Parinati Posts

New Year Resolutions

2012-01-03T23:14:00.001-08:00

It's that time of the year where everybody makes New Year Resolutions. Of course many won't survive even a week, that’s a different story. Can we have some New Year Resolutions for Parinati? Of course we can, as we have the laxity of not doing anything about them. But having them is better that not having them at all.

These are strictly the author's views and you can post yours as comments to this post.

1. Focus on organizational activities: Parinati's success won't be measured with just how many programs we have conducted or how much money we have in our account. But with how we are organized, how transparent our work is, how synchronized our accounts are with reality. Managing Committee members have a lot of work to do here.

2. Rationalizing our programs: A few programs like Computer Education have no takers. Let's have the clarity and simplicity to call spade a spade. There is a need to establish a mechanism that identifies beneficiaries of our programs. Here we are very weak. All this happens on a random basis, which should be more procedural.

3. Coming out of celebratory mode: Yes, we did something many couldn't by conceiving Parinati. But now we should focus on its day to day functioning. A good amount of sobriety is what is needed.

4. Responsibilities: Members responsibility doesn't end with wearing Parinati Ts and having their names on the website. They should be more involved in its activities- at least keep themselves abreast of what's happening/not happening in Parinati. And question the Managing Committee if they feel something is wrong. Let's remind ourselves that Parinati is a young organization with very young men and women as members. I sometimes feel that I am working with old aged people who are counting their days. Lackadaisical, opinion-less, idealess.

5. Diversity in the Team: We need to add members from diverse backgrounds- regions, languages, ethnicities, faiths to bring about vivacity in our team. Parinati will benefit new ideas, new interpretation and new views.

What are your ideas on these? Or was I right in saying last 2 lines of point 4?

In the Direction of Making Parinati an Organization

2011-11-02T04:30:00.000-07:00

Parinati was founded by a bunch of friends. Even now it is a bunch of friends with the size of the bunch increased. Parinati was more like a picnic of friends. This was a boon in the earlier days, as it didn't create issues of distrust and thus helped us settle in. But, now after travelling miles, this picnic mentality has outlived its utility. Parinati is now a stand alone organization and its time all its members behaved organizedly.

The litmus test to check this, is to see how strong is the Rule of Law. Parinati has its By-Laws which is our Bible. Its Supreme. The level of its supremacy in practice is what decides how "organized" Parinati is. More the better. There seems to be lack of concerted effort on part of the members in general and Managing Committee members in particular in this direction. The main cause for this is, still we think Parinati work as picnic and not duty. It's no longer is a friends-group where you can be casual. Here, you need to be organised, you need to be professional. They are your colleagues and not just friends. The moment we realize this, change is just round the corner.

We should encourage addition of members who are not related to us. Let's try to inject generous dose of professionalism in our association with Parinati. Let our love for Parinati not stop at wearing Parinati t-shirts. I love Parinati and hence will make sincere efforts in the direction of making it a true organization. Are you with me?

15 Programs: My Thoughts

2011-09-19T04:16:00.000-07:00

With the completion of Agaram's Painting and Essay Writing program last week, Parinati completes 15 programs. Many, including our members, had raised doubts about its sustenance when Parinati was formed 3 and half year ago. We have sustained... we have grown.

The raison d'etre for Parinati's formation was imparting Computer education to rural students. But today Parinati is a fulfledged education Society. Today it conducts programs like Free Stationery Kit Distribution, Scholarships, Competitions like Quiz, Essay Writing, Elocution, Painting etc. It dreams of starting and operating a school a decade from now.

Another major achievement of Parinati is winning friends. Other than our members we have so many people who have supported us. The donors, volunteers and well wishers. It gives us strength to know that we are not making this journey alone, but with our friends.

We have come a long way, but still the destination is far and the road will not be easy. Let's all renew our resolve to make Parinati a transparent, democratic and ethical organization dedicated to enabling the weak of our country.

Program3: Nagnur

2009-01-31T05:35:00.000-08:00

INITIATION, sustenance, and improvement are the three parameters that decide successquotient of any entity. Parinati was initiated some months back, but its sustenance was a
question-mark not just to others but to a few of its own members. Improvement was not in sight. But today, with four programmes behind us I can say we have sustained and improved, though we have many a mile to be travelled. We left for Davangere at 5:30 in the evening of 23-Jan-09, Friday by Ganesh's car. Davangere is around 300 kms from Bangalore and is situated at the heart of Karnataka. We were to stay at one of Avi's relative's house for the night, so wanted to reach early and trouble them less. On the way, we savoured Tumkur Tatte Idli at Kyatsandra. We were all enthusiasm personified. But at times this leads to carelessness. None of us noticed the car's rear door open only to find it after travelling 40 kms from Kyatsandra and some of our luggages missing. We traced back to Kyatsandra. We found all our luggages but one, unfortunately the most precious one, Ganesh's laptop was lost. Dullness filled the car as we reached Davangere at 3:30 in the night.

It was nice of our hosts that they were still awake and also arranged for light 'dinner'. We got ready early the next morning as our programme was scheduled at 9. Our hostess led us to Govt. Kannada Medium High School, Nagnur- the venue of our programme. This place is around 4 kms from Davangere. We were cynosure of hundreds of eyes as we lofted on the podium. Ganesh hosted the show while Avi took through the contents beginning with his signature story of 'a boy with slippers, raising his hand when asked by his teacher if any body was interested in becoming successful'. I did an interlude explaining the concepts of Binary Logic and Computer Memory. The highlighting part of this programme was our enthusiasm. We were precise and quantized. This is what I call improvement. This was evident in the result. The staff and the students were a satisfied lot. They knew the concepts well, I am sure of it.

We 'beautiful, young and energetic (that was how we were referred to by one of the teachers) had changed the wronged perception that 'software people' are spoilt brats, extravagant and useless to the society. This was how one of the teachers complimented us. There were a slew of new initiatives. We conducted a written test and announced good prizes for the top ten and not just chocolates. We also announced that we will be sponsoring at least three of the economically
backward and academically good students till completion of their plus two education. We tasted
the mid-day meals and returned back to our staying house. We had lunch and a long siesta. In
the evening we had the famous Benne Dosa. It is worth its fame. Davangere is a clean and tidy
little place. Our hosts were way beyond perfect. Their treatment was such that we felt that we had relations for decades. I would like to thank them from bottom of my heart and wish them
happiness, prosperity and good health.

We had our dinner and left for Shimoga-our next destination. We halted at Avi's house. The next
day we went to Jog Falls, Varadapur, Murdeshwar, and Idagunji. That night we stayed at Manju's house in Ankola. We enjoyed the following morning at the Nadibhag beach in Ankola before heading to Gokarn. In Gokarn we visited Om Beach and Paradise Beach. From Gokarn we
drubbed our way, literally, to Hubli on our way to Bangalore. The fuel-meter showing 'E' when no fuel dispensing station in sight, Ganesh-Manju 'discussion', the Great Traffic Jam at Mysore Road junction were the other dramas that followed. Finally we reached Bangalore at 6:30 in the
morning of Tuesday (28th Jan). A calming, soothing, learning, joyful and most importantly
eventful trip!

Program - 2: Hosur

2008-09-02T02:05:00.000-07:00

Officially, we left the boundaries of Bangalore at 7:30, taking the longest and the most tedious route to Doddaballapur. Bangalore was already wide awake as scores of thousands of vehicles thronged the roads. We were very hungry as we reached Doddaballapur by 9:30.We didn’t find any hotels on the way. We had to deal with our hungry stomachs for yet another 30 mins for Gowribidnur to come. We had our breakfast at 10 in the most sophisticated hotel of the town- 'Krishna Bhavan'. We finally reached Hosur.

There were quite a few things that made us fall in love with the institution at first sight. First, the school was constructed by Mr. H. Narasimhaiah who hailed from this village. Just in case, you don’t know who the above mentioned person was, he was a renowned freedom-fighter, a Gandhian and an educationalist. Second, there was a 'Science Centre' built by Infosys. Third, the school was very spacious and well maintained. Forth, it had a beautiful museum and Biology lab, even better than what my college had. All the tots on the ground looked little Narasimhaiahs with their sky-staring Gandhi-caps. And also, it is not everyday that the Principal of a reputed school awaits you in the scorching sun. The weather was a bit harsh.

