I feel very satisfied for being able to do what I started off for… And mind you, it could not have been possible without a few, actually more than a few, people around who played very very important roles during the entire initiative…I have a commitment of Rs. 12500 from the two posts that show the paintings and have received Rs. 8000 already and the rest is in transition or process and should be with me soon!!! My next step would be to go to ASK and give all this money to them for Sankalp…. Thank you again everyone who has contributed in some way or the other… I am in the process of arranging the paintings and sending them off to their respective owners…

I should, however, mention a few names here specifically…

I had only thought of going to Sankalp and giving away the Stationary etc to the kids there… discussed the thought with Arobindo and our conversation resulted in the day turning into a Painting Competition for the kids where they could use the stuff we take for them… Thanks Bro for your support…

It would have stayed a painting competition, if I had not seen a framed painting made by a small kid at my friend’s place… I was at Nidhi’s place one day and that’s when I saw the painting… I think AP had bought it for her from an NGO, and that moment a bulb was switched on in my mind… I had more to do than just organise the painting competition… Nidhi, if it was not you, we would not have a single rupee in our kitty today!!! Cannot thank you enough really!!!

Bindiya was told about this thought, and she loved it… We figured out a few things over a few calls and organised the entire event… Kalpana ji from Sankalp was always more than keen in helping us out with whatever we required. I love it the way Bindiya (also read ASK) lets me take complete ownership of what I want to do and also give me the freedom to do it my way!!! Thanks Bindiya for everything!!!

Tushar and my cousin Ashish was both excited when I asked them to join me that day!!!

Not many people knew about the initiative except Me, Aro, Bindiya, Nidhi, Tushar, Ashish (my cousin) the team at Moradabad and Sharanya, whose excitement and loads of ideas she shared acted as a Catalyst to the entire thought process…

And once we were back from the Painting Competition, almost everyone I know in this big blog world helped the way they thought was appropriate… some came forward to take one of the painting, some encouraged me with very kind words, and some mentioned it on their pages to ensure more people knew about the initiative !!! And I also need to mention that my Hughes Gang rocks!!! For many reasons and one of them is the quick response that I got from Aseem, Subbu, Aro, and Naveen to buy the paintings…. Overall a great experience this was and needless to say, a very successful one to thanks to a lot of people!!!

Now something about what I have been doing for a while, other than trying to sell paintings 🙂

Some flower in my balcony… no idea about the name

The last weekends have been so different from each other yet very fulfilling…

The last Sunday was spent in silence… I did not speak much the entire day was almost locked (with an open door though) in my room… Watched movies (Juno and the Bucket List), read a book or may be more than one, went through the Calvin and Hobbes Tushar had given me for my birthday (A very welcome change from the travel books he gifts me all the time 🙂

My bed on the floor, the laptop the ear phones and dark !!! nice Sunday it was…

My lunch one of these days… brown bread with Sauce and Jam and Marmalade…

This weekend I was on a talking mode 🙂 was trying to make up for the silence that started last Sunday I guess 🙂 the weekend started a few hours early with a long drive to meet Ruchi, handed over the painting to her, drove to haldiram, got stuck in a two way truck and trailer traffic on a single lane service road (for about 5 minutes after we were already 25 minutes into the jam, I had a feeling that we might stay stuck there for a few more hours, but thankfully the jam cleared and we were out of it in like 35 odd minutes)…

Friday night at Arobindo’S place, with one more lad from the Hughes gang… laughter and bakar bakar bakar bakar and more bakar… Poor Raj was the target of most of the jokes while I and Arobindo laughed our asses!!!

Saturday started early and ended pretty late (Only on Sunday by 0200 hrs) and it included watching The Gods must be crazy part 1 and 2, having a late breakfast, not feeling like getting up from the beds till like 1400 hrs, taking the metro to Mandi House and not getting the tickets for a play I wanted to watch (GhasiRam Kotwal)… taking a wrong bus to CP from Mandi House, walking towards CP and singing songs fairly loudly on the road with Subbu, searching for Nirula’s and finding it eventually after having a nice pan at Odeon, having the Make your own triple sundae at Nirula’s with a scoop each of Black Currant, Mango Mania and Tutti Fruity, having the mango milk at Cavenders, going back to Dwarka in the Metro, singing songs, learning some English from Subbu, meeting a few more friends from Hughes at Aro’s place and bakar bakar bakar bakar bakar till post midnight !!!! Phew!!! Long day eh!

Sunday was again a lazy day with the highlight being the English play Indian in the Bronz… and interesting subject but not really presented in the best of the ways… I revived a lot of good memories from the past of the various technical things that I had learnt about one act plays and how we used to implement most of them… I wish I can contribute to a theatre group soon… Maybe once I have shifted base to Delhi, I would… Not sure if Bindiya also had the same opinion about the play, but she made a nice single word remark that the play was interesting!!! Let’s buy that opinion for now 🙂 Had to wait a good 20 minutes before we got a seat in the Bengali Sweet house before having our dinner of Chole Bhature, the Pao Bhaji and the lovely Kulfi Faluda!!! A quick drive back home and a few more discussions on how I can contribute more to ASK and various other initiatives in the organisation!!! We did discuss about some websites that talk about one can contribute to the society as well… I am going to write about them too in future once I have gone through the sites in detail!!!

Too long a post eh!!!

Never mind 🙂 If you have managed to read it fully, congratulations, or if just jumped to the last line, well 🙂 I think you missed a lot 🙂

Have fun, God Bless!!!

Oh and guess what, I have this small water pot in my balcony, which I fill with water every few days… sometime last week I there was this Pigeon who visited visited the waterhole of sorts… There was not much water there, but I guess enough to keep him there for a good 15-20 minutes and there was something in there that he was eating too… I guess he had brought it himself !!! Check the pictures below 🙂 It was nice !!! very !!!

ok… final ta tu !!!