The White Washing day!

Sorry for the delay in posting my yesterday's activities. I usually use this phrase "I am dead tired". Well, yesterday I realized what this actually meant.

My day started at 5:30 AM when I got a call from one of the volunteer asking me some doubts about the costume to put on. Reached office at 7:20 as we were expected to gather at 7:30. Everyone started coming in from the moment I reached and the last person reached around 8:40. Two tempo travelers were waiting for us and we(23 volunteers from IBM, one on bike and one staff from Habitat for Humanity) started our journey at 8:45 from DLF IT Park. Oops, sorry guys.. Forgot to tell you where we were going.. rewinding back!!!!

Yesterday, I had registered for a NGO called Habitat for Humanity. Our basic human needs are Food, Clothes and shelter. Habitat as the names says helps develop communities with people in need by building and renovating houses so that there are decent houses in decent communities. Under the "Prevention and Elimination of Bonded Labour in South Asia” (PEBLISA), 32 bonded labourers (25 families) from rice mills in the Red Hills area of Tamil Nadu were rescued and located them back in their home village of Bangarampet in Thiruvallur District. Even though the government provided grant to built their own houses, they further required financial support. This is were Habitat team comes to picture. Habitat along with JVI(Justice Venture International)responded with technical help. They were able to get volunteers from many corporate firms and help assisted the families to built the houses. The project is in its final phase now, 21 houses needed white washing and this is where we come into picture. All our volunteers were split into 5 groups and were allotted a day for each group. I belonged to the second group and 16th was the date given to us.

So coming back to where I left, our journey started at 8:45 and most of them dressed in some nice clothes and some already in old dresses to do their painting job. Once we reached the spot at 10:30, we sort of had an orientation session on what to do and what not to do and were divided into groups and each group was given a house to be painted. Guna, Solomon, Sri, Jaci, Edwin and me were the team. Guna and me started our work with the right side of the outer wall with Guna taking care of the upper wall and me the lower part. We had transformed to professional painters wearing hard helmets, gloves and goggles. Gloves were not helpful as we were not comfortable with it, so most of us removed it. Guna did a great job by painting the wall as well pouring the paint over me so by the end of painting a wall, I was drenched in Sunnambu.. :D Jaci and Sri were all-rounders. They took care of inside, outside and everywhere and moreover not one drop of paint was on them but lasted till the morning break only. We didn't expect that we would have so much for the break.. Lots of water, juices, biscuits, lays and so on.. Well you can imagine what we would have done and so after the break, I went inside to try my luck with the ladder. Somehow got up using the ladder and started my painting inside with Jaci and Sri. :-)

Lunch time!! Most of us were almost complete with the white washing inside and out and started with the color paints on the outer. One group - they call themselves Team of Terror had their lunch only after completing their painting work. We painted, repainted and had fun in all the ways possible. Finally, when the entire house was painted, it was beauty - The effort of 6 people who are not skilled in painting but still made it. The occupants of the house was very happy to see their house beautiful (I am not pretty sure about it whether they are cursing us for our work) but still they looked happy to us. I remember a conversation a kid had with one of the volunteer. It goes like this...

Kid - Anna, what color is the paint?

Volunteer - Pink, why are you asking?

Kid - My shirt color is also Pink then. (He was wearing a pinkish shirt) Ennaku intha veedu romba pudichi iruku anna. Ennoda shirt color laye iruku... means he likes the house a lot as it is same of his shirt color.

Volunteer - smiles
This made many of us realize how important this house was to their inmates. Felt good to be a part of the great initiative. :-)

We started our journey back at 3:30 and made a stop in Pondi Reservoir and reached office at 6:00 PM. A memorable trip indeed!! :-)

Am back!!!

Hello friends, I am back!! I am sure that I certainly will keep blogging to update my weekly trip that is gonna start from this Saturday. For people who don't now, IBM is celebrating its centennial day tomorrow (June 16th). Yes guys, IBM is 100 years tomorrow. As a part of this, IBM is organizing Celebration of Service where most of the IBMers take part in service activities. The Kick off for this CoS took place today in Eureka Super Kids - Triplicane center, which is organized by AID India. For the next couple of days, I am going to update my weekly activities about these activities.

Firstly, let me introduce my dear readers to AID - the NGO that we are working with. Association for India’s Development is a volunteer movement promoting sustainable, equitable and just development. But we are currently focusing on education initiative by AID. Through this initiative AID focuses on improving the Kid's reading, math and other primary skills which are supposed to be developed in school.

So, as said I am going to blog about the time I am gonna spend with them. To start with, during the kick off session today we had around 60 kids in and around Triplicane. After a long gap, I had the chance to interact with these many kids at the same time. It reminded me about the tuition we(Wisdom Club) used to take in the village near our college. The kids were from 1st to 8th standard. We conducted some games involving math and English. We also had other activities like 'Rocket' & Rain clapping, singing songs, dance, fire in the mountain and so on. The event was started with a short introduction about AID by Dr. Ravishankar Arunachalam and from IBM side, we had Prince E Nehemiah who introduced about our activities. The event was preceded by Girish Vasudevan from IBM. Selva and Venkatesh from AID helped us to get along with the kids.

