Tejas loves nature
My kutty Tejas is such a nature lover. He blends himself with nature whenever we go on short trips. Couple of weeks back we had gone to Erode. Our destination was Vallaeswara temple by the river cauvery. What a scenic place. Tejas and I headed to take bath in the river and we spotted a lot of snails on the way. Tejas happily kept counting the snails... after a full 2-3hours bath, reluctantly tejas and I headed towards the temple. This time the snails were missing. Teju asked me "Amma where are the snails" I said..."it is afternoon na they would have gone home for a nap" he gave me a jocular look and said "Ammmma, what are you saying, snails carry their home in the back ma" I was awestruck by his instant reply.... I guess he is showing signs of intelligence which I don't think I ever had as a 3 year old child.... well even as an adult I guess :)
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Random thoughts that occured to me when I visited a home for children in Avinashi, Coimbatore, India. SEED. (Society for Education Empowerement and Development)
I wanted to take some time and blog about my visit to this home in Avinashi called SEED, run by a very humble person called Kalarani. She was known to my husband through some contact and I have in past collected some donations and clothes for the inmates of the children's home Samathanam.
I was wanting to visit this place for sometime now but was never in any of my top priotity activity to say it simple I was just lazy to plan my trip. This weeked I decided to hitch with my husband on his trust work to Erode and he suggested it would be easy for me to visit home from there, that sounded like a good idea and I went along. I had taken some of my son's old clothes. Saturday night, me and my son did a night over at SEED while my husband drove with friends to tirupur.
Sunday morning... I have been to orphanages or homes run for children before but I have never experienced anything like what I saw in SEED. The children looked bright in nice clothes I had to pull out slightly torn dresses from the old clothes I had brought for them. I felt a bit bad about myself. I din't even take the effort to stick some of the open threads before giving it. I made it a point to stick old clothes before giving it to someone else. Instead of asking them to stich it and use.
It is a home for girl children and the age range is between 1 year and 16 years.... the girls were all busy bathing, helping each other in washing... the slightly older ones were ordering the younger girls. In fact one older girl must be 10 -12 years old gave a wack to a 3 year old I was a little irritated why is she hitting this little one... but after 10 mins the little one had oil applied in her hair neatly partitioned, with 2 pony tails and clips and bands to match. And I realized slightly older girls took responsibility of the younger ones. And they were very genuine in expressing their love for each other.
The home had a well scheduled day activity, I saw a chart on the board which had a food eating schedule. Sunday: Mummy Day, Monday: helping day, Tuesday: sharing day and so on... I was curious and I enquired one of the girls while we had out morning breakfast (breakfast was very good too) she told me that in the night we will follow this schedule... mummy day is when amma feeds us all (the girls call Kala the person who runs this home amma), helping day is when 2 children sit opposite to feed each other. likewise there is group day, silent day, moon light dinner day. I spoke with kala about this and she told me how each children look forward for the mummy day. And invariably they cook more on mummy day. it takes about 4 hours for childern to complete dinner on mummy day.
Students from nearby college had come to do some activity along with the children. The children were asked to speak, sing, or do anything related to Independence day. I was super impressed by the speeches given by the children what oratory skills, what confidence, what indepth idealogies about independence... None of them stopped by talking about just freedom struggle, they quoted current situation, G8 summit, problems that needs to be addressed. One of the kid who one the first prize asked other inmates to promise we will be a bunch of children who will make a difference to this society. I did have tears in my eyes when she finished her speech.
Among the girls there is just one boy. A brother and sister who were rescued from roadside. The girl was the oldest about 4 years and the boy was about 8months old. Their mother was a menatlly challeged living on the roadside almost clueless of whats happening to her. A doctor had taken time to have a conversation with this girl and had informed seed about it. This boy anand is about 4 years old now. He wants Kala amma to feed him. While the kids were ready to have their afternoon meal I was serving them along with kala and other teacher and helpers. This boy refused to eat and was waiting for amma to feed him. I asked him anand can I feed you... he din't say anything so I went to wash my hands but when I came back he was looking upset... i sat next to him and he refused to look up... he wanted his amma only to feed him. Some where in my mind I had this thought he will accept even if I feed him maybe because he is in a home... but his friction to me made me think of my son... he would'nt let anyone feed him when I am around... so is anand possessive about his relationship with amma.
In a post lunch conversation I asked one of the kids to 'break the ice' the usual question "who is your favorite hero?" and the answer was "nobody" we don't like watching movies that are unrealistic. We do watch movies but only if amma says it is a good movie for children to watch otherwise we stick to playing and other cultural activites like dance, singing etc. Just then I remembered some of the nice songs they sang about India and Independence.
The image about kala grew multifolds higher than what I had. Infact I told her I doubt if I can bring up my only son to the standard of life she is offering to the kids at samathanam children's home.
