Posts Tagged YMCA
The Last Day at the YMCA.
Posted by Jr. in Volunteer Files... on July 8th, 2009
{Note : I’ve always asked people to focus more on events and happenings while writing on this blog. But yet, here I’m breaking all the rules I set for myself and everybody else.. Can’t help it though.. If I have to leave, can’t leave without saying Goodbye to the blog.. 
Post content follows..}
Around this time last year, braving the rains, I set out on my bike to that place they call Thrikkakara.. I had never known any place in Cochin (or anywhere for that matter), and getting there was an ardent task in itself.. But I did manage to find it.. In fact, I got there early.. Half an hour early for my first MAD class at YMCA, Thrikkakara.. I waited for ten minutes, called Sibi, who I’d never met, and who had only just got out of his hostel, and then decided that I’d just go in for myself and look around..
This year, last week, in fact, I took the same journey once again, for the last time in, well, who knows.. The bike was the same, the rains were still there, as were the potholes and I still didn’t have a raincoat.. But the person undertaking the journey, the people who he’d see there and what the entire idea meant to him had undergone sweeping changes..
Last Friday was my last day at the YMCA.. Seeing Polly and Kaddy’s class, I remembered bits and pieces of the embers of a great year.. The Onam, the HG camp, the Christmas, VYB all that..
I remembered how it all used to be when I first got there.. YMCA, the place where MAD had started off, had somehow been given the dubious title of MAD outpost.. But in the course of a year it had changed.. There seemed to be renewed life on their faces… Whatever we did during that year seemed to have worked, we had made a difference!
I remembered how a sceptic had once asked on this very blog, why he needed to be part of an organization if he wanted to do some good.. He claimed he could do a way better job if he just went some place and did it..
Standing where I am, looking back, I can see how wrong he was… The people who you stand alongside with, and who you draw strength from, is as important a thing as the statement you make.. Seeing Polly, Kaddy, Gautam, Vijay and Rubiya take class, I couldn’t be more sure of the fact that the statement we were making was as strong as anything anybody else had ever attempted..
I remembered, vaguely, what it was to be Jithin J Krishnan, Second year English student, SH College.. And then I felt what it was to be Jithin “Jr.” Krishnan, English and PR volunteer, M.A.D; and immediately felt a surge of pride somewhere deep within myself..
Friday was supposed to be like any other class.. And there I was, lost in my own thoughts, thinking this was going to be just like any other day.. But apparently, others had other ideas!
As parting gift, my kids gave me a scrapbook where each one had took a page for his own and had filled it with a drawing and a message to me..
There were all sorts of drawings; what from caricatures of me to birds; imaginary conversations describing my return, flowers and all that.. Walking away, turning around, still waving to the kids who stood outside, risking the grave displeasure of the warden, I was thinking to myself that I had to come back here someday, somehow..
I had always figured that the VYB Camp T shirt would be proudest possession ever.. Well, it just got relegated into second place.. !
The Fastest Ever YMCA Goal !!
Posted by Jr. in The Things That Happen... on April 5th, 2009
What happened when we played football with the kids during the YMCA Farewell..
This has to be the fastest amateur goal ever in the history of mankind.. Nobody knows how the ball got to the other end so fast.. 
The Vai-Yem-Jee-Yayy Boyz Present : The YMCA Farewell :D
Posted by Jr. in Volunteer Files... on March 28th, 2009
We had been thinking of planning a camp for our kids for so long.. But the end of the term proved to be too soon to do anything.. So we had to settle for an impromptu Farewell to round off a great year at the YMCA Boys Home, Thrikkakara…
And, finally, Jr. wasn’t the first to arrive and end up waiting.. Arjun and Karthik beat me to it by five minutes.. A big ‘Yayy!!’ to them.. 
We all got there by 5, and were waiting for Eobin, the last one to come, to arrive..
And, (sigh) Arun had already embarked on the usual wierd photographer business that he’s so fond of..
