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Time for a Sankalp…
So here I am… back to Sankalp and posting the much awaited paintings that won at the Painting Competition in Sankalp, Moradabad…There were multiple things that I wanted to achieve from this entire set of activities:
1. Go out and do some fun activities for the kids in Sankalp
2. Not just donate something, but have some use of it
3. Bring back the paintings and do some fund raising for Sankalp
1 done
2 done
Click HERE for details of the day…
3 is what this post is about!!!

The aim is to collect at least Rs. 6000 which is the amount that is required for non-formal education of one kid in Sankalp. Non-formal education includes the education expenses, recreational opportunities, nutritional expenses and healthcare.

Here is the plan… You can select one of the 12 paintings below (click on the photo to see large) and write to me at prashantbhardwaj@gmail.com in case you are interested in the painting. The minimum that you should be willing to give is Rs. 500 and I shall leave it to you in case you’d like to give more. I am going to collect the entire money and hand over to ASK.

In case you’ like to follow a different route of helping to the cause, please visit the ASK India website directly @ ASKIndia.org and browse around to find an opportunity.
Made by Sayma Sharif (Class VI). This one won because of the positive message in the painting, and the girl trying her hands on Water Colors for the first time. We had give three topics – Child Rights, – Child Labour and – Rains… Sayma wonderfully clubbed two of them to come up with this ! (Painting not available anymore; Arobindo has offered to take this one)

Made by Sana Afreen (Class VII). Lovely use of color… Very soothing to the eyes. The category she chose was Barish (Rains); (Painting not available anymore; Monika has offered to take this one)

Made by Irfan (Class (VII). A Very nice representation of Child Rights…(Painting not available anymore; Binnu 🙂 has offered to take this one)

Made by Ishtiyak (Class VI). Lovely use of Color… Treat to the eyes… (Painting not available anymore; Aseem has offered to take this one)

Made by Saira (Class VII). Brilliant representation of Child Rights. Very nice use of color.(Painting not available anymore; Binnu 🙂 has offered to take this one)

Made by Nazma (Class VI). Nazma was one of the winners because of a different thought she put into this. She made a canvas and then painted inside the Canvas… Nice thinking…(Painting not available anymore; Pankaj Trivedi has offered to take this one)

Made by Umar Farid (Class VI). Umar painted a question that stares at the face of many of us who are involved with the initiative… We have an answer, and we are working towards getting the answer being put in reality…(Painting not available anymore; Reeta Skeeter has offered to take this one)

Made by Shabeena Khan (Class VIII). Shabeena used the colors very nicely and the glitter too… It was a cloudy and rainy day in Moradabad and it took a while before this work dried… This is an absolute visual delight… (Painting not available anymore; Geet has offered to take this one)

Made by Shiri (Class V). Shiri’s message in this work is simple, straightforward, and very clear. Lovely portrayal of the thoughts…(Painting not available anymore; Mayuri has offered to take this one)

Made by Rani Sartaj (Class VI). Very nice use of colors. Visually very soothing…(Painting not available anymore; Gaurav Agrawal has offered to take this one)

Made by Sadim (Class III). Sadim did not paint for any of the themes, but he made the Indian Flag and wrote the National Anthem for us… We could not have ignored this one…(Painting not available anymore; Subbu has offered to take this one)

Made by Salman (Class VI). Brilliant use of color, and a visually appealing representation of Rains…(Painting not available anymore; Kavita has offered to take this one)

Like I said before too, please contact me at prashantbhardwaj@gmail.com and let me know in case you interested in one of the above paintings/sketches. The minimum I am expecting from you is Rs. 500.

God Bless !!!
12 June 2008
From the Horse’s Mouth

Scene 1:
A few hours away from the Iran Border (into Pakistan)… He has been enjoying the Rs.4 per litre of petrol and riding his Yamaha at his own free will and pace… Somehow he cannot see any petrol pumps anymore… he somehow manages to buy some petrol from a roadside vendor at a premium of course… Next morning when he was leaving the MusafirKhana, where he rested for the night, he is told that he would be killed!!! No, this was not a warning or anything but something that would have been a usual activity for the sharp shooters who would shoot for no reason… He called his parents, friends and everyone who he wanted to hear, hoping that they see him when he reaches back home, though he did not tell what was expected…

Well… he managed to pass through with some luck and was not shot dead…

Scene 2: Pakistan Border
He gets a warm welcome, is given water to drink and some real nice food to eat and rests for a while before he moves on… There is some shooting (with cameras and not guns!!!) going on at the border and he is asked to act in it 🙂 he is asked to carry a few bags across the border, but he refuses politely… After much negotiation, he is left like that 🙂 but still he does spend some 3 hours shooting with the local team before he somehow manages to leave the place after many requests to the director of the serial!!!

