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Handwritten Postcard Tributes for Former President APJ Abdul Kalam……

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Handwritten Postcard Tributes for Former President APJ Abdul Kalam

File photo of former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam.

On the 84th birth anniversary of former President Abdul Kalam, a nonprofit organisation has hit upon an unique idea to pay tribute to the late ‘Missile Man of India’ through handwritten postcards.

The Kochi-based LetterFarms, a community art project is inviting people from all walks of life to participate in a project where they pen handwritten postcards expressing their sentiments about the late President.

The campaign ‘dearkalamsir’ aims to create an anthology of postcards.

“The campaign has been launched today and we aim to reach and get letters from across all the 30 states of the country. This event will finally culminate on the first death anniversary of Dr Kalam on July 27, 2016,” Jubie John of LetterFarms, a Kochi-based NGO said.

The campaign aims to call on students, corporate, celebrities to send to pick up a simple postcard and add their unique voice in form of a letter or a drawing or a sketch or a poem.

“Even though we live in a digital age where communication is ruled by technology, yet a handwritten note is still the most impactful way to communicate” Jubie said.

“We are leveraging on people’s handwritten power for creating  a tribute in a very personal way, making Dr Kalam the only public leader for whom such a people-powered movement was ever created,” Jubie said.

The campaign aims to reach to a number of 84,000 postcards in the first 84 days. An expected number of 10 lakh students will participate in the first phase of the campaign.

“The campaign is divided in to two phases. First being the mobilisation phase. Right now students and corporate from 22 states have come on board we are expecting to get a good response from all the 30 states. Second phase is essentially exhibiting the best of the best messages, illustrations and creative pursuits of people who have sent the post cards,” Jubie said.

The NGO, which was set up a year ago says it plans, through on-ground and online efforts to create a hybrid of online and offline tributes to President Kalam.

“Our aim is to equally engage the rich and the poor, the rural and the urban, the online and the offline, the young and the old – literally everyone. We’re thrilled to see the amazing handwork of people on a simple postcard and how it’s indeed as unique as their figure prints” Saji Mathew, co-founder of LetterFarms said.

Source….www.ndtv.com

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For The Love of Birds: This Chennai Man Feeds 2,000 Parrots Every Day….

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For The Love of Birds: This Chennai Man Feeds 2,000 Parrots Every Day

C Sekar serves thirty kilos of rice to the parrots who have been visiting his place since the last 25 years.

CHENNAI:  The dilapidated terrace of camera mechanic C Sekar in Chennai turns into a dining hall for around 2,000 parrots every day.

Every morning and evening, Mr Sekar arranges several rows of wooden planks and serves thirty kilos of rice to the birds who have been visiting his place since the last 25 years.

The 62-year-old owner of Camera House says, “What are we going to take back even if we earn a lot? This is just a service for these living creatures. This gives me lot of spiritual satisfaction”.

Mr Sekar avoids travelling out of the city for the love of these visitors. During unavoidable circumstances, he returns on the same day.

“Once, we had arranged my friend to feed the birds. But they just did not land to eat. They are sharp and they know me. Since then, I don’t travel at all,” he said.

Mr Sekar, who spends around five hours every day to feed these parrots, has little time left for camera repair work. The 62-year-old said he has pledged around 20 sovereigns of his wife’s gold to feed the birds.

He spends 40 per cent of his income to provide food to these birds. On days when he earns good money, the parrots get a special treat. “I feed them American baby corn and guava on days I make good money,” he told NDTV.

However, the 45-year-old house, where he lives on rent, is up for sale. Not willing to abandon these birds, Mr Sekar wants to sell a vintage collection of 4000 cameras to raise money so that he can buy the property.

Mr Sekar says he has the total support of his family.

Source….www.ndtv.com
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“உறவுகள் பற்றி ஒரு பதிவு … சிந்திக்க வேண்டிய ஒன்று … கசப்பான உண்மை …”

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அண்ணன், தம்பி, அக்கா, தங்கை, சின்ன அண்ணன், பெரிய அண்ணன், சின்ன அக்கா, 
பெரிய அக்கா, சித்தப்பா, பெரியப்பா, அத்தை, மாமா, மச்சான், மச்சினி, அண்ணி, கொழுந்தனார், நாத்தனார்,
தாய்மாமன், சித்தப்பா பையன், சித்தப்பா பொண்ணு, 
பெரியப்பா பையன்,
பெரியப்பா பொண்ணு, 
அத்தை பையன்,
அத்தை பொண்ணு, மாமன் பொண்ணு, மாமன் பையன், இது போன்ற வார்த்தைகள் எல்லாம் 2050 மேல் யாருடைய காதிலும் விழாது, யாரும் கூப்பிடவும் மாட்டார்கள், அகராதியில் இருந்து கூட கொஞ்சம் கொஞ்சமாக அழிந்துவிடும் 

காரணம், 
ஒண்ணே ஒண்ணு, கண்ணே கண்ணு என்று ஒரே ஒரு குழந்தை மட்டும் போதும் என்று முடிவெடுக்க ஆரம்பித்ததுதான்! 
அப்படி இருக்கும் போது இந்த உறவுகள் எல்லாம் எப்படி வரும்? 
பெண்கள் வயதுக்கு வந்ததும் சீர்வரிசை செய்யவோ, பந்தல் போடவோ, முதல் புடவை எடுத்துத்தரவோ, எந்த தாய்மாமனும் இருக்கப்போவது இல்லை! 
திருமணத்தின் போது அரசாணைக்கால் நட
எந்த அண்ணனும் இருக்கப்போவதில்லை மாப்பிள்ளைக்கு மோதிரம் போட எந்த தம்பியும் இருக்கப்போவதில்லை, குழந்தைக்கு மொட்டை  போட யார் மடியில் உட்கார வைப்பார்கள்? 
கட்டிக்கொடுத்த பெண்ணுக்கு எதாவது பிரச்சனை என்றால் அண்ணனும் தம்பியும் பறந்து செல்வார்கள், 
இனி யார் போவார்? 

ஒவ்வொரு பெண்ணும், சொந்தபந்தம் ஏதுமின்றி 
ஆறுதலுக்கு ஆள் இன்றி தவிக்க போகிறார்கள் 
ஒவ்வொரு ஆணும்
தன் கஷ்டநஷ்டங்களில் பங்குகொள்ள அண்ணன் தம்பி யாருமின்றி அவதிப்பட போகிறார்கள் 
அப்பா அம்மாவை தவிர எந்த உறவுகளும் இருக்கப்போவதில்லை, 
அந்த ஒரு குழந்தையும் 
வெளியூருக்கோ 
இல்லை தனிக்குடித்தனமோ சென்றுவிட்டால் 
ஒண்ணே ஒண்ணு கண்ணே கண்ணு என்று வளர்த்தவர்கள் எல்லாம் வயதான காலத்தில், ஏனென்று கேட்க நாதியற்று முதியோர் இல்லத்திலோ இல்லை அந்த ஒரு குழந்தைக்காக கட்டிய வசதியான வீட்டிலோ அனாதையாக இருப்பார்கள் ..