Have to say though, the guy does a good job at times.. Even when me and Karthik are there to disrupt proceedings ..
Arjun : It would’ve been nice if we could play football…
Karthik : Let’s play FOOTBALL !! Yayy !!
Kids : Yayy !! Bolo Karthik Chetan Ki !!
Jr : Permission??
Arjun : Warden, give us permission.. !! NOW !!
Warden : Knock yourself out !!
Arjun : Will knocking out Jr. do??
Paul : Yayy !!
Jr. : Wait, what ??? :O
Warden : Deal !!
Karthik/Kids/Jr : Football.. YAYY !!
Paul : What if a kid yells at me?? I’ll cry !! (10 second pause)
Karthik/Kids/Jr : Football.. YAYY !!
Karthik : Goal !! Knock out Jr.. Yayy !!
Jr: What? Wait… Aaaaaaargghhh.. (Glasses fly off, gets gutted due to over enthusiastic celebrations) :
Final Score – Jr’s Big Kids 2 : 3 Eobin’s Small Kids..
Question : What did like Karthik look like after we’d lost?? Answer :
The YMCA Warriors Team Pic :
Time to go inside and cut cake..
Wait, who that??
Somebody : Sanju and Prez that !! (Wait, who do we call Prez now?? I say we reserve it for Sr.) Yayy !!
Time for the Farewell video :
Time to cut cake :
The YMCA Farewell Song :
“We’re Haaaving Farewell, YMCA, Farewell…” x2 (Copyright: Kaddy Maddy)
Jr : Karthik, how’s the cake??
Karthik : (predictably) Awwwwesomeness, dooood…
Jr : (sigh)
Time for the days final activity : Card making, courtesy, the recently bald, Mr. Eobin G (Jee!!)
Arun and Prakash has a final farewell gift for us :
And, NO, (sigh) I don’t want to comment on the above pic.. Don’t they have mess halls down at CUSAT??
Time for the Volunteer Family Pic :
To conclude : One helluva farewell to wind up one helluva year..
Note : The Vai-Yem-Jee-Yayy Boyz (+2 girls) will be back next year, Bigger, Badder, Better and with more Kick Ass Farewells, Onams and Christmases..
As Orphanage Head, the only thing I feel like saying is :
WOOOOHOOOOO !!
“THIS IS AWESOMENESS \m/”
Posted by Karthik in Volunteer Files... on March 28th, 2009
Sunday, 15th March around 7:00 pm
Current Emotion: Screw you dsp (= popularly known as DEGREE STOPPING PAPER) and ye compiler ka kya Karun??
Next I hear someone saying – abey MAD farewell this weekend; abhi study later enjoy. I’m pumped up and sit down to study DSP. At around 0215 hrs….this is too much man. Wish I had studied earlier.
0430: That’s it I can’t do it. (But anyhow it’s MAD this weekend, abhi yucky – fir happy)
Similar scenario, the next two days :s
The loooong day – 19th March
Sh!t man – lab, reports what not And that too in a single day.
Current Emotion: update facebook, twitter statuses – Screw my department, screw the HOD, screw his stupid philosophy and screw him black and blue. Screw this, screw that. Screw everything. SCREW SCREW SCREW.
(Abey this is life. its MAD this weekend, kabhi khushi kabhi gham)
[Screw was not the word I intended here 
Although I received err....ahem...compliments from Jr, Paul, my sis and Sanjana, ha-ha!]
Ah, not again.
20th march, around 3 pm
Current Emotion: *Let me get over this fast and just the weekend ahead (YAY!)*
0305 hrs: “Dude, you are under sessional in networks by 4 marks. Get over here”
After getting over “there”.
Networks’ Ma’am – “You need to give a retest tomorrow. Full syllabus. 10 AM”
Current emotion:”AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGHHHHHH”
Then out of nowhere – Ghoooos frabaaaah Ghoooos frabaaaah Ghoooos frabaaaah!!!
