Nice Hoarding
Click to see bigger image.
This is a message from the GRT group of hotels. I found this hoarding near the Kotturpuram bridge. Nice message. Brilliant copy. I’d like to pat the back of the copywriter who wrote this. And yeah, kudos to the hotel group who cut down on all new year celeberations in their hotels in view of the tragedy.
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Mahabalipuram Shore Temple is safe.
The Shore Temple, photographed a few minutes after the tsunami struck. Read the full article from The Hindu.
Courtesy Kavitha
Courtesy Visithra
Many have been writing in to ask if the 1200 years old shore temple is safe. I wondered about it myself. Though I went real close to Mahabalipuram during the relief works, I didn’t take time to visit the shore temple. But I did enquire with people and they told me that the temple had survived the tsunami. However, the many small shops that line up the shore which sell memorabilia have been damaged.
During our school excursion to Mahabalipuram ( in my 5th standard, I think), my history teacher told us that there were many other temples which got swallowed by the sea. I could never comprehend how this could have happened. Now, I know.
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One of best blogs from a volunteer that I’ve been reading is by Amit Varma at IndiaUncut.blogspot.com. Amit hails from Mumbai and has taken time off from his office to travel down to Nagapattinam and Velangani to work in the relief camps. His posts reveal the true scenario at the field and he brilliantly portrays the human thinking. Strongly recommended.
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Donating the Relief Materials
Based on the survey that we had taken on Friday, we realised that people needed cooking utensils more than food. Many villagers had said that they have been receiving enough rice and dal but they didn’t have utensils to cook them. So we decided to use a the first installment of funds collected though blogs on cooking materials. We headed to Ratna Stores in Pondy Bazaar, a shop known for quality stuff at reasonable prices.
It was a good thing I took my wife along. She was able to point out all bare essential utenils that a family would need. We bought wick stoves, ‘eversilver’ plates, ladles and tumblars here.
I learnt some crucial lessons. I learnt that ‘eversilver’ utensils are not best suited to be used on kerosene stoves or firewood stoves. So we have to move to another shop to buy Indalium utensils which can withstand stronger heat. We bought utensils to cook rice and dal, Kadai, lids and knives here.
If buying these stuff amongst the crowd was difficult, paying the bill was even more difficult. We haggled and worked out a 10% discount on the bill amount. I wanted to spend not more than half hour max at the shops but it took us close to two hours to finish the shopping.
We managed to squeeze in all the materials into my trusty old Martuti 800.
We headed for ‘Puthu Nemmeli Kuppam’ hamlet which is about 50 kilometers away from Chennai. This is the hamlet that I had visited two days ago. When I reached there, the first thing I noticed were two water tanks installed. Good. The villagers were ealier complaining that the borewell that was sunk in was giving only murky water and they had no choice but to drink that. It’s good to know they are getting drinking water supply.
We noticed three vans with relief materials. It was 7:30 in the night and still relief work was going on.
Relief workers from Taiwan had come. These are buddist monks from an organisation called BLM who had come with relief materials. They couldn’t speak english and were interacting with the villagers with sign language.
It was time to unload the materials we had brought. The villagers had set up a sort of a welcome committe, a group of people waiting near the main road to welcome in relief people. I asked for the Panchayat chief and they showed me one. He didn’t look like the one I saw two days back. I wanted to play safe. I didn’t want a few people sharing all the goodies.
So I asked for Parasuraman, the man who took the effort to take me around the hamlet and explain the damages that took place. He is the guy in shorts and violet shirt that you see in the picture. I doubled checked with him. Meanwhile a small crowd had gathered which gave me the comfort feeling. We started to unload the materials.
The villagers expressed their thanks and I would like to pass this on to all the people who contributed and all the bloggers who spread the word around. It’s a true global collective effort and we should all be proud of it.
Here’s a strong message to relief organisations. If you are looking to contribute, please look beyond Chennai. There is ample relief coming in from the city people for the hamlets that are around Chennai. I feel all relief must now be directed to other places which have been more severely affected.
I’m not even talking about Nagapattinam or Cuddalore. Those too are getting decent aid thanks to good media coverage. I’m talking about those unknown small coastal villages. Now the challenge is to identify them and make sure the relief materials reach them. That should be focus now.
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Making the Internet work for Relief Work
One of the reasons why I chose to get back to working in Sify is the spirit the company has. You are encouraged to take intitiatives and the kind of freedom one gets is remarkable. Reasons why I love my company.
At this time of disaster, Sify has done what it does best… putting Internet to practical use.
Setting up IWay Internet booths : In Nagapattinam and Cuddalore, where telephone lines and telecommunication equipments have been ravaged, Sify has set up wireless Internet connectivity and established IWay Internet Cafes for people and officials to use for free. It wasn’t easy to set these up at quick notice but the folks at the IWay dept have managed to cross logistical hurdles and bureautcratic red tapism to set up these Internet booths.
The use of Company Intranet is another great way to raise funds. The HR dept and Finance depts have gotten together to let employees choose how many days salary they wish to donate to relief efforts. Now the employees only need to log-in to their page in Intranet and choose the number of days and the money gets automatically credited into the relief fund quota. Simple, yet very effective.
A team from the e-learning division has already set off to Nagapattinam in vans with relief materials. Willing to do relief work is one thing but giving permission and encouraging people to do so is completely another.
Sify has tied up with Red Cross to help people make online donations. Infact when the Red Cross page was initially launched, many people wrote in to point out that a company like Sify which is an Internet company, did not have a provision to make online donations. The company quickly swung into action, tied up with Citibank, to get an online payment ready. You can now make direct contributions to the India Red Cross Society.
Citibank now encourages all its patrons to make use of the Sify payment gateway to make online donations. That’s an encouraging sign of the amount of trust the bank has.
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Email:Kiruba @ Kiruba.com
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