcoming blog entries!

Yet Another Beautiful Dream

Me and my family are at this girl's place. We are talking general stuff and i suddenly find myself all alone with this girl. She's very pretty and is wearing a saree. We talk about a lot of things, and suddenly, in my dream, i realise that what's happening is part of "poNNu paakkaRa padalam"("bride-watching" :P episode in an arranged marriage?). I seem to like her very well and suddenly we are walking(or just standing-not sure) hand in hand! She seems to be very emotional and quietly happy. I learn that her Date of Birth is June 30, 1985(about five and a half years younger to me). That seems to bother me. I ask her if she's ok with the age difference and before she could say a thing, the beautiful dream comes to an end.

I watched Sivaji Thursday night and that could be the reason for this dream. Rajni and his parents frequent Shriya's house a couple of times before their eventual marriage, and those scenes are pretty long and elaborate. Coincidentally, June 30 happens to be the birthday of one of my closest friends- very worst :P

As much as i fear marriage(s) in general, and arranged marriage(s) in particular, this dream is by far one of the most beautiful dreams i've ever had ;)

As It Happened-1

It's been a month since i wrote last. It sure doesn't feel that way. The past month has been a period of revelation in a number of ways. There were moments of fun, despair, joy, anguish and peace- all interspersed in equal amounts. To think that i feel mostly happy at the end of it all is good.
I have been volunteering for AID(Association for India's Development, San Diego Chapter) for the past two months or so. This has exposed me to a lot of facts and figures about India, the magnitude of which am still trying to take in. One thing is very clear. There is so much work to be done and any help, how much ever small it is, is most welcome. AID, in my opinion, serves as a perfect platform for that. It won't be a great exaggeration to say that the kinds of projects it undertakes are as diversified as the number of problems India is facing at the moment. So, there's something for everyone.
I must consider myself very lucky for having picked this time to join AID because Memorial Day Weekend(last weekend of May) is when the annual AID conference(in USA) happens, and that's when people like Ravi Kuchimanchi and Balaji Sampath visit the States to attend the conference and to render speeches in the different AID chapters(36 chapters in USA according to the website- possibly more). More luckily for me, they were both going to visit the San Diego chapter this year(i couldn't attend the conference because of my trip to the Rocky Mountains that weekend- more on that in my next entry). Balaji was slated to give a speech about his "Padippum Inikkum" campaign in Tamilnadu on May 22nd, Ravi about the recently launched NREGA Act(National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) on June 9th and his wife Aravinda about the need for promoting rural arts/practices, on the same day. In between these two speeches, there was another speech by social activist and Gandhian, Dr. Prabhakar Menon, on "Violence Against Women in India- Connections to the Caste System" on June 6th. I attended all three talks(four speakers) and am so glad I did.
Let me try and give a brief intro about Ravi and Balaji. Ravi can be considered as the official founder of AID. He was doing his PhD in Particle Physics at the University of Maryland-College Park in 1991, when this idea of doing something for India struck him. He sent out an email to a bunch of his friends asking them if they'd be interested in contributing money to do something good in some village in India, and most of them did. This motivated him and he started organizing CSHs(Community Service Hours- this is an AID culture to this date) and gathered more volunteers for AID. By the time he graduated, AID had become very popular there. He married Aravinda Pillalamarri, who grew up in USA, and left to India for good in 1998, and has been living 50% of the time in Mumbai and the rest of the time in the villages of Orissa and Srikakulam(AP) district, working fulltime at the grassroot level on a variety of issues. They have a four year old daughter, Khiyali. They have been acknowledged as one of the inspirations behind Ashutosh Gowariker’s “Swades”...and i personally feel that they make a wonderful couple.

sharing a light moment with Ravi at one of the volunteers' house, couple of hours before Khiyali, Aravinda and him left San Diego.

I don't know much about Balaji's personal life- mainly because there was rarely an opportunity to ask him any personal questions. He had so much to tell us about his work in Tamilnadu and boy, can he speak or what?!! He's amazing when it comes to discussing issues, and is very methodical and down-to-earth in his approach. Balaji was in Ravi's junior batch at College Park and used to evade Ravi to avoid going to CSHs! He did his PhD in Communications. His wife is Kalpana is also an active volunteer of AID. Balaji also left US for good and is based in Chennai, working at the grassroot level in the villages of Tamilnadu. His area of expertise, so to say, is education. He has been, and is, instrumental in improving the reading skills of kids in village schools.
More about the speeches rendered in San Diego by the two prime figures of AID and much more about the past month in my upcoming blog entries!