We began the programme. It can’t get more exciting than me, a Dharwad Kannada speaker; open the talk in the local Mysore Kannada. As planned Avinash touched upon the Basics of Computer, while Ganesh dealt with technical intricacies of networks, Internet and the related topics. The crowd was also very huge around 750. Then we conducted the Quiz to bring about reverse knowledge sharing. I formally concluded the programme with my 'outstanding Kannada' and received a huge round of applause. Look people understand my Kannada!

Then we installed Pariksha, an examination-support application we had developed to the school machine. It felt nice when one of the teachers acclaimed that it was much needed by the school and the processes will be improved by the use of the application. We had a decent meal at the school, now this has almost become a routine. Then we left for our colleague- Ms. Ambica's house. She was the bridge between Parinati and the school for this programme. After having some fresh coconut-water and cucumber kosambari, we headed to Raman Research Institute, an astrophysics research centre. We were beautifully taken through the concepts of Sun, like Heliospheres, corona, UV etc. The emphasis was on Sun-spots. We also asked fair number of questions.

From there we visited the famous Ghati-Subramanya Temple and left to Bangalore, my cozy wonderful place.

Program-1: Shimoga and Javali

2008-06-19T02:00:00.000-07:00

12-Jun-2008, Thursday

Finally I found myself on Platform No- 10 of Bangalore Railway Station at 9:30 pm with Avinash. This was post spending quite an effort to bring about the first ever program under Parinati. We were bound to Shimoga by 11:45 pm Shimoga Express. In around another 30 mins, another team member Akshatha joined us. At around 11:15 the train chugged in. Final installment of the team- Ganesh and Manju also joined us and after full half an hour of debate on who is occupying which berth, we all settled down as the train estranged us from the visible platform.

13-Jun-2008, Friday

It was 6:20 in the morning when I had the first view of Shimoga. Though it is cool and tiny place, its first impression was nothing worth mentioning about. Avinash is a localite here and our team decided to stay put at his house for the next 3 days- that is the duration of our program. It was around 6:45 when we stood in front of a decent nice building- ‘Manjunath Nilaya’, our abode for the next few days. Avinash’s dad welcomed us warmly and warmer was the coffee that was served to us by aunty. It felt a little better as none of us had good sleep last night. We had a heavy breakfast. And as two of we took rest Avinash, Ganesh and Manju left to the school for setting up the infrastructure for our event.

The event was in the reputed Saandipini High School in Shimoga town at 2 pm. The team of five-some left for the session after having lunch. The school is quite small, as it accommodates only high-school. Our seminar was arranged in not so spacious but just-enough hall. We were here to give a seminar on ‘Advances in IT’. The seminar was well introduced by Akshatha. As planned I took the ‘Necessity of IT’ and ‘Career Guidance’ part of the seminar, while Ganesh talked on ‘Technical know-how of IT’. Quiz section was handled by Manju. The seminar was a success. Well, I am not patting our own back, but it was evident from the feedback we got from the pupils there. I believe in self-appraisal. I could definitely say that given the time constraints, we did a great job. The highlights of this program were the kids there; they were beyond our expectations and knew quite a lot of basics. They were very inquisitive and enthusiastic. I really love talking to questioning and reasoning brains. They were so enthused by such well fledged discussion on IT, that they not only asked us fair quality and quantity of questions and pulled me aside for clarification of their doubts after the seminar, but also we got a formal letter by a girl with 4 good questions to answer and send the reply. Undoubtedly, the event was a sort of self-learning for us.

We had completed one of the two tasks that we had come here for and that too it ended in positive note, so we could relax a bit now. We went to quite a decent restaurant named ‘Jewel Rock’ and had evening snacks discussing about the goods-and-bads of today’s seminar and also on how to go about tomorrow’s. Nothing much we did that evening other than visiting a barrage and a ride of a few kilometers.