That's all about today's activities guys.. I will be back with tomorrow's activity which is for Habitat! :-)

Run for your life!

Most of you know the Flight accident that I escaped from.. Here is my story about it.

My flight was from Chennai to Madurai scheduled at 3:10 PM on 6th Dec. It was day 3 of continuous rain in Chennai. I started at around 1 PM from my home having the traffic in mind. But I reached the airport in 15 mins and went for the check in. This is where I was informed that the flight is 2 hours late and it is rescheduled at 5:00 PM. So, I started working from airport and somehow killed the time as the flight was again rescheduled at 5:30. One of my Colleague asked me to assemble near the gate at 5:00 completing the security check. So, we were 6 people from IBM who were going to board the flight.

Finally at 6:10 PM, we were called to board the flight. I was sitting near my colleague Saravanan and even though this was not my first flight experience, I was tensed because of the climate. My colleague was scaring me on top of it. :-( The flight started to move slowly and finally took off in the bad climate and I was somehow relaxed. We were sitting near the left wing and we could see both the propeller from our seat. Saravanan was pointing that one was not rotating at all. I thought he was trying to scare me and explained him that since it is dark and blah blah, we are not able to see it rotating.

This is where the pilot says that we are going to land back in Chennai due to and off he goes.. Everyone was dumb-struck and I was even more scared. (Saravanan later told me that I was very pale till the flight landed) So, the flight turned around and was landed. The flight ran for half a km on grass and then only on the runway. When the flight stopped, everyone was smiling and started clapping that we are safe. Here comes the next shock.. We were asked to evacuate and jump from the flight leaving our bags in the flight itself. One guy jumped and his mobile and coins fell from his pocket and he was searching for it in the dark. :D :D :D

Kudos to the pilot, he managed to stop near the airport's fire station. Only after jumping we noticed that everything was kept ready, the fire engine, ambulance and security persons and all. People were hurt during the jump and few were shocked and they were immediately given the first aid.

We were later told that the flight was rescheduled from the original time because of technical reasons only and the technicians thought that problem was solved and gave a green signal to take off. Since one of the propeller was not rotating caused fire sparks and the rain stopped its aggravation. Thanks to the rain. :) :)

We were taken back to the airport where we got tickets for the next flight to Madurai the next morning and given accommodation.

A thought to Ponder!

Most of the girls wait for a Prince to come and rescue us from a tower or from a dragon or from a witch. Leave out the prince for that matter, is there anyone out to save us?? The only person to save us is us. From what we hear from news and papers, sometime or most of the time, we have to save us from the entire community. I am not only talking about the teenage girls or adults but also kids. Yes, I am talking about the Child abuse. We always hear stories from our friends and colleagues about child abuse but in some cases, where the victim will be our friend or the colleague who has suffered it.

Recently, I saw a video of Dr. Sunitha Krishnan in TED-India 2009 show which was really painful. It was really a pain to see the kids at the age of 3/4 are being sold. I was wondering how any parent can be so heartless to do such a thing to their children. The other shocking factor was, it was not only a father who does, but at times mothers also sell their kids. Why do they give birth in the first place if they are so heartless. There was an article which said some idiotic father in Mumbai raped his own daughter. I felt like I could kill this guy. Child Abuse is not like it happens in a different state or country. It might even happen in your street or in your family. This person need not necessarily be someone outside your house. I am not pointing that all the guys are the same, there are few exceptional characters.

Its really great to see women like Sunitha, Oprah have come out in flying colours even after what has happened to them. Hats off Ladies!!!

What are we going to do to stop child abuse? Or are we going to do anything at all in the first place?

(500) Days of Summer - A Review

Its really good to be back watching movies. Its been ages I watched movies continuously and my list of movies to be seen has been increasing ever since. So, I started with 500(Days of Summer). One friend of mine told me it was a good movie and I asked to see it.

When I heard the movie name, I assumed that the movie will be kind of a guy and a gal who gets to meet during a summer when they are out on vacation and end up meeting every summer and the story is about how they got married after 500 summer days. I know you should be laughing now at my insane assumption. :D :D Only after I started watching the movie, I knew that the Female lead's name is Summer.

The movie starts with the leads sitting on a bench somewhere in a park kind of a place on the Day 488. The girl(Summer) is wearing a wedding ring and they both seem like they have got married recently. The Narrator says that "this is story of boy meets girl". The scene shifts to Day 1 where it all begins. For Tom, it is love at the first sight when Summer(Boss's new assistant) walks into the greeting card Company where he works. He knows that she is the one he wants to spend the rest of his life with. But Summer does not believe in relationships or love. She does not want to be somebody's girlfriend. The movie revolves around these two characters and there is one important character in the movie - Tom's adolescent sister - Rachel who helps him when he is in need of it.

