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Sports Day at SRMAB

Last Sat. we spent great time with our kids at SRMAB. I remember the good time of last year sports day and had a great time this year too. Loved to see their enthusiasm in all sets of game. Total around 12 volunteers were available from our side to help the local admin there.

More photos are available at : http://picasaweb.google.com/pankhudi.pictures/SRMAB_SportsDay_Bangalore_2010#

Students from 1st class till 10th class were all participated in different games.

A trip to Dandeli

Its a great place to visit and very near to nature. Night journey in train, we reached to the nearest station from Dandeli and from there we have taken bus to reach our resort.



We went for various adventurous places and for bird watching and wild life safari. Place is clean and have lot of potential within.

Plant tree

On the auspicious occasion of Dussehra, we decided our full day activity planned for Desire Society. Trying to make it effective, some of us came with the plan of tree plantation. Desire Society is one of the awesome place for this work. Lot of empty ground and great enthusiasm in student for these activities.

Volunteers and Students have planted more than 30 plants and tried to follow the order of plants means memory plant at one side, medicinal plant at one side .. like that.

After doing that, one of our volunteers has given some gyan of why we celebrate Dussehra. Followed by this, they have done some Bhajan and Drama.

3 o clock, I decided to leave the place as they have to visit near by church. Most of our volunteers stayed and gone to the church as well.

Chinese proverb :

“If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people”

Lalbagh visit - Yet another

Yet one more visit of Lalbagh. Some of my friends told me that join our meeting at Lalbagh. After long time, this Saturday was free, as there was no class at SRMAB and Anatha Shishu Sevashrama. So, I decided to take some photos. Taking photo alone is also quite interesting but after sometime you feel its better to have someone with you to talk. I have just clicked some of the snaps here and there. Nothing more or less to enjoy the roam around in lalbagh, because its all a lovers place. Anyway, nothing to mind in that. Our society created such restrictions for girls and boys that these are the only place where they can meet or touch each other. Such a society called themselves as "Cultured Society".. I simply shame. For more snaps, please see : http://www.flickr.com/photos/vaibhavkumar/

Witnessed the God - Sachin

Today, I witnessed the best cricket in Bangalore when Master Sachin was replying Aussie's attack. It was my first experience of watching Cricket in a stadium. And I understood the pressure on a player.. player like Sachin.

I was all set with my Camera. Some snaps can be viewed here : http://picasaweb.google.com/vaibhav.kumar/OnlySachin

Rest of the cricket and entertainment will cont. tomorrow as well.

I wish India do great and people get to see a good game.

Morning at Hebbal Lake

After a long time, today we planned to visit our all time favorite place - Hebbal Lake. Hebbal lake is located near Bangalore and a nice place to roam around and for photography. Specially excellent who are interested in Bird Photography.

Also, if you are keen in photography but don't have tele-zoom lens, you can find out many macro subject and do a good quality photography.

Sometime the lake view go awesome in morning when you can see the sunrise and it's reflection on lake.
I rank this place as No. 1 for photography if you are living in Bangalore and have all proper equipment with you. Off course, shooting a bird is a toughest job as you need to hear her voice, you need to follow the voice and when you reach to the subject, she will fly away. But it is all fun !!

South best place - Wayanad Must watch

It was my 3rd visit to Wayanad and it is like always an awesome place to enjoy life and time.

We stayed in Banasura hotel(a view on the image) and then it was all fun here and there. There are tons of place in Wayanad to visit which includes

- Banasura Dam.
- A waterfall near by this place
- Sochipara Waterfall

and there is a long list.

Anyway, it was lot of fun. More pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/vaibhav.kumar/Kerala_P

A talk to remember

Today, some of us went SRMAB. Priyanka and Arun reached early to installed JAWS(its a screen reader for Visually impairded students) on some of the computers. I was also planned to reach early, but on the gate I met one of the students who I remembered ever. His name is Amog, when I met him last year he was in 4th class, so should be in 5th class now. Remembering old days, he had cleared the 1st round of eye-check and doctor said that bring him in hospital for next round of checkup, looked like there is a scope of improvement. Like Amog there were 33 kids on the list. Every time I took them to doctor (generally we had taken them into batch of 10-10), I just hope that at least some of them get little vision. Oh, I forgot to mention SRMAB is a blind school for visually impaired kids. Kind doctors at Shekar Netralaya every time explained me the problem, every time it was painful to hear that. I don't want to share that here because blog space is a place to write good things.

That day, I was talking to Amog. He was telling me about his village and his parent. He further added that his father was very much worried about him, I told him not to worry. He told me that some doctor had screwed up his eyes. Finally he told me that a doctor of my knowledge(this all he explained me in English) told me that your eye can be rectified little with sixty thousand Rupees. I was some how enjoying his home story.

In the meanwhile, doctor called for his checkup. After checkup, doctor was explaining me the problem and Amog shouted from back "Madam can you explain it to me as well". She explained to both of us and it was almost the same story that Amog told me. Finally madam told me that under a severe operation, vision can be improved for 5-10 percent. Amog asked her "how much it will cost" and she told me "you need to consult senior doctor but it will cost around 60-70 thousand" and we both started laughing ...


(Amog in picture, one of the brightest and smartest boy of SRMAB)

(Written by Vaibhav, a volunteer of Pankhudi. Working in Bangalore and fan of some such kids. Regarding Pankhudi, its a bunch of Software Engineers and some more .. better I can some freemen who want to do something good)

Mysore Trip

With 75 kids, we have done the trip of Mysore on this Sep-10-2010. For more detail, please read this blog: http://pankhudifoundation.org/surabhi/blog/2010/09/13/mysore-trip-with-a-gang-of-75/

Photos, you can enjoy here: http://picasaweb.google.com/vaibhav.kumar/Mysore_Trip

Community School in India.

After long struggle, some freemen are able to start a community school in Orissa, INDIA. Please visit our website : http://educatetoempower.org/

We would love to spread the community initiative, where community is important and tech. people impart standard in education.

Mayurbhanj Public School(MPS) is the first implementation of this concept. Please see the website for more details.

Cooking - A big timepass !

For more than 7-8 years, I am cooking myself. In between for 4-5 months we put a cook(it used to be we, but now its I) but soon we discarded him. These days cooks are in high demand in a city like Bangalore which is full of Bachelor. And believe me, family people need cook more than bachelors.

Anyway, there are only 2 kind of people. One who eat tasty food and other school who eat healthy food. Problem of life is both don't come together in most of the cases. If you see a typical health conscious bachelor in market and unethically if you put your eyes in his bag, most probably you will find packet of oat, wheat bread, 2-3 real juice(Tropicana, they prefer), 2-3 packets of eggs, corn flakes....and the other who believe in tasty food, items go like this - 2-3 mixture packet, butter slice, juice(yes, it lives in both category)...

From past 3-4 month, I start eating eggs which is one of the staple diet for bachelors and so for me. By the way, if you have problem in boiling eggs, get a tip from me(as I am 8 yr workX cook). Generally egg burst(I don't know what term to use) at the time of boiling. So, put some salt in boiling water, that reduces the osmotic pressure and not allow egg to burst(You know, physics has its existence everywhere). Tip passed by one of my friends Manish, as I am new to egg boiling field(I used to be a vegetarian).

If you are new into cooking field and need any kind of guidance, do remember me.

Passion toward computer

Presentation done by one of our students who start learning computer some 4-5 months back. They all belong to orphanage home and has a great passion towards computer.

How to capture a typical waterfall...

This is one easy stuff if you have a good camera in hand. First of all I will show you some waterfall which are best captured:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14028823@N02/2915924811/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/louistib/3071133881/




You will not be always lucky enough to get a waterfall which is multi-directional or different streams are coming. But what you appreciate in these photos are the sharpness and the streaming of water.

Now, this is what you will get when you shot waterfall in automatic mode or with normal setting.



Now, change it into low ISO, 100 and shutter speed of 1/10 or 1/8, you will get something like this:



I made it black and white just for fun. But we can easily differentiate the water stream. Now not only this, as it go for low ISO, hand held photo can be tough to take. What can be done for that - there are 2-3 ways to overcome that.

1. Use tripod if you have.
2. Use IS lens, Image stabilizer lens manage small shake.
3. I don't have both and so, I always try to reach near the subject and try using small-lightweight lens rather than heavy lens.



