Sri's Musings from Bangalore

….during this past Thanksgiving…

Dear friends and family,

I could not resist sending this to you. I just received it from a close family friend. Good deeds are happening all around us. I think the more we share and talk about it, the more it will spread, and cover our neighborhoods and communities, like wildfire….

Three soul satisfying experiences. Read on …. I think you will be inspired and satisfied, just as I was.

Following this story, I will share yet another awesome success story of the building of a school for the blind, close to Bangalore, the inspiration we can derive from the bright light they are spreading….even though day and night hold the same glow for people in that abode.

……

So, here’s the mail I received from a good friend. I’m sharing it verbatim…

“I would like to share with you how differently we spent yesterday, ie, Nov 26^th 2006. Incidentally it happened to be the birthday of my maternal uncle and my brother in law (my eldest sister’s husband).

We went to three places. The first visit was to a school for mentally challenged children. The home is run by a lady by name Mrs. Ramlila. She has two sons who are both mentally challenged. She did despair in the beginning but then she tried to support them to be independent by imparting them some basic understanding and learning skills which she learnt through a certified training program. During this phase her mother motivated her to extend her skills to train mentally challenged children not confining them to her own children. She started the present school by name Mallikamba (her mother’s name) school for the mentally challenged. Her friend who is in law school and her husband, support her. The main challenge she is facing is in making society accept children of such difficulty and funds to manage the school. She has no government support and is running the organizations purely from donations from philanthropists. When we interacted with her and understood the peculiar characteristics of these children, we felt that we can only do service to them by supporting them financially because many of us may not have the will to do several menial things that she is doing for the love of seeing light in the lives of these deprived children.

Next we went to a school run by Christian missionaries for children born to and orphaned due to death of AIDS affected parents. Here the children craved for love and affection and were so happy when my sister brought a special lunch to them to mark the occasion. Incidentally my sister teaches at this school in the evenings. We had lunch with them. This institute has adequate financial support but the effort of the missionaries is laudable.

The third visit was to SPACE - a school for Visually challenged children. A lady and her husband run the school. The motivation for this venture according to this man was the inspiration he derived from AWARE the global NGO engaged in relief operations during natural calamities. This gentleman had derived the benefit of aid from AWARE during a flood in River Godavari about fifteen years back. It was then that he decided to serve some sections of society not covered by general agencies. It was thus this school was born. We had the pleasure of being witness to some of the multi-faceted talents of children of this home and we were amply proved that these children were visually challenged but second to none in intellectual and other skills. This school’s management is also having financial difficulties in sustaining the tempo of their activity in running the school. My uncle and his friends gave some donations to mark his birthday.

All in all we had an enjoyable day sending it different from the normal routine

With regards,

N.Subrahmanyam
Dr.N.Subrahmanyam
Asst.Professor, Dept.of Electrical Engineering
& Faculty In-charge, Alumni Affairs
National Institute of Technology, Warangal
(formerly REC Warangal)
WARANGAL - 506 004,(A.P) INDIA”