A DIVINE Fight

Recently while I was on a coffee break at client site discussing US markets, rising oil prices with my co-workers, we had an additional member at our table. He is a trustee member (Treasurer) of an Indian Temple in Dallas area. (There are close to 6 or more active Hindu temples in Dallas area..)

Although he was a religious guy, I commend his free thinking mind - (Well I don't want to get into religion Vs. Free thinking fight, but I guess everyone agrees there are some religious nut jobs, who won't think twice before slamming jets into buildings or shred themselves into pieces all the name of God).

One of my coworkers asked him that there were folks knocking on his door informing about a new (Jain?) temple coming up in the area. The temple guy (TG from now) agreed to that & said there was one more temple coming in addition & they raised 1 Million USD for that temple. I was thrown back hearing 1 Million USD being raised in funds for temple.

So he started explaining things about the temple he works at, how many weeks they perform Pooja, Aarti etc. Slowly the discussion diverted from divinity to humanity. Apparently there are people (of Indian origin) in Dallas area who are very bound to Abhishekam on their favorite Gods. According to TG, the problem is not in Abhishekam but in disposing off the Abhishekam article. And people are very particular and enthusiastic about bringing gallons and pounds of Ghee, Special kinds of oils, Milk. TG offered them the way of offering 1-2 spoons on the God & the rest of it to be used in preparation of prasadam or dinner. 'NO WAY! We want our God to have a full bath in fat free skim milk, with extra butter!'. In the US, cities (local city level governments) are very particular about what you put into sewer system, including from temples. I asked him 'Is the city OK with this?' TG replied 'No, City doesn't know about this, If they know about us, they will probably slam a big fine on temple.' !!! Wait a minute, is it really temple??

The real kicker comes in about the people who are fighting ON the temple board. Apparently one particular ethnic group (from India) of people have been maintaining temples from a long time & in the recent years a new ethnic group (from India) became active & dominating in the temples circle. The latter is trying to oust out former group.

TG explained about his son who is studying in US in a med school & is on apprenticeship touring in Uganda. He wanted to take his dad's help in raising awareness & funds for digging wells in Uganda. TG had posted some fliers around temple for this, but as expected people were busy fighting bringing tons of ghee, fighting politics, raising 1 Million USD for building new temples than donating a mere 500$ to dig water wells in poor African countries.

I began to think 'Men will be men, whether they are in US/India or working in a temple or how well paid they are - no better than a bunch of 5 year olds. GOD is GREAT!'

Game of words - Scrabble, goes 60

The Ignite: The news channel thought it was an event, big enough to be shown to the world - The famous word game of Scrabble turned 60 today. Meanwhile, I caught up with this video on the youtube. Watch this:

The Memory: Scrabble :A game of words!! A game of vocabulary.... a game of language!! I've tried my hands on this game when kid. FLAME was often beaten by my sister.... although FLAME tried its best to cover up the blocks with some famous 'Hinglish' words.

The Thoughts: The video posted here, is by a Canadian (I concluded so), who visited India some time back, saw a street boy selling peacock-feather fans and speaking more that 10 laguages. The charm that boy had was hard to miss. The video-poster visited the place again after 2 years, found the same boy, and re-shot his video(posted here).

The flow: 2 Years...!! My sister got married and changed 2 jobs in last 2 years, I still remain single but have changed my so called professional 'role' more than 5 times. My dad got retired, my cousin became a mother, my friends got married, some of them have children now. I got introduced to blogging, orkutting, myspacing and a bunch of internet stuff. Things around me, things concerning have changed. I have myself evolved to different person. Meaning of life and expectation from life has changed. But for Ravi (the boy in the video), life did not change a bit. But he was as happy and contended as he was 2 years back. The smile and innocence was not lost! I wrote once- change is the only constant thing in life! Was FLAME mistakken?

The Anti-flow: Activity that keeps me busy during my off-hours - Aashritha, aims at providing child education to poor indian children. Children who are like Ravi, but unlike him, as for them life is not as complete as for Ravi (the smile on his face could not convey the other side of this). Almost at the end of this video, Ravi speaks about his educaton. No education?! But still managing such an excellent command on verbal communication, such confidence! Talent with a lack of education can indeed produce gems like Ravi. FLAME dreams again - Talent with Education - could certainly work wonders. Ravi is happy doing what he does. Is Aashritha useful for children like Ravi? FLAME leaves me at this point, unable to give any answer to the anti-thought. I conclude, he does. Ravi, totally unaware about what he is doing, gives a greater picure of our society. Not all street children are as happy and lucky as Ravi, but they are certainly doing work as hard and tough as Ravi. They all need our attention..... They all need Aashritha.

by ~~flame boy aint~~

An Aashritha Coordinator

Aashritha - The Helping Hands Community

We are a group of dedicated members, working towards the improvement of child education in rural areas of India. We aim to imbibe moral values along with education to our children (the adopted ones), as we feel that any education without moral values is as good as no education. We also aim at providing moral support and care to the under-priviledged and the physically challenged children, who are niether encouraged nor nurtured, as they should be, in our society.

We provide basic education to poor and needy kids. We take extreme care while selecting the children, who are supported by us. We adopt children with a view of educating them(irrespective of location, cast, religion, age, economic standards and physical abilities) and providing moral support. We provide food and a place of residence to the adopted children during their academic year and make travel arrangements for visitng their respective home-town during vacation periods. We arrange a loyal (employed) care-taker and a tuitor (for a group of children), to facilitate the stay and education, this helps them to concentrate on their studies and make sure that they do not deviate from their studies. We plan to offer a secondary level education (i.e. upto 10th grade), supporting them in their growth and making them self-reliant.

If you have a question as to, where do we get the list of kids who are really in need for this program? Our dedicated team of members are responsible for this and they start from their own cities and villages near by. They do thorough scrutinization and create a database of such children. This list is discussed with the group coordinators and other members and the final selection is made. The number of children we support each year depends on the available funds (projected over a year).

The final list is made official and then begins the search for a proper school, living place and care-taker along with determining the current level of education that each child has. We have started having tie-ups with govermanet funded schools at each location. Each selection (school, house, etc) is made as much close as possible to the child's hometown. The whole process needs time for quality, and the children are enrolled to school starting next academic year (from the year they are adopted). We tend to adopt more children each year, but depending on the availibility of funds, priority is given to the children already with us.