Project LIFE - Support LIFE for Rama Lakshmi

Every year we spend a lot of money on buying expensive gifts for our friends and family. Ever thought of giving 'LIFE' as a gift to someone? Wouldn't this be the most wonderful gift ever in our lifetime?

We are AASHRITHA - A Brief Introduction:
We are a group of likeminded friends from different parts of world. Together we work for the cause of Child Education in Indian, and are called 'Aashritha Group'. Aashritha is a "Non Profit Organization" and a registered NGO with the Government of India.
For more details kindly visit our website - Aashritha Group

Although our prime focus is child education, we were recently contacted by Mrs. Rama Lakshmi asking to extend our support and cure her critical health condition. Moved by her determination to fight back and survive the deadly disease, we at Aashritha are now working to collect and donate funds for Rama Lakshmi's treatment under project LIFE.

Details of Rama Lakshmi:
Rama Lakshmi is a graduate from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad in Electronics and Communications Engineering, but is lying on the bed since 2 years. She is struggling to survive and is fighting her battle against the deadly "Aplastic Anemia", commonly known as Bone Marrow Anemia.


Due to this disease the Red Blood Cells in her body are completely dead and the bone marrow has no capacity to generate the new blood. She had to restock her blood every month for her survival, but as the condition is getting worse day by day, she now has to get fresh blood once in every two weeks. Being financially challenged, she and her family are not in a position to afford the whole process. As a final remedy to her reoccurring costs and to be able to survive, she needs to go through a major operation. The cost of her surgery ranges from Indian Rupees 900,000 to 1,100,000 (approximately $ 23,500).

Your Helping Hands:
We at Aashritha have been collecting donations via our board members since we took this case last month. Currently our collections stand at a meager Indian Rupees 50,000 ($ 1050). Being a small community, we depend on your helping hands and request your support to help Mrs. Lakshmi.

Having known you personally, I look forward to your support and believe that you would donate towards this cause, as much and as soon as possible.

For donating kindly follow these 2 steps (it will cost you less than 5 min from your LIFE)
1) Visit our Donation page (click here) and donate via any donation method as mentioned there.
2) Fill up this Confirmation form (click here) to mark you donation to this particular case. This would take less than a minute.


Please remember that any money donated by you would be redirected towards this specific cause. Aashritha takes full guarantee on the proper and justified use of your donation. All transfers and donations for this case will be made public and transparent.

Watch a video:


Please find more details by clicking here.

For any other issue, or to donate funds via any other method, kindly feel free to contact us at aashrithagroup@gmail.com.

Insight into Decision Making

A friend of mine sent this in email.. Read my after thoughts at the end of message.



A group of children were playing near two railway tracks, one still in use while the other disused. Only one child played on the disused track, the rest on the operational track.

The train is coming, and you are just beside the track interchange. You can make the train change its course to the disused track and save most of the kids.

However, that would also mean the lone child playing by the disused track would be sacrificed. Or would you rather let the train go its way?

Do take a pause to think what kind of decision you would really make.......!





Scroll down













Scroll down further









Most people might choose to divert the course of the train, and sacrifice only one child. You might think the same way, I guess. Exactly, to save most of the children at the expense of only one child was rational decision most people would make, morally and emotionally.
But, have you ever thought that the child choosing to play on the disused track had in fact made the right decision to play at a safe place?

Nevertheless, he had to be sacrificed because of his ignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was.
This kind of dilemma happens around us everyday. In the office, community, in politics and especially in a democratic society, the minority is often sacrificed for the interest of the majority, no matter how foolish or ignorant the majority are, and how farsighted and knowledgeable the minority are.
Child who chose not to play with the rest on the operational track was sidelined. And in the case he was sacrificed, no one would shed a tear for him.

The great critic Leo Velski Julian who told the story said he would not try to change the course of the train because he believed that the kids playing on the operational track should have known very well that track was still in use,
And that they should have run away if they heard the train's sirens...
If the train was diverted, that lone child would definitely die because he never thought the train could come over to that track! Moreover, that track was not in use probably because it was not safe.
If the train was diverted to the track, we could put the lives of all passengers on board at stake!
And in your attempt to save a few kids by sacrificing one child, you might end up sacrificing hundreds of people to save these few kids.

While we are all aware that life is full of tough decisions that need to be made, we may not realize that hasty decisions may not always be the right one.


Everybody makes mistakes; that's why they put erasers on pencils.


Afterthoughts:
In modern day we encounter these kind of situations everyday.
In financial industry, the bad kids (AIG, Citibank etc) are being rewarded for playing on in-use tracks (highly risky securities). The train has been diverted (by giving them huge bailouts) to save them but putting train passengers (tax payers) in danger.
In politics, the wise kid is put to danger (some minority groups) just to save interests of higher numbered un-wise kids (majority groups).
In my college days, wise kid (students who used to attend classes) had to face difficulties, due to pressure from un-wsie kids (students who were ready to ditch classes).

Subscribe Aashritha

Relation with Aashritha	MemberNon-MemberCoordinator/Aacharya
Members & Coordinators enter AID, Non-Members enter email ID

~~ Secure Payments via PAYPAL ~~

Click the 'Donate' Button to donate any amount to Aashritha via secured gateway from PAYPAL. An e-mail will be sent to you confirmaing your payment via PAYPAL.

** You must have a valid and working Paypal account to use this service, in case you do not have the Paypal account, you can still use this service by making payments from your credit card. However for easy access, we advice you to either create one and then try this service or try other options as mentioned on our website's 'Donation' page.


Click Here to go back to the 'Donation' page.
Click 'Donate' button on the right hand side menu to continue using PAYPAL service. -->>

Thank You.

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.