Program - 2: Hosur

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

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

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!