Spoorthi on Dec 21st, 2008....

Written by Lisu, one of the new members into the Spoorthi family :)

“Now to call it a Day”…. None of us mouthed it, but it sure ran through a couple of heads… :) . Seated in a pizza hut at Koramangala, were eight(totally 12 had made it for the activity) of the crew that joined for the action of the day. Part of the members of a league named ‘SPOORTHI’ – ‘a group of like-minded friends’, that’s what I got from one of them, had planned up something eventful for Christmas.

Don’t get it wrong, it had nothing to do with sitting, munching pizzas…they were to get involved with REDS (Rag pickers Education & Development Scheme). A lot of organizing skills sure went into the whole day’s activity, but being new, an added advantage or disadvantage ;), I was not a big part of it… All I got to help with was, wrapping a handful of gifts meant to be distributed. That reminds me, thanks to Priya, a very sweet and intellectual looking girl (one of the new friends I made)… she spent most of her Saturday night wrapping up the gifts.

Sunday was the D-Day…Come the hour, 2:30 p.m., and the folks were all gathered up at N.G.V (National Games Village). Thence, we split into segments boarded autos, always available… ;) and reached the spot where the children were gathered. It was on the third floor of a building yet being engineered and as we climbed up the stairs we could hear a babble of voices, all excited, getting us back to maybe the view of a loose classroom… :)

We entered carrying some bags with food for the kids, lunch ordered from Nandini – a restaurant that delivers food based on orders. Looking at the little faces, we could read a lot of mixed feelings there… there was hope, excitement, fun, naughtiness. There were 53 of them in all, 13 more than the expected turnover. Did that make us happy??? or sad??? – Not sure, it didn’t matter…With the help of a lady who monitors these kids at the Day Care, we seated them on mats and tried out best to make sure they all ate well. There was food in surplus and we were sure it would not go wasted (Dinner, even for a few of them would only be great). Once the food section was done, we exhibited our best leadership skills to organize a few games for the kids… The kids ranged from, anywhere between 5 yrs of age to 15, most of them being below 10. The ‘ayah’, as the little ones called her did a lot of favor helping with maintaining even the slightest silence that could be maneuver. One of our friends ‘Lekha’, full throatily made best use of her such moments and announced the rules for the few games played.

After an hour or so, of playing the games though we are not sure how many of them got the games right, talking to them, learning to keep control over the bunch, we had the greatest pleasure of handing over a few gifts to the kids… of course we kind of ran short but, there were Gaurav & Harashita, who volunteered to readily get a few more right away… We could see that the kids were eagerly waiting for their turns to receive books, shirts, toys, geometry sets… etc…

Many of them came back to us to wish us ‘Merry Christmas’; it really will be ‘merry’… A different kind of merriness about it… Suri & Priya managed to light up the evening with a few ‘cam-flashes’ striking about. We got a good number of happy faces. Finally we guys hopped back to our busy schedules and a few of us who had the time thought we’d contribute a little bit from our wallets to our tummies too… :) Sitting there, I could see a lot of satisfied faces after putting plans to execution.

Not sure if any of those little ones would have a piece plum cake or a gulp of wine for Christmas, but one thing we sure know is… we managed to get a smile each of the 53 faces for the day.