Moments so Far ...

the beauty Mr KondandaRamu's father slit the ripe tender coconut with sharp knife made in 1943 and his son was on top of coconut tree felling the green coconuts. They refused money for they said when you have made the effort of coming from city then its no effort for them and even otherwise so the monkeys would have anyways taken them away. We drank without straw and some of the water spilled over most of us. Mr KondandaRamu's son Harsha showed the Raagi fields and Mulberry plantations and we played frisbee in open fields facing beautiful hills that are soon to be extinct by granite merchants. Some of us drank water from open borewell that were irrigating the fields. Evening was spent at meditation center of art of living ashram. The sun was going down horizon in the beautifully reddish orange lit skin. We ordered something else but ended up having idlies at the restaurant there. the beast We took a wrong turn after leaving electronics city and reached Anekal road instead of Go...

The beauty: Clouds appearing and flowing past you climbing the hills and blurring the vision one second and next clearing and giving a glimpse into mother nature’s beautiful creation. You are at such a height that human existence ceases to be visible. There seems to be no houses nor vehicles nor the associated noises until the sun sets and night becomes black do you realize the the golden glitter and diamond studs that humanity has created through its lighting system. The room with view was facing the sun set and the whole world was painted in small hills, some floating in clouds and some were little grey cones. You could jump into the valley and rolled down with greenery. The winds kept talking all through the night and chill forced the hands to tightly wrap around. The clouds simply walk into rooms as uninvited guests and some decide on condense on the wooden door and some simply give a cool bath. The flowers and leaves were in all colors and the nursery was well spaced out. Th...

Prasanna Jyothi is an orphanage run under Prasanna trust chaired by Swami Sukhabodhananda. Its focus is on women empowerment. The place is well maintained and children are treated as their own despite their backgrounds. All girls from LKG to 7 th standard go to an English medium school in Jayanagar 7 th phase and are back in home by 3:30 PM. Current funding is through Prasanna trust and through donations. About Rs 30K is spent per child per annum and the home maintenance goes upto Rs 2 lakhs. Key Areas of growth – self sustainability 1. Catering – Right now they cater to a company on airport road for about 100 plates. They need to reach out to more consistent order base and more exposure through dedicated counter during festival time. Also need to grow into tiffin(morning breakfast/evening dinner) space for bachelors in neighborhood. The caretakers help the grown up girls in cooking. 2. Real estate – They have a site of 30*40 which can be developed into either a...

On ganesh chaturthi day, an auspicious day in hindu calendar that happened to be a Saturday on which we decided to hit the road and explore rural beauty and innocence. We went about 25 kms on kanakapura road. It was a beautiful Saturday morning after the day when office-goers had spent 3-6 hours reaching their 10-20 kms away homes. It was a beautiful cold morning with good cloud cover and we set ourselves for the first random right turn after a beautiful lake. Luckily the village was nearby along side road and we parked the car in front of school with few trucks nearby. We started asking if someone knew hindi/english but people responded that they only knew kannada and telugu. We saw a guy sitting in front of a huge house on the sides of the gate and he happened to know hindi. We explained to him our mission and he asked how many people would be coming next weekend. He even suggested that we should keep a cook but we said it may not be needed as our focus was authentic rural experience...

A yogi by name Ram Ram left his body 7 years ago. He used to dwell in a cave and shooed away deadly snaakes with little stick in hand. We were searching for the ashram but could only see a patch of thick greenery introduced by three Shivalingas in the open. We neared the greenery and found a pathway that bifurcated and we chose one. After few careful steps we were looking at our reflection, then some construction but no sight of humans. We kept helloing for a while and a lady appeared from nowhere and asked what we wanted. Did we know what we wanted? We just mumbled ashram. She said Amma and led us to a terrace like structure which opened to the scenic beauty outside. A lady in white robe appeared in front of us and after a while a yogi made retreat as we were ushered in the room that had a pierced rock, a bed, two chairs,wall paintings and the guru patni, wife of Yogi Ram Ram. We decided to sit on the mat and the lady in white who latter mentioned herself as Uma too sat on bare floor....

blogger for for text,youtube for video,picasa for photos,google maps along with photos for location,revenue sharing with google adwords pick up a theme that appeals to masses like mumbai coast line and develop a story around it and do a daily update on any of social networking site explore the open platforms like facebook/amazon, think of ideas for applications and outsource using "craiglist" develop your personal strategy and execute a business plan conforming to it. The only tools in this age of collaborations are broadband and laptop and you have both of them. Determine who your partners will be, who your customers and how will you sustain your vision. simple words, requires steady clear mind with no constraints, offload your constraints to people who believe in your personality explore ideas , they hook, they hold and they will drive you to develop your professional identity. Your personal identity is intact and preserved and you will be always loved by your...

A gap exists in rural and urban culture. This gap is most felt now as cities outgrow and villages (rural folklore) disappear. It is imperative that responsibility and onus of understanding the rural behavior lies with the urban dweller. Not because he has better opportunities and is more sophisticated but he needs to be sensitized to the rural innocence and culture. The rural world needs to grow on its own.Rural innocence needs to be more widespread than before and we need to stem the rural youth exodus to urban dwellings. One of the way out is through reverse cash flow and creating an economic opportunity landscape around rural ambience. Thus the idea of homestay is proposed and extended to villages around you and you need to take care of them as your own and collaborate with rural folks for village room, village food, village itinerary and a village guide. You can also join group at orkut to further this idea at " rural homestay " or post videos at youtube group ruralhomes...

Some NGO's can become self-sustained over a period of time and then can grow and multiply. Volunteers can focus on cause and its corrective development. The NGO then becomes for profit venture but the funds are utilized for self-growth and sustenance. You can visit NGO around neighborhood and understand their current running/operations. If possible discuss their self-sustenance model and growth. Provide ideas from our shared learnings. If allowed to shoot video then you can interview the volunteers/owners there. You can also shoot the activities that they do there and post them at http://www.youtube.com/group/ngoneighbor. Also you could develop the ideas with like minded people in orkut under community " NGOs around you ". The same has been responded to in linkedin. There is a group in google that is developing similar ideas at http://groups.google.co.in/group/ socialentrepreneur.