Bangalore Rising

This desire to not let the ball drop is egging us on. This time,  Ramanan  & I went over to Prerana's office last evening. Prerana (introduced to me by both  Madhulika  and Kab) is an NGO that is doing yeoman service in educating meritorious students from financially disadvantaged families. The idea was to meet Mr. Pramod Kulkarni who founded Prerana over a decade ago in Banashankari, Bangalore, to figure out ways we could work togeth er. We came back with loads of ideas, dos and don'ts, and enormous respect for the man who is quite literally building lives and giving hopes to talented youngsters.  I won't bore you with the details of our conversation, but we now have some good inputs to start the organisation we desire to start, helping disadvantaged children get education - a slight departure from Prerana's focus on meritorious students. Three girls who are finishing their 12th grade thanks to Prerana happened to be at the Prerana office.

I had to write this. And share. I am truly tormented. Our cook Subramaniam, who has been with us for nearly eight years, is a nice, quiet man. He lives with his mother, wife and three kids. The oldest, a girl, is starting her final year of B of Comp App degree program, and the second, also a girl, will start her 12th grade, come April.  Like a lot of people of his ilk, he struggles to make ends meet, primarily due to mounting school fees (about 1.8L this year). We do cover some of those fees, to relieve some of his financial burden. The second child is especially bright, and we would hate to see her drop out to take up some menial job. The last couple of weeks have been particularly odd though. Shanthi noticed that Subramaniam was forgetful; his quality was inconsistent, and seemed too lost. So today, since I stayed back home first half to tend to my mother who has been somewhat under the weather, I met him after a very long time. As he was walking out, I enquired like I usuall