14-Jun-2008, Saturday

We pumped ourselves up for yet another seminar on – ‘Basics of Computer’ in a Kannada Medium High School in a village called Javali in Chikmaglur district. We left at around 6:30 in the morning. The seminar was at 10. Javali is around 120 kms from Shimoga. It was raining heavily when we entered the Malnadu or ‘State of Mountains’. This region hosts one of the picturesque nature’s beauties. Even as we reached Javali it was still pouring. We all assembled under a parapet of the school as the morning prayers were on. We were all introduced by the principal to the kids.

We were offered a neat breakfast. It was touching as the school is not surrounded by any good hotels or even shops. It ostensibly would have been a difficult task to arrange for this. After setting up the required infrastructure we put the program in first-gear. Avinash conducted the seminar in Kannada and the event came up well. Though, due to time factor we had to skip some of the planned tasks and also the hands-on part. It was a real challenge for the team as there were just around 20 students of the over 150 assembled who had heard the name- ‘computer’, leave alone working on it. It was really tough to convince them about the need of a computer and how it has changed the lives. But at the end of the seminar we made sure that every one of them had not only heard the name but also knew its architecture, its necessity and also realize that after all you won’t get electrocuted if you touch a computer! The session was for around 2 hrs. We conducted a quiz on the stuff that we had covered. The response was average. The students here were in sharp contrast to their counterparts in Shimoga. We realized how diverse the kids from a village and an urban area are. We promised ourselves that from next time on we have got to concentrate more on villages.

We were again forced to believe that it was in villages where hospitality, love and concern and the idea of ‘Athiti Devo Bhava’ still exist. We were offered lunch. The lunch was just rice, sambar, pickle and papad but it tasted much better.

Now that we had completed both the programs that we had come here for, we went on sight seeing. Unarguably this region accommodates many breathtakingly beautiful scenes. We went to Hornadu, River Hemavati’s birth spot and many other places.

15-Jun-2008, Sunday

We boarded the bus at 11 pm, and when I opened my eyes in the morning I saw a bustling Bangalore in front of my eyes.

I will be writing about the travails of sojourn in my next blog- ‘In the cuddle of ‘Land of Mountains’’. Keep watching.

Birth of Parinati

2008-05-26T23:34:00.000-07:00

It was a chilly morning in Bangalore when we casually met for a cup of coffee. As usual we were debating on plethora of topics from IPL matches to Bangalore’s traffic woes. All this until we reached a more meaningful topic- Making a difference in our spheres. I don’t comprehend how we got involved in the spirit of such a philosophical topic early in the morning. We debated, and the question aroused- ‘How?’

We all agreed that IT is centralized to Bangalore, due to which people from other parts were not able to relish its fruits for the simple reason- they don’t know what this IT is? We collectively stood by this as none of us are from Bangalore and so know the ground reality back home. We all thought of taking this IT to less privileged places. But again the question cropped up- HOW?

Is it by publishing IT related web-sites, which I believe are in millions already or by publishing books which again are in multitude? But again the question- How have these served their purpose to Indian youth from a non-Bangalore or non-urban background? So, why can’t we personalize these activities? Yes this makes sense; this is how ‘Parinati’ took birth. Parinati, because it means ‘Change’ in Sanskrit, after all we started with that topic isn’t it?

What do I mean by getting personalized? I mean to visit such places, give them the basics about computer, IT, internet etc. Very importantly give them hands-on experience, give them some reference materials, conduct quizzes and explain the future they have in this field. All these activities can be carried out by conducting work-shops, particularly in educational institutions.

Our Operations-
We can broadly classify our program under 2 categories-
Basic Emphasized- These will cover the audience who have little knowledge about computer, IT etc. Here we carryout activities like teaching the basics of computer, IT, ITES, internet and finally give them information about the future they have in the field as mentioned earlier.
Advance Emphasized- These workshops involve audience who are aware of the basics of computer, IT and the likes. Here we touch upon the more advanced topics along with giving career guidance.

We have a well structured plan for all these activities and are delivered in highly professional way

Our efforts will bear fruits if our activities really reach the concerned audience. So we request you to kindly publicize this program and make a difference in your own spheres!