உறவுகளின் உன்னத மதிப்பை உணராமல் பொருளாதார முன்னேற்றத்தை மட்டுமே குறிக்கோளாக கொண்டு 
ஒரு குழந்தைக்கு மேல் வேண்டாம் என சோம்பேறித்தனப்பட்டு 
எந்திர வாழ்க்கை வாழ்ந்து கொண்டு இருக்கும் அத்தனைபேருக்கும் 
இதே நிலைதான் !
உடல்நிலை சரியில்லாமல் ஆஸ்பிடலில் சேர்க்கப்பட்டால் ஓடோடி வந்து பார்க்க உறவுகள் வேண்டாமா?! 
சின்னச்சின்ன விஷயங்களுக்கெல்லாம் 
எனக்கு உனக்கு என்று சண்டைபோடும் அதே குழந்தைகள் தான் வயதான காலத்தில் அப்பா அம்மாவுக்கு எதாவது ஒன்று என்றால் நான் நீ என்று ஓடிவருவார்கள்! 
கணவன் குடும்பம் குழந்தை என்று உயிரைவிட்ட பெண்கள் கூட பெற்றோருக்குஒன்று என்றால் அத்தனையும் தூக்கியெறிந்துவிட்டு முதலில் வந்து நிற்பார்கள்! 
ஒரே ஒரு முறை உங்கள் கடைசி காலத்தை நினைத்துபாருங்கள்! 
பணமில்லாத ஒருவனை அனாதை என்று யாரும் சொல்வதில்லை!
ஆனால் உறவுகள் இல்லாத ஒருவன் எத்தனை கோடி வைத்திருந்தாலும் அனாதைதான் என்பதை மறந்துவிடக்கூடது! 
கார் பங்களா வசதி வாய்ப்புகளுடன் 
ஒண்ணே ஒண்ணு கண்ணே கண்ணு என்ற பெயரில் உறவுகளற்ற ஒரு அனாதையை வளர்ப்பதற்கும், 
வயதான காலத்தில் நீங்கள்  அனாதையாக  வாழ்வதற்காகவுமா  இவ்வளவு பாடுபட்டு 
ஓடி ஓடி சம்பாதிக்கிறீர்கள்  …இன்று  ?

Source….unknown…input from a friend of mine…

Natarajan

Message for the Day…”What is the true ‘tapas’…” ?

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Sathya Sai Baba

Krishna says in the Gita, “In all yajnas, I am the Doer, the Donor, the Consumer and the Acceptor.” That is the reason the chief priest in ayajna, is named Brahma. He must guide the rest of the ritualists with his wife by his side, or else, his credentials are inadequate. The wife represents faith (shraddha). Without faith, praise is hollow, adoration is artificial and sacrifice is a barren exercise. Really speaking, the heart is the ceremonial altar, the body is the fire-place, the hair is the holy grass (darbha), wishes are the fuel-sticks to feed the fire, desire is the ghee poured into the fire to make it burst into flame, anger is the sacrificial animal, and the fire is the tapas (penance) we accomplish. People sometimes interpret tapas as ascetic practices like standing on the head. This is not correct; tapas is not physical contortion. It is the complete and correct coordination of thought, word and deed. When this is achieved, the Divine splendour will manifest.

Here’s How a Facebook Group will Feed Over 1 Lakh People in Bangalore This October….

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If every home in Bengaluru cooked 5 additional meals, would it ensure that the hungry don’t go to bed on an empty stomach? Here’s a community initiative that’s going to find out.

“This Dusshera, my aim is to try and ease Bangalore’s hunger problem.” So begins Mahita Fernandez’ post on the Facebook group Feed Your Neighbour.

The idea for the initiative, Feed Your Neighbour (FYN), came to Mahita in the wee hours of a night when she woke up hungry.

mahita

She says, “I woke up with a rumbling stomach around 3 am and felt thankful that I had food to eat. I then thought about the thousands in Bengaluru who are probably hungry and have nothing to eat. The very next morning, I put down the idea on paper and created the group to reach out to people.”

The Facebook group has since been joined by over 1,300 people.

Through the FYN initiative, Mahita aims to mobilise the community to cook and share food with the homeless and hungry in Bengaluru. The initiative, which will run from October 12-22, 2015, hopes to rally a minimum of 2,000 people who are willing to cook five extra meals each day. The food will then be distributed to the needy. This would also mean that across the eleven-day period, the initiative will have ensured that 1 lakh people do not go to bed on an empty stomach.

How does Feed Your Neighbour work?

FYN_F

While the FYN initiative primarily aims to do its part to ease Bengaluru’s hunger problem, it also hopes to build a sense of community among Bengalureans by giving them an opportunity to make a difference to the lives of those in need, via a ripple effect.

The initiative is simple – those interested in participating are required to cook a minimum of five meals which they will have to drop off at a particular point in their neighbourhood.

From here, volunteers will pick up the food and deliver them to the homeless and hungry.

pulav

Picture for representation only. Credit: vahrehvah.com

Mahita says that so far, around 900 people have agreed to provide food, and 75 others have signed up as volunteers to distribute the food. She is also looking for more volunteers to identify distribution points, and actually pick up and drop off the food. In addition, she is also looking for coordinators who can help with liaising with the volunteers, verifying the distribution points, etc. More details on this can be found here.

For those interested in being a part of the FYN initiative, here’s how you can get on board.

• Drop an SMS to +91 99723 24458 or a mail to feedyourneighbour@gmail.com with your name, locality, mobile number, email ID and what you would like to volunteer as.
• Those volunteering to cook are expected to cook a minimum of five packs of any rice-based dish like pulav, bisi bele bath, lemon rice, etc.
• Packing material will be provided so that quantities are standardised.
• The packed food will need to be dropped off at a designated point by 7 pm each day.
• From here, volunteers will distribute the food to the needy in various parts of the city.

Those people who are neither able to cook nor volunteer their time, but wish to be a part of the FYN initiative, can do so by donating money or by spreading the word. The funds collected will be used to purchase packing material, hire transportation for the pickup and distribution of food, etc. Mahita adds that if there is any excess money remaining after October 22, she will continue to distribute food to the needy till the money runs out.

How will the logistics be managed?

feeding1

Picture for representation only. Credit: Terry Feuerborn/pixabay.com

In addition to mobilising the community to cook, Mahita is also currently working with volunteers to identify areas where the food can be distributed. Most of the food that is collected from a particular neighbourhood, will be distributed in that neighbourhood itself.

Mahita clarifies, “There are some areas like MG road and Lavelle road from where people want to donate food. However, these areas do not have a proliferation of the homeless. We’re planning to distribute the food collected from such areas, elsewhere.”

She also adds that while most of the food will be distributed to people on the streets, homes for the destitute, beggars’ homes, slums etc. are also being looked at. She mentions how one of the volunteers suggested a colony of Metro workers in South Bengaluru as one of the distribution points.

Ask Mahita why she has targeted dinner time, and she responds, “Most volunteers are likely to be busy during the day with their jobs and home chores. And considering we are rolling this out during Dussehra, pujas even. Also, many of the people who we are distributing the food to are possibly employed, whether they are daily wage labourers or beggars. Dinner time is probably the most convenient for both our volunteers, and the people who we are looking to help out.”

Food to be packed in eco-friendly material

feeding2

Picture for representation only. Credit: Terry Feuerborn/Flickr

Mahita says that as far as possible, people are being handed eco-friendly material to pack the food.

“We are looking at giving out the food in boxes made from cardboard or other recyclable material,” she says. “However, there are some darshinis who have also agreed to send food. We can inform them, but we don’t really have control over what kind of packing material they will use.”

In addition, at the time of distributing the food, volunteers are being asked to inform the people who come to collect the food to dispose of the waste responsibly. Mahita hopes that educating them about this aspect will also sensitise them about proper waste management in the long run.

Mahita also believes that it is unlikely that there will be excess food. She says, “No matter how many people volunteer, the number of people who can do with a good meal will always be more. So we will ensure that the food reaches as many people as possible.”

She also expects that the number of people who come to collect the food is bound to increase over the ten days, as word gets out. Should this happen, she is in talks with caterers and darshinis who can help supply the additional food at subsidised costs.

To know more about the Feed Your Neighbour initiative and be a part of it, click here.

Written by Ganga Madappa for Women’s Feature Service (WFS) and republished here in arrangement with Citizen Matters. The story was originally published here. (c) Oorvani Foundation/Open Media Initiative. –

Source….Ganga Madappa….www.thebetterindia.com

Natarajan

 

Message for the Day… ” Truth is inseparable from ‘dharma ‘…”

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Sathya Sai Baba

Dharma is the moral path, which is the light; the light is bliss (ananda). Scriptures convey that Dharma is the essence of spiritual wisdom (jnana). Dharma is characterized by sacredness, peace, truth, and fortitude. Dharma is yoga (union); it is truth (sathya). Its attributes are justice, sense control, sense of honour, love, dignity, goodness, meditation, sympathy, and nonviolence. It leads you onto universal love and unity. It is the highest discipline and the most profitable. All this ‘unfoldment’ began with Dharma;this is stabilized by truth (sathya). Truth is inseparable fromdharma. Truth is the law of the universe, which makes the sun and moon revolve in their orbits. Dharma is the course, the path, the law. Wherever there is adherence to morality, there you can see the law of Truth (sathya-dharma) in action. In the Bhagavata too, it is said, “Where there is Dharma, there is Krishna; where there are both Dharma and Krishna, there is victory.”