( hehe, big fan of anger management)
Again that someone says – study then enjoy. It’s a MAD Weekend.
Now I hate this guy. Humph!
21st march 1 pm
Current Emotion – “hahaha I scored 43 (on 50 J)guys….YAY !”
That guy again – abey why are you so happy, ucchal kya raha hai??!!!! You have that report left. (Screw you, I know!)
I decided to name him the negative creep.
21st march 11 pm
Current Emotion: *Speechless and clueless. But, anyhow just a few hours now*
Me – “Jr, I have no idea when I’ll sleep, wake me up at 7!”
Jr – “Ok, but you wake me up at 645 first”
Negative creep – “Aila, Awesomeness”
Me – “Dooooooooooood, paaaauulll – wake me up at 7! Cheers! “
Paul – “ ah, ai…umm….okay…WHAT ?”
Me – “You heard me !”
22nd march 450hrs
Current emotion: *Lullaby at a distance – sojaa munne sooojaaaa*
Negative Creep – If you do, you’ll sleep now in the fire.
Me – “Are you a Rage against the Machine fan? “
Negative Creep – “No, but you are!”
Me – *aing*
Current emotion: Only a few hours, then you’ll have the time of the year =]
Typed a sms to Jr. – Wake me up at 750. Don’t know when I’ll hit the sack.
No reply, he must have slept (sigh) when will I sleep?
0615 hrs
Current emotion: *Drooling on the table; all namkeen, biscuits, and cocoa over. I’ll sleep (on the table) for five minutes, it hardly matters…how worse can it get?*
0710hrs
*The cellphone rings –*
Current emotion: *I have heard this song before, but where is it coming from?*
Then “You’ve Slept now in the fire You’ve Slept now in the fire You’ve Slept now in the fire: P”
Paul – “Dooood, sawcbinjhjn Wake up ddjjbdsgkknjhjbj its 7!”
Me – “ ashaskdhofdsklfn38rywe8fklanfaflasdkl”
Paul – “ Yea okay asadisodhiojksjdaosd”
Me – “ yea ok asdagdgfkhfadhiaushdi3ioashd”
Click.
Negative creep – “ab kya- go sleep. Jr will wake you up at 8.”
Me – “that’s the best thing you ever said the whole screwed up week”
0820 hrs
* Sleep now in the fire Sleep now in the fire Sleep now in the fire *
Jr- Da are you up?
Me – *Don’t remember – jr, fill this up*
Jr- I am already here and those dumbos (buhahaha) haven’t arrived as yet.
Me –eh ah..oh okay..*assdasdasd asfdgdfs* where are you ?
Jr – loungevity!!
Me-(YAAAAWN!) I’ll b there in sometime!
Jr- yea don’t be late and don’t go back to sleep
Me- Aye aye captain !
Click.
Negative Creep – “ You can sleep till 830, round it off brah !”
Me – “awesomeness.”
0850 hrs
*Sound of clothes being beaten black and blue. Abey ab ye kya haiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii?*
Current Emotion: *Sh!t Sh!t. This can’t be…Its 9ish!!!!!! naheeeeeeeeeee!!!!!*
Still dazed, I get up – “Now where was my bathroom?”
Took a shower and the usuals – get into something from my wardrobe, which apparently turns out to be a shirt – that too pinkeeey. Would be wearing a shirt for the second time since my class 12th farewell!
Negative Creep – “abey enuff of ur sajna-dhajna….chall kat ley! And yea, you can sleep in the bus”
Me – “whooopie – i dint think about that”
920hrs
Mission – get on the bus, find a seat. Start snoring.
Mission accomplished !!
Current emotion- * just half an hour more*
0950 hrs
*South south south south south*
Me- “Eh. Err. What was that?”
Negative creep- “Nothing, go back to sleep”
Me – “I heard south!”
Negative – “Abey it’s far away”
Me – “Screw you!”
I get off.
I find a building with “Makante Achan”
Me – “Since