The movie shows different days within the 500-day span switching between when Tom and Summer are on and off the relationship. The movie doesn't show the back to back days but picks up a random day. The movie somehow makes us believe that they will end up getting married but the movie takes us otherwise. The Park bench from where the movie starts is the favorite place for Tom. Summer has started growing distant from Tom and on 290th day, Summer break up with Tom in a restaurant. Tom gets too depressed even though his friends and his sister tried to console him. Summer quits the company and Tom's depression has made him to be moved to the Sympathy section. They get to meet up each other once again at a co-worker's wedding. They dance and talk, Summers ends up sleeping on his shoulder during the train journey back also. Summer also invites him to a party at her apartment.

Tom goes to the party thinking that he will win her once again and that is when he sees her showing her engagement ring to one of her friend. He becomes more depresses and only leaves his apartment to purchase alcohol. He quits the company after a meeting and gets more depressed. Finally he comes out of it and returns back to his original field Architecture!!! On day 488, after one of the interviews, he heads back to his favourite spot nad they where he meets Summer once again. Summer explains that Tom was right about True Love but was not right about her. Tom finally happy for Summer's life. On Day 500, Tom goes for an interview where he meets another girl who has applied for the same job. Tom asks her out for a coffee and she says yes!! Guess her name??? No, its not Summer but it is Autumn!!!

They would have finished the movie just after Summer left Tom in the park on day 488 but they made us care about what this Tom character would do at the end of the movie. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Not everyone's love story end happily!!! :)

Review - Alice In Wonderland

The movie Alice in Wonderland is different from the book. In the children's book by Lewis Carroll, Alice is a small girl who is bored and is often in a dream world. She dreams as if she is talking to her sister on a riverbank and notices a white rabbit and follows it. Then we know the story what happened. But in the movie, Alice is a 19-year-old and she has lost her father. People are insisting her to get married to Hamish - the son of her father's business partner. When Alice returns to Wonderland she has to accept the legend that she is person who slays the Jabberwocky on the Frabjous Day. She meets all her fantasy characters - The White rabbit, Dormouse, Dodo bird, Tweedles, Abosolomon(Caterpillar), Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter played by Jonny Depp. The Hatter explains Alice that after Alice had left Wonderland, the Red Queen had taken over Wonderland and banished the White Queen. So, Alice (as the White Queen is so kind and hates fighting) needs to fight against the Red Queen and kill the Jabberwocky.

Alice in Wonderland is my cup of tea. With all those talking animals, queens and to add the 3D factor was great. The Red queen's character is funny even thou she is evil - using the pigs as the footrests, hangs out people who are different like her, plays crochet using a hedgedog as a ball and the one where she tries out the hats made by Hatter. If anyone is wondering who the Red Queen(Helena Bonham Carter) character is, she is none other than Bellatrix from HP. Anne Hathaway has overreacted in some scenes and in most she stuck to her gracious queen character. The scene where the White Queen(Anne Hathaway) prepares a portion for Alice to shrink was yukky. I loved the Hatter character maybe because it was played by Jonny Depp and his Fudderwupping dance at the end.

People who love animation and 3D movies, it is a must watch for you all!!!

Once upon a time!!!!

One of my colleague cum friend was planning to leave the company as he had a better offer. Since I am called as Database(know it all), he came to me to ask if I knew how to create the Separation from the company request. Well, I knew the link but I have not opened the link as I didn't get the need yet. S0, I thought I will do some digging about it and opened the page. It asked for the credentials and I entered my intranet user-id and password to show him how to do. Well, it being the first time for both of us, we were exploring some options there. We forgot that login was mine and gave the request for the separation from my ID!!!! :( :( It struck me only when I had hit the submit button. That too I had submitted the separation requesting for 0 days notice period. Imagine how it would have been for me?!?!?!?

I immediately got a mail saying that it has been approved by the HR. One of the project manager(since my manager was on a half day leave) took my ID card and I was chased out of the building. :( :( I was really petrified to come out of the office without having another job in my hand. On the way home, I tried to concentrate on how to proceed but couldn't hold my thoughts together. After reaching home, I called one of ex-colleague who was working in another company to ask him about openings there. He told me that there was a walk-in going for my experience level and I could come anytime. I was thrilled to hear this and at the same time scared as I had not prepared my CV also because I had no intention of my leaving the company.

On the way to the browsing center, I got a call from old company's manager. He had called me to ask why I was not in office. I explained him what had happened and how the HR had approved my separation. He told me that he had rejected the separation after hearing the story from my colleague and I can come to office. I was very happy to hear and went to office. I forgot that I don't have my ID card and somehow managed to get a temporary ID card from access.

As days went by, I pretty much forgot about this incident and worked as usual. The most awaited this year's rating was to be shared and I was excited as I had worked pretty hard. My Manager called me to discuss it and I was told that I didn't get the top rating because of "THE SEPARATION INCIDENT" even though I had worked hard. :-( :-(

I woke up only to realize that it was only a dream and I was very much relieved!!!