Joke of the Day…”It is Booked…”

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A newlywed farmer and his wife were visited by her mother, who immediately demanded an inspection of the place. The Farmer had genuinely tried to be friendly to his new mother-in-law, hoping that it could be a friendly, non-antagonistic relationship.

To no avail, she kept nagging them at every opportunity, demanding changes, offering unwanted advice and making life unbearable to the farmer and his new bride. While they were walking through the barn, the farmer’s mule suddenly reared up and kicked the mother-in-law in the head, killing her instantly.

mule

At the funeral service a few days later, the farmer stood near the casket and greeted folks as they walked by. The pastor noticed that when ever a woman would whisper something to the farmer, he would nod his head yes and say something. Whenever a man walked by and whispered to the farmer, however, he would shake his head, no and mumble a reply.

Very curious as to this bizarre behavior, the pastor later asked the farmer what that was all about. The farmer replied, “The women would say, ‘What a terrible tragedy’ and I would nod my head and say, ‘Yes, it was.’ The men would ask, ‘Can I borrow that mule?’ and I would shake my head and say,

‘Can’t. It’s booked up for a year.’

 

Source…..www.ba-bamail.com

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Cash reward for Google.com takeover man…!!!

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Google logo

The Google.com domain name was offered for sale on Google’s own website buying service

 

A man who briefly bought and owned the Google.com web domain has been rewarded by the search giant.

An administration oversight allowed US student Sanmay Ved to buy the right to control the domain on 29 September.

The oversight left him in charge of Google.com for about a minute until Google caught on and cancelled the transaction.

Now Mr Ved has been given a cash reward for spotting the error, which he has decided to donate to charity.

Google declined to comment on the story.

Mr Ved detailed his experience in a post on the LinkedIn site saying that he had been keeping an eye on Google-related web domains for some time because he used to work at the search giant. Mr Ved is currently an MBA student at a US college.

In the early hours of 29 September he noticed a for sale sign next to the Google.com name while browsing sites on Google’s own website-buying service.

He used a credit card to pay the $12 (£8) fee to grab google.com and got emails confirming he was the owner. Almost immediately he started getting messages intended for Google’s own web administration team.

This was followed by a cancellation message sent by the website buying service which said he could not take over Google.com because someone else had already registered it and his $12 payment was refunded.

Now it has emerged that Mr Ved has been given a “bug bounty” by Google’s security team for revealing the weakness in the domain buying system. The internal emails Mr Ved received while in charge of google.com have been passed to this team.

Mr Ved decided to give the cash to an Indian educational foundation and in response, Google doubled the reward.

Source….www.bbc.com

Natarajan

 

WHY DO WE CALL PARENTS “MOM” AND “DAD”……..?

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Calling our parents anything other than mom, dad or one of the many variations thereof is an almost alien concept to many (and in some cultures is considered downright rude). So why is it we refer to our parents in this way? Where did it come from and perhaps, more curiously, is there any culture that forgoes this seemingly universal nickname custom for parental figures?

The words can be traced back to the 1500s for “dad” and the 1800s for “mom”. As with so many etymologies, where these words were first uttered and by whom is a mystery. Even the Oxford English Dictionary has admitted that they have “no evidence” on where the word “dad” originated. The word “mom”, on the other hand, is a slightly different story and it’s widely believed that the word was born from the much older word “mamma” which itself can be traced back to the 1500s in English. This, in turn, can be traced back to Latin where “mamma” meant “breast” or “teat”. From this word, we also got the word “mammalia” and later “mammal” to describe animals that suckle their young.