Just tried to write for new photographers like me.
Some good hand held work done by Srikanth:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bj.srikanth/BallalarayanadurgaSirimaneFalls#5443979961058945618

Dilemma with photography !

Everyone feel happen when he get appreciation, someone saying "this is awesome man". What to take and what not to take is easy to judge, if your eye can peruse the beauty, camera can be. Today night I was roaming on my roof when I saw moon. This is the first thing I always notice on my roof. It was indeed beautiful like it used to be. But today the white cloudy shades and ring across it was making it more beautiful. I decided to give a try with camera. It is basic SLR camera with minimal lens configuration. I have one lens of 75-300 mm, which is fine for this shot. Now, what mode to set. Auto-mode - no way, it will start flash and flash means moon will look like a ... umm, white sphere, no spot will be visible at all. Manual mode need a great stability in hand or a tripod.

Now, I tried the best shot with changing shutter speed. Both the image have something to make me sad.

At second place I get the correct spots of moon but lost the ring/outside white cloud. In first, I got the outside white cloud but details of moon get lost.

So !! Has to satisfy with something.

People cry and People Die... !

I came from jogging and doing some kitchen stuff. I was worried about my body weight loss and in the mean time my dad called me. He had given me the news of Fire in one of the Buildings in Bangalore. In evening, fire caught in Carlton Towers, and I guess victim counts were 20-30. Figuring out the exact count is tough these days because Data Manipulation and hiding happen at different level.

Just surprised with my thinking, some stupid thinking of weight loss/weight gain and people die in a second or if more painful may be in a minute. Our reactions were going normal day by day on these cases. We just call 1-2 friends who were living in those areas... OK, you are fine. Alright, fine !!

Subrata, one of my office colleague pinged me and asked why we don't use helicopter for such rescue, Bangalore is a city of technology. Does it really make difference ? Slowly and slowly, we have developed a great ignorance power, which is good and bad as well. In TCS training days, one of our profession cum engineer asked us a question, why India is such a big hub for Software ! We spoke some bla bla .. and he finally concluded that Indians are cool, they don't go panic on small things, like some crash happened, some code is not working and that gives them time to think and to solve problem. How true !!

Yes, we don't go panic. I remember the day when fire alarm operation call for training people and his first line as usual was it should take 1 minute for you guys to come out and you have taken 6 minutes. We mummer "chill maar yaar" !! He spoke out some good way to save our life when fire catch the building. I swear, I remember all. Don't know how much people can apply when things really happen. Out of 9-10 death in this case, 5 jumped from eight floor building, surprise , may be not !!

Can't blame system(now). Either its a loss with system or a loss with mind, people die. We used to say.. oh this happened, how to save the next accident. Now, we say, oh this happened, when will next happen !

Simple life, good life !

It was late. Around 11.30, he opened the door and came inside the room. Room was dirty but there was enough space on bed to sleep. To sleep ... he was trying that from 4-5 days. A bed, a blanket and a fan was not enough to get a sleep, something else was required...

Leaving it apart as he was doing it from some days, he thought what to do. Some people live with this "change the world" attitude and soon they released that this is a shit idea. For a good life, change yourself, live a normal life. Normal life... yes, this question hung on his ass from so many days. He was figuring out what is a normal life. Office, movie, food, trip on weekends, TV show, cricket, shopping ??

There is a big risk in becoming leader. The very first bullet target you. If so, It's good to be a follower ? Its good to be a normal person, be a leader of your family, probably a wife, 2-3 kids, who will not shoot you in 99 percent of chance. Why to lead a path were bullets don't ask you even "who are heck you are". But then some such person "change the world". Great, respect them, they deserve ! Be a good follower of them !

A beggar on road ! Please, don't do injustice with your normal life. If you start thinking why the heck he wants money and 1-2 step ahead that these people should not exist in our country then please STOP STOP STOP ! You are going to miss something charming of your normal life. Probably you will be late in reaching home and you miss you TV show. Or probably you will miss that one liner jokes on Radio. Come on, your thinking will not change their life, and how come they are thousand in number and you are alone with the pressure of office, sexy wife, lovely kids. It is simply not possible !

Thinking all this and taking a firm decision to live normal, he thought it was easy to sleep now, but it was not... probably his some questions were still unanswered.