The Month That Was - in SFV

While memories of Punarjani-2008 still linger, a six-digit amount was passed on to an NGO for flood relief operations after accounting for all the ‘event’ expenses. Kudos once again to the organizers and all SFVians for making it happen. Not to speak of the efforts of Col Paddy and Nalini for the timely transport of relief items to the needy and, no less, the single-handed efforts of Ms Komala, of 301 1, to collect and send relief materials to Kodagu.

Amidst these visible efforts, there is one SFVian who preferred to do his mite rather quietly. He and his old-time friends chalked out a direct-assistance programme. Thanks to their connections in Wayanad, about forty of these donors identified and ‘adopted’ one family each in Wayanad whose homes have been devastated by the flood.  For twelve months the donors would credit to their account, opened since, a monthly subsidy to partly defray their expenses. By then they hope these families to rehabilitate themselves. And the SFVian in question is……Well, don’t keep guessing. He wishes to remain anonymous. Although this is the second month of operation, I too came to know of it now, accidentally. Early next year I hope to join him to Wayanad to see how his adopted family is faring.

Moving from humanitarian to knowledge-enrichment activity, the MC’s Knowledge Sub Committee team deserves full compliments for the initiatives taken on Bodhisatva Talks. The third in the series was on: Open Source Philosophy – Linux Study. They insisted on participants to register their names, who satisfied these pre-requisites: “Are you using Android Phone, have you ‘googled’ ever, and watched videos and Youtube…” Though I answer them all in the affirmative, I couldn’t muster courage to enlist, for fear of the speaker converting the session into a classroom and pointedly ask me questions --- and I look lost.

On the health front, MC took two initiatives. First, it launched the services of Shankara Health Diagnostic Centre in mid-October. The Lab representative would be in SFV Clinic on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays from 7.30 to 11 a.m. to take blood samples, as discounted rates. With nearly a fortnight passed, probably it is time to check what the response was like. Anyway, MC can only take the horse to the pond, not make it drink.

The second is to organize Guasa free treatment to get relief from chronic pain such as Head Ache (not the one caused by others), knee pain, lower back pain, etc. My preliminary investigation reveals that many have benefited by this – at least two I know of. In any case, without prejudice to this treatment method, I would prefer to wait for about ten days to check if those who underwent hold the same view.

Now it is time for entertainment. And one can’t think of anything better than the Dandiya Night on 27^th. Foot tapping music, many old and some new, scintillating dance by SFVian ladies attired in glittering costumes to suit the occasion, and menfolk encouraging them with repeated applause. The only regret was that the ‘official version’ ended a little too early before the organizers invited everyone to join for the impromptu attempts.  We learn that prizes were given to the best-attired female, best performers – male and female… My senior-citizen friend, Mr S. Chandrashekar, nicknamed the ‘Advaita philosophy expert’, got away with the best performer, male.

Altogether it was a very good evening. And why not, if you have a food court lined up with fairly decent varieties to choose from - Masala Dosa, Puri-Paddu, dry gulab jamun, cold ice cream of different kinds, spicy, chatpatta items, and the usual pani puri man doing brisk business mentally keeping count of how many servings he has done to each of the ten or twelve people he caters to simultaneously. Going by the crowd, matching the one at the Dandiya venue, I would guess the residents lived up to the organizers’ “Close Your Kitchen” call.