This brings us to the amazing part- a word extremely similar to “mom” occurs in almost every language on Earth. We don’t mean that there is a word for “mom” in every language; we mean that the word for “mom” is shockingly similar  across nearly all of the most commonly spoken languages on Earth.

dad

For example, if you wanted to address your mother in Dutch you’d say “moeder”, if you were to travel to Germany on the other hand you’d call her “mutter” while over in Italy you’d refer to her as, “madre”. Now we know what you’re thinking, those are all European languages. So let’s mix things up a bit and list the words for mom or mother in some more, shall we say, “exotic” languages, from an English speaker’s point of view, and see if you start to notice a pattern:

  • Chinese: Mãma
  • Hindi: Mam
  • Afrikaans: Ma
  • Ancient Egyptian: Mut
  • Swahili: Mama

As you can clearly see from this list, there’s a very peculiar trend with “mom” in various languages in that it’s nearly universally pronounced with an “m” sound. If you’re still not convinced or think that we’re perhaps cherry picking examples, here’s a pretty exhaustive list of ways to say “mother” in a number of languages for you to peruse at your leisure. With a few exceptions, our favorite of which is the Mapunzugun “Ñuke”, you’ll note that they pretty much all employ an “m” and often a “ma” sound.

As for the word “dad”, while there is certainly more variation in the ways to address your man-mum in foreign languages, similar trends can be observed. For example, the word “Papa” is present in several languages including Russian, Hindi, Spanish and English, while slight variations on it appear in German (Papi), Icelandic (Pabbi), Swedish (Pappa) and a number of other languages across the globe. Likewise in Turkish, Greek, Swahili, Malay and several other languages the word for dad is “Baba” or a variation of it.

The current working theory to explain this fascinating phenomenon is that the words parents use to refer to themselves are derived from the babblings of their child during its “baby-talk” phase. It has been observed that babies, regardless of where in the world they’re born, naturally learn to make the same few sounds as they begin to learn to speak. It has also been noted that during the babbling stage, babies will create what is known as “protowords” by combining nonsensical combinations of consonants and vowels.

The really interesting part about these protowords is that they’re consistent across different cultures for reasons that aren’t quite clear. The words babies make in this early babbling stage tend to use the softer contestants like B, P and M, often leading to the creation of otherwise non-words like baba, papa and mama by the child in question.

It’s further theorised that as these are often the first sounds babies are able to make consistently, parents came to use them to refer to themselves, which explains why words like “mama”, “papa,” “dada”, “tata” and “baba” are present in so many languages as a way of addressing one’s parents. It’s usually less complex to say than the parent’s real names and works as a substitute that ultimately sticks.

As to why the “ma” sound in derivations like “mamma” came to be assigned to women instead of men, it is generally thought that it derived from the sound babies make while suckling or feeding. It’s noted that the only sound a baby can really make while its mouth is full of his or her mother’s life giving bosom is a “slight nasal murmur” or a repeated “m” sound.  Further, when the baby is hungry and sees the object of its foodie desires, it is not uncommon for the baby to, as linguist Roman Jakobson put it, “reproduced [it] as an anticipatory signal”.  While no one can prove this is how “mom” and its predecessor “mamma” came about, it would at the least explain why there is an almost universal trend of the word for mother in varying languages utilising the “m”, and often “ma” sound.

There is no such precise theory for why the word “dad” was specifically chosen (presumably from “dada”), but this lack of a good reason to assign “dada” to male parents over other variations like “papa”, “tata”, “baba”, etc. is perhaps why there is such variation on this one in terms of which repeated consonant is used to go along with the a’s in a given culture.

So is there any culture in which this nicknaming practise isn’t observed? There are certainly examples of cultures that don’t adhere to the idea of a nuclear family, but as far as applying similar types of nicknames to parental figures, not really… At least as far as we could find and we’re usually very good at this sort of thing and spent more hours than we care to admit trying to find the obligatory exception.  But if you happen to be an anthropologist or just someone who knows different and you know of an exception where children don’t commonly give their parental figures (whether truly their biological parents or not) some sort of nickname, please do let us know. We came up empty on it, which makes us a little uncomfortable as there seemingly always is at least one exception somewhere for just about any issue. Is this an exception to the rule that there is always an exception? It would seem so.

Source…..www.todayifoundout.com

Natarajan