Scene 3: Somewhere in Multan
He is being escorted by a SP from the local Police Department to ensure his safety while he travels through… The bad desert storm forces them to take shelter in a petrol pump and conversations start… During the chit chat, the police officer asks him why he does Murti Pooja… Though short of words for an answer, he still maintains a cool and shares his honest opinion about his respect for all religions… What comes next is least expected… the police officer says that the next morning he would take him to a hospital and do that needful so that he can convert to Islam… from there they would go to the Mosque and do the rest to ensure his conversion… Though he was stunned, but he still kept his cool throughout…

He told the police officer that there are ministers, media etc waiting for him at the border and if he does not reach there in the morning, there can be international conflicts etc… Some dedicated talks and the police officer lets him go, and escorts him to the border “intact”… Phew!!!

Scene 4:
Wagah Border… he is waiting an entry to India… but the Indian officials say that he cannot enter the country from Wagah as only people > 65 years of age can enter the country on their own from there own.. Rest either take the train or the bus… Much repeated requests hit deaf ears and he is stuck, and the only road takes him back to the same Police Officer who was keen on err… I have talked about it before!!!

He is not even given food or water for 6 hours, though a few phone calls to a few friends in the capital and then a few calls to some ministers etc help him get through the Wagah Border into his own country!!!

Phew!!! Again!!!

These are just some of the millions of stories that Pankaj Trivedi could have shared with me 🙂 I find myself lucky to have met him in the evening today… He is one of the very few people on flickr, who have earned my respect because of their sheer simplicity and modesty… God bless you Pankaj Bhai!!! Hope to hear many more stories from you sometime soon 🙂

Pankaj just completed a Record by riding between Kanya Kumari to Leh in 5 days and 5 hours… he also drove some 200 kms with half a handle on the Karizma as it broke after a slip-up with a truck near TangLang La… He also has driven from UK to India on a bike, which I would write about in some more posts later on Chai Ki Dukaan… As of now, I am feeling very happy to have met him!!!

Lucky!!! Yes I am!!! He knows ME!!!! 🙂

11 June 2008
Peace for me !!!

Pt. Jasraj’s voice

Ustad Zakir Hussain’s Tabla

Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasiya’s Flute

Taufiq’s Percussions

Manna Dey’s “Aayo Kahan Se Ghanshyam”, “Laga Chunari mein Daag”

and more…

10 June 2008
random thought…

There are times when I feel that there is a very careful planning going on to take away things that I deserve !!! It obviously is God Uncle who is doing it !!! he is the culprit !!!

At the same time, on second thoughts, the good news is that he is thinking about me !!!

I am sure it must be for good !!!

I am holding on to hope Uncle !!! But let me tell you, its getting weaker !!!

p.s. its just a thought that I had to write !!! I don’t need any comments on this one.. apologies if you had something to say about it !

10 June 2008
We painted the Weekend in Moradabad 🙂

Saturday Morning: 0300 hrs… my alarm goes off!!! And then the alarm on the other phone goes off too… I had just slept at like midnight… but getting up was important… I did… Woke up Ashu (my cousin) called up Tushar to wake him up and checked with Aro to make sure he was on his way to my place…Why get up this early on a Saturday morning?
Valid question 🙂

We four were going to Sankalp, Moradabad… The same place I had visited in Feb’07… and wrote about it HERE!

Me and Aro had been discussing this trip for a while now, and last week when I realised that my travel plans were still very unclear I decided to go to Sankalp and do what was long due… So a few phone calls over the week, some bit of planning and we were all set… Roped in Ashu and Tushar as well… so we were four of us who were traveling to Sankalp and organise the painting competition…

The weather was good, the roads were good too wit a few exceptions… It did rain almost throughout the drive and at times it was too heavy to drive as well, however with one pit stop just about 10 kms after Gajraula (Reliance A1 Food Plaza) we reached Sankalp around 0800 hrs…

Found these beauties together on the grass @ A1 Plaza…

A Bunch of Happiness 🙂

I discussed the plan with Kalpana and Santosh who take care of the centre and we were all set to start the painting competition around 1030 hrs… The main centre has 100+ students and it was difficult to involve everyone in the competition, so we decided that we would let the teachers select some students from all the classes and have about 40 students participate…

We started on time around 1045 hrs and the kids finished their work around 1215 hours…

Our goodies for the Painting Competition 🙂

The kids could use the water colors, or the Crayons or Sketch Pens…

During the Painting Competition…

During the Painting Competition… (She went on to win a prize, for the strong message presented in a simple and very effective way)

During the Painting Competition…

One of the other winners in progress…

All done 🙂 ready for a picture 🙂

We did manage a riot of colors 🙂 and spread happiness 🙂

Some of the winners 🙂 It was tough to decide what was better than the other… so we did not differentiate between the winning entries.. We could not have anyway 🙂

Post this we played “Stuart Little” (Hindi Version) for all the kids… (We had arranged for a LCD Projector, a laptop, the speakers and the DVD last night)… It was an amazing feeling to hear the kids laugh together and react to various scenes in the movie… One of the best experiences that I personally had EVER… So much so that I don’t have enough words to write about the entire event!!! Now there was something for the kids after the movie too… We had prepared some questions from the movie, and the kids who answer those questions right were to get prizes…

The movie in Progress !!!

