Ganesha Festival Celebrations

One of the things I miss about India being in the US is the multitude of festivals we celebrate back home. The ambiance of the entire country is transformed during these occasions. Here the Indian or rather I should say Hindu community is so small that it is barely visible. Hence except major festivals such as Diwali nothing else is celebrated.

Image via Wikipedia

Tomorrow is Ganesha Chathurthi when the lord of wisdom, knowledge and the remover of obstacles is worshiped. We visited the Ganesha Temple in Plano this evening and hope to participate in the ceremonial worship tomorrow.
Being a default volunteer of Sankara Eye Foundation, I am trying to participate in organizing a Fund-raiser Dandia event in September. In order to promote the event we visited one of the leading Indian grocery stores in the area Taj Mahal Imports and there I was elated to see a group of young students dressed in neo-traditional Indian clothes, wearing a saffron band on their foreheads chanting "Ganesha Bappa, Moraya". We chatted up with them and came to know that about 300 students are getting together in an apartment to celebrate the Ganesha festival tomorrow.
After a long time I saw something that resembles Indian festival ambiance. I am gladdened today.

Hectic Summer!!!

It has been over 10 days since I blogged. Not because nothing happened in my life but because too many things have been happening and there has been no time to do anything other than, work, school, home and trying to put together an event plan for a fund-raising bicycle rally for Sankara Eye Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to eradication of curable blindness in India. Hopefully if this event becomes successful then the organization SEF will gain popularity and earn some money which will help open eyes in India.

Meanwhile I found a part time job with a small enterprise, wonder how long this job will last. The previous part time job lasted three months before it got Bangalored. This job will definitely not get Bangalored but in America nothing is permanent. So I don't know how much I can rely upon my job. At least I am glad for one thing, this will help pay for my college fees for fall 2009.

On the education front, things are still uncertain. Though the worst grade I have got is a B (80-90%), the average student here gets an A. I hope at least this fall I will manage to make straight A's and once again make it to the Dean's list. Let us see what is in store for me in the next few months.

Vision 2020 by the year 2020

The title is not about the dream of former president APJ Abdul Kalam but the goal of Sankara Eye Foundation. This was also the mantra of all SEF volunteers at the 10th anniversry meeting conducted on February 23, 2008 in Sunnyvale, California.

"Vision 2020 by the year 2020" was the key phrase repeated by every person at the Sankara Eye Foundation's (SEF) 10th year anniversary volunteer meeting. The mission, vision and objective of California-based SEF is to eradicate curable blindness in India by the year 2020. By rough estimates India hosts the world's largest population of visually challenged individuals (about 20 million) and most of these people suffer from a curable form of blindness.

Founded in the year 1998, SEF has been striving hard to raise funds in US so that its India wing can establish state-of-the-art hospitals to provide free eyecare to underprivileged people. The organisation's rationale is simple every contribution of $30 provides the "gift of vision" to one person. In short it takes only $30 to perform one sight rectification operation in India. Working in this direction SEF has given this gift to over 57,000 underprivileged Indians in 2007. The lofty aim of SEF is to establish 20 FREE EYE CARE centers across the country and conduct over 1.2 million eye surgeries annully by the year 2020.

The volunteer meeting conducted at the well appointed TIE (The Indus Entrepreneur) conference hall was a success by every scale. Over 200 volunteers, including 35 from outside Bay Area (California), converged at the venue. Each bubbling with enthusiasm, equipped by vision, energy and determination to contribute their energies and talent for the benefit of the millions of underprivileged citizens. The initial sessions focussed on the achievements of SEF during the past decade with a strong emphasis on the future goals.

"Our success has been driven by four major factors: providing vision is a great cause, committed volunteer force, honesty and integrity in our operations," said Murli Krishnmurthy, founder of SEF-USA. Other board members of SEF and numerous volunteers shared their experiences of working with SEF and what they feel about the cause. Positive energy exuded out of each and every volunteer present and everybody pledged their bit to achieving SEF's goal: "Vision 2020 by the year 2020". If you wish to get involved or contribute to this great cause, visit SEF website and take necessary steps.

This video sums up the importance of SEF's work: