My Musings

Amma's Sraththam - 2008 Earlier, on 30 June 2005 I had written about the Sraththam. We three brothers (Sugavanam, Jayaraman, and self) perform the sraththams of our parents every year at Chennai; our elder brother Sundaresan performs at Dapodi, Pune. Amma's Thithi comes sometime in June or July, and appa's in August or September every year. Till 29 June 2005 , we were performing these two Thithis at Sugavanam's place in Thiruvanmiyur. Starting from 15 Sep 2005 , we are doing it at our house at Karpagam Avenue, Raja Annamalaipuram. This year (2008) amma's thithi came on Thursday 26 June 2008. The earlier day (25 June) morning 1015, Padma akka and Athimber arrived at our house for the ceremony. Arun came at 4-45 PM and we two went to South Mada veedhi and purchased Vaazhai Ilai, pushpam, vazhaippazham and a few vegetables. We had purchased all the grocery items, butter, all vegetables, Vaathiyar Saamaankal like Varatti a week before. From Ambika Appalam Depot, Mylap...

9 June 2008 to 16 June 2008 Prev : part 2 Monday, June 9, 2008 (visit No 6) Savithri came from Hosur by 6-30am yesterday (8-6-2008); she came alone, as Ramesh had left for Haridwar. Today we three (Savithri, Vijaya, and I) left house at 0835 am for Saveetha hospital in Arun's car. I had to fill petrol (Rs 500.00) at Adyar. At Saveetha, Dr Muthu Sekar checked Savithri and told that there is no improvement even after applying Candid for the past 10-15 days, "Surgery is the only way out," he said, and advised a series of tests - ECG, chest XRay, blood test (Liver Function Test). The last-mentioned test fees are Rs 750.00 and unfortunately we were short of this money. We took ECG (50.00), paid for XRay (100.00) but not taken since the eqpt was not working. We waited for Ramesh' friend to come and deliver us the money but he didn't come at all. Finally, at 12-30PM I took a "loan" of Rs 500.00 from the driver, paid 750.00 for the LFT, and Savithri gave the bl...

Super 30 . Perish the thought if you think that it is a Cricket team; it is not. It is a coaching centre in a poor locality in Patna, Bihar. It coaches very poor but academically bright students of rural Bihar to qualify for IIT. For free. Shri Anand Kumar was himself a bright but extremely poor student from Bihar, who couldn't pursue higher studies though offered by Cambridge University, UK. His mother used to prepare papads and Anand used to pedal his cycle to sell these in the lanes of Patna. This motivated him to help the poor students pursue higher studies. He initiated this coaching centre in 2002 and soon another noble soul, the Additional Director General of Police, Bihar, Shri Abhyananda joined Anand. They called it Super 30 since they took only 30 students in a year for coaching. The poor students are accomodated free in the house itself, and Anand's mother, Jayanti Devi, prepares and gives food to the students for free! The students are given intensive coaching and...