Once we finished the movie, we distributed the prizes for the Painting Competition and followed by the overwhelming question answer round!!!

The post movie huddle 🙂 Had a great time here 🙂

We had asked everyone to first raise a hand and then we would pick who answers the question 🙂 but as you might have already guessed for 100% of the questions everyone first answered the question and then raised their hands 🙂 by the end of it we had exhausted all our questions and had to make a few set with our own knowledge of the movie 🙂 it was fun…

Everyone would answer and then raise their hand 🙂 It was tough to decide the winners 🙂

One question we asked was the name of Stuart Little’s father… Well no one knew the answer, but one boy very confidently stood up and said “Daddy” 🙂 I even asked the duration of the movie 🙂 when we did not know what to ask 🙂 and kids answered that too without raising any hands 🙂 too bad it did not have a prize 🙂

I participated too 🙂

And then moved back to what I was slightly better at 🙂 Capturing the moments 🙂

Managed to capture a game of Kho Kho too on the terrace 🙂

Windows XP 🙂 Professional 🙂

Did I forget to mention that Gupta ji (The caretaker at the centre) also arranged for some Aalu, Pyaaz, and Palak Pakodas for us and the Chatney with Raw Mango and fresh Mint was just too good to resist… Don’t know if I was eating the Pakodas with the Chatney or the Chatney with the Pakodas 🙂

What yummy Pakodas were they !!! Heaven !!!

Only one 🙂 Love the way water rests on Rose Leaves 🙂

Once we were done at the Centre we moved around in the Community to get a first hand feel of the workshops…

The melting/moulding workshop… and smoke all around!

Molten Brass on fire…

Still from the same workshop…

An Art on its way towards extinction… The artist spends about 4-5 hours on every piece and gets around Rs. 50 per piece…

From the electroplating workshop…

Did not even realise how the time flew by and it was already 1645 hours when we started back for Delhi!!! All in All a wonderful day, an experience which words cannot express, and a feeling of satisfaction…

We have brought back the winning entries from the painting competition and the plan is to sell them with support from Online friends, and people we can reach via other mediums too… In one of my next posts I am going to post the paintings and if you are interested in buying one of them please do write to me @ prashantbhardwaj@gmail.com. I am currently in the process of finding out a place where I can get them framed for a decent price.

More about Sankalp:

Sankalp is an initiative of ASK (ASKINDIA.ORG) which aims at providing educating to the children who are involved in Child Labour in Moradabad… An initiative that is not 500+ children strong and going strong with its committed workforce… The teachers for the schools also come from the local community itself, and hence help the educated local women as well.

You can read more about Sankalp, ASK and my previous visit by clicking the following links:

ASK

Sankalp on ASK Website (The page also has a few photo essays that I did the last time I visited Sankalp)

My earlier visit to Sankalp (http://rightmore.blogspot.com/2007/02/ask-me-how.html)

Pictures from Sankalp and Moradabad (http://flickr.com/photos/prashantbhardwaj_ut/sets/72157594564953401/)

My last picture of the day 🙂 All smiles… all happiness 🙂 All Funn !!! Loved it !!!

9 June 2008
What WE (might) want…

Lives have become so mechanical these days…

Conversations have translated to monologues where one speaks, other listens, and when the monologue is over, the other one is allowed to speak… And if there is no agenda, there are no conversations…

Your expressions are dependent on time-tables and distances…

The amount of talking is a function of how good or bad your day at office was…

The amount of attention you need is in direct proportion to how busy one is…

And more and more…

But that’s not what I really wanted to write about… A few days back one of my friends had asked me, “Prashant, what makes a man feel superior?” Initially I did not get the question, however further discussion revealed that the question was around what a man feel good about and will make him feel better than peers…
We talked about better salary, better communication skills, better skins ( yes ! as per her more and more men are buying fairness creams and other cosmetics these days… she even shared some statistics with me), a nicer looking girlfriend and so on and so forth…

The conversation was over but the thought stayed… After all, what is it that men really want…? Here are a few things that we want… Now this list is basis my interactions with friends, strangers, myself etc etc and is not necessarily a complete list… can never be one anyway… but an honest attempt to write down a few things, that I feel are necessary…
Please agree, disagree, ignore, react, as per you like… (Oh and most of these are what we want from women…)

What Men want?