What more she actually works to meet her personal expense. Previously she was making phenoyl and seeling it to houses nearby which was time consuming but she wanted to do it and not live out of donations made for SEED. Once a person from chennai silks had come over to the home and they offered to help her with her personal expense.... well it was not a donation but one of their units buy phenoly from her. Now she makes the phenoly and sells it to them and that saves her time to be more focused on SEED related activities. It was worth every minute. I attended their prayer time, play time, etc etc. The day felt too short. I will post some of the pictures by this week... I really miss the little rajamani... I have a son who is as old as her but she kept calling me akka :)
I wanted to take some time and blog about my visit to this home in Avinashi called SEED, run by a very humble person called Kalarani. She was known to my husband through some contact and I have in past collected some donations and clothes for the inmates of the children's home Samathanam.
I was wanting to visit this place for sometime now but was never in any of my top priotity activity to say it simple I was just lazy to plan my trip. This weeked I decided to hitch with my husband on his trust work to Erode and he suggested it would be easy for me to visit home from there, that sounded like a good idea and I went along. I had taken some of my son's old clothes. Saturday night, me and my son did a night over at SEED while my husband drove with friends to tirupur.
Sunday morning... I have been to orphanages or homes run for children before but I have never experienced anything like what I saw in SEED. The children looked bright in nice clothes I had to pull out slightly torn dresses from the old clothes I had brought for them. I felt a bit bad about myself. I din't even take the effort to stick some of the open threads before giving it. I made it a point to stick old clothes before giving it to someone else. Instead of asking them to stich it and use.
It is a home for girl children and the age range is between 1 year and 16 years.... the girls were all busy bathing, helping each other in washing... the slightly older ones were ordering the younger girls. In fact one older girl must be 10 -12 years old gave a wack to a 3 year old I was a little irritated why is she hitting this little one... but after 10 mins the little one had oil applied in her hair neatly partitioned, with 2 pony tails and clips and bands to match. And I realized slightly older girls took responsibility of the younger ones. And they were very genuine in expressing their love for each other.
The home had a well scheduled day activity, I saw a chart on the board which had a food eating schedule. Sunday: Mummy Day, Monday: helping day, Tuesday: sharing day and so on... I was curious and I enquired one of the girls while we had out morning breakfast (breakfast was very good too) she told me that in the night we will follow this schedule... mummy day is when amma feeds us all (the girls call Kala the person who runs this home amma), helping day is when 2 children sit opposite to feed each other. likewise there is group day, silent day, moon light dinner day. I spoke with kala about this and she told me how each children look forward for the mummy day. And invariably they cook more on mummy day. it takes about 4 hours for childern to complete dinner on mummy day.
Students from nearby college had come to do some activity along with the children. The children were asked to speak, sing, or do anything related to Independence day. I was super impressed by the speeches given by the children what oratory skills, what confidence, what indepth idealogies about independence... None of them stopped by talking about just freedom struggle, they quoted current situation, G8 summit, problems that needs to be addressed. One of the kid who one the first prize asked other inmates to promise we will be a bunch of children who will make a difference to this society. I did have tears in my eyes when she finished her speech.
Among the girls there is just one boy. A brother and sister who were rescued from roadside. The girl was the oldest about 4 years and the boy was about 8months old. Their mother was a menatlly challeged living on the roadside almost clueless of whats happening to her. A doctor had taken time to have a conversation with this girl and had informed seed about it. This boy anand is about 4 years old now. He wants Kala amma to feed him. While the kids were ready to have their afternoon meal I was serving them along with kala and other teacher and helpers. This boy refused to eat and was waiting for amma to feed him. I asked him anand can I feed you... he din't say anything so I went to wash my hands but when I came back he was looking upset... i sat next to him and he refused to look up... he wanted his amma only to feed him. Some where in my mind I had this thought he will accept even if I feed him maybe because he is in a home... but his friction to me made me think of my son... he would'nt let anyone feed him when I am around... so is anand possessive about his relationship with amma.
In a post lunch conversation I asked one of the kids to 'break the ice' the usual question "who is your favorite hero?" and the answer was "nobody" we don't like watching movies that are unrealistic. We do watch movies but only if amma says it is a good movie for children to watch otherwise we stick to playing and other cultural activites like dance, singing etc. Just then I remembered some of the nice songs they sang about India and Independence.
The image about kala grew multifolds higher than what I had. Infact I told her I doubt if I can bring up my only son to the standard of life she is offering to the kids at samathanam children's home.
What more she actually works to meet her personal expense. Previously she was making phenoyl and seeling it to houses nearby which was time consuming but she wanted to do it and not live out of donations made for SEED. Once a person from chennai silks had come over to the home and they offered to help her with her personal expense.... well it was not a donation but one of their units buy phenoly from her. Now she makes the phenoly and sells it to them and that saves her time to be more focused on SEED related activities. It was worth every minute. I attended their prayer time, play time, etc etc. The day felt too short. I will post some of the pictures by this week... I really miss the little rajamani... I have a son who is as old as her but she kept calling me akka :)
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