Simple Kindness
This morning at breakfast, Dad told me about an incident from his childhood. He grew up in the Great Depression and his family was very poor. One day, it seemed every child in the neighborhood had a bolo bat and ball (a wooden paddle with a ball attached to it by an elastic). “Nyeh, nyeh,” […]
Happy Sree
Those pesky farewells! It seems everytime we turn around, there’s another wonderful staff member leaving (marriages, babies, husbands getting transferred). It is never easy to say goodbye. Particularly when the staff member is as much of a treasure as our Sree. This is a special educator for the pantheon. Talk about gifted! She is the […]
And finally: Republic Day IV
The future of the country is in the children. And their parents. Here’s Sree, giving us a sneak preview of one of our youngest new citizens, and a very lucky child indeed, with Sree and Manoj as her/his parents. No matter how dark things seem, no matter how many times we hear of an atrocity […]
Republic Day III: Special Mention
Given the current climate of distrust and fear in the country, Rizwan’s prose poem, which he adapted from an ancient Persian poem, was particularly apt. “Hindu, Muslim: what difference does a bomb know?” was the haunting refrain.
Republic Day II
The presentations were many and varied. Skits, dances, songs and one original poem set to music – it was a wonderful compilation of talent and patriotism. Here are some of the EIC team, enacting a series of jokes: Then we had the training centre with a funny and most impressive little skit on the power […]
Republic Day I
This was one of the most colorful and action-packed Republic Days I can remember at the Foundation. Every centre (and there are so many now!) made a presentation. Some Highlights: Here’s Sree, with some help from her friends, unfurling the flag. My question: why is it called a flag “hoisting”? We hoist the flag in […]
Corporate Schools, Part 2
The previous post on Bharti Foundation’s foray into providing quality education through the shells the government school system has passed on to them obviously begs the question: why isn’t the government doing its own job? The teachers who were transferred to other districts so that Bharti could supply its own and actually start teaching are […]
The Corporates Move In
I visited the Bharti Foundation yesterday – both their corporate office in Vasant Kunj and two of their projects in Rajasthan. Bharti is Airtel’s CSR wing – a reflection of Rakesh and Sunil Mittal’s stated commitment to social change through education. At the moment, they have set up 153 schools in four states. Approximately 2/3 […]
Nametags
We recently hosted a small conference for the Sir Ratan Tata Trust which organizations working on disability issues all over the country attended. It was a very interesting and provocative experience, with many new ideas discussed and challenges raised. We all learned a lot and some of the issues which came up will keep us […]
Pedometer
My sister Mary is my exercise guru. Some years ago, she introduced me to the 10,000-step-a-day plan, in which fitness is almost guaranteed by consciously walking those 10K steps (that’s around five miles) daily. An integral part of the plan is wearing a pedometer to measure exactly how many steps one has actually taken. I […]