1. Wear a seat belt when you are at the co-driver seat…
2. Be concerned about safety, but not hyper about it…
3. When you say you love, show it… No, not prove it, but show it… and explicitly, most men don’t read hints very well, though they are good at reading between lines…
4. Show confidence in your man…at least once in 3 days… It boosts his willingness to be with you like crazy…
5. Let him speak too… We might not be the best listeners or speakers, but we still like to be heard and talked to…
6. Don’t do something just after he complained about you not doing it… You might think you are doing it with genuine feelings, but he, more often than not, would think that you have been forced into it…
7. Don’t make I love you, just one of the sentences in your conversations…
8. If he is far away, show concern about his well being but know before the concerns start tilting towards pestering…
9. Hug from behind when he is least expecting it…
10. Let conversations be like conversations, and not like emails… where you write an email, wait for a response and the other one writes back etc etc… Leave office in office and let home and personal life be that way…
11. Send an eCard… (Greetings are great to share… nothing beats a handwritten note… and nothing will EVER beat it either, so if you can send that handwritten note… it WOULD be great)
12. Offer to drive him around one day…
13. When you are in a party, and have too many people to deal with… Once in a while, which can be 1 time in 30 minutes… make eye contact with him… Come and hold his hand or pat him on the shoulder or do something that tells him you are there…
14. Show respect… If you don’t have anything that you can respect in your man, too bad!!! You probably made a mistake when you got with him, or this is high time that you do something about it…
15. Don’t ask him how the food tastes… if its ok, he would not say anything… If it’s bad, he would still eat… but if its good and he was hungry… He would silently thank God for you being in his life… some of us might even give a compliment 🙂 Actually on second thoughts, most of us would compliment 🙂
16. Talk to his parents… or someone he is close to… Your comfort level with his close ones increases his comfort and his faith in you a lot…
17. Know how to change a flat tyre… Though he would be ok doing it for you, but you still need to open the boot and hand him one of the tools… Do it together 🙂 You never know changing tyres can be funn too…
18. Buy him his favorite candy at times…
19. Once in a while treat him like a kid… It gets too tiring to be an adult all the time…
20. FLIRT with him….

Will stop here!!! Though there are more that I can think of… but the list would become boring (it might already be)…

I just read this post again… Felt that Men can also do a lot of things that we expect women to do !!! I should take a note 🙂

One of my friends said to me after she read this – I want a lot of these from my Man too ! I wish her luck 🙂 and am sure she would get all she wants !!!

I guess on a basic level all of us still want the smaller things in life to make ourselves happy, and these smaller things we preach and and still miss out on all the time !!! God bless you and me and everyone and give us enough opportunities to do the smaller nothings in your life for your man or woman !!!

5 June 2008
Input – Output

The apples were a little too red to be real… I thought I should keep a record 🙂

Jelly always makes a nice object to click 🙂 and eat of-course 🙂

And the Yummo Coldie Coldie Custard… Fulll of Stuff and Taste !!!!

4 June 2008
चाय की दुकान पर मीठे की बहार

I might be a sucker for a few things but some I do well… and one of those is

1. Making Custard and Jelly… Primitive for the chefs and cooks all around, but more like a Bharat Ratna for someone like me 🙂 so dinner, and lunch tomorrow would have some custard and Jelly for Dessert… Care to Share?

2. and the second one is my favorite Cold pasta salad… I have pasta sauce for it today and I have the same veggies again 🙂 but no fotos 🙂 Looked around for pineapple, but did not find it anywhere 🙁 I am sure I did not look enough !!! Lazy ass !!

Oh and the pasta is different today as well… Not using Penne but Spirali…

Off to the kitchen now 🙂 a whole lot of work to do !!

3 June 2008
Trick Question…

3 June 2008
white white face dekhe…

I think being emotional about some people is one the best ways to fukk up your life…

I seem to be reaching the day when someone would give me a graduate degree in making a complete fool out of myself with people!!!

Neva mind…

Thankfully…

White white face dekhe, dilwa beating fast sasura chance maare re !!!
Oh very happy in my heart, dill dance maare re !!!

Dil dance maare dance maare daaance maare re !!!

I have heard this song for like 10 times already… and looks like this is going to be a part of the amazing list of Chichora songs !!!

Life is not that bad afterall !!!

Oh wait…

tohra dil ke threatre ma, dil deewana booooking advance maange re !!!

Oh very happy in my heart !!! dil dance maare re !!!

On a serious note,

I need to get back to the usual self !!! It should not be that difficult, eh! After all its just me that I am trying to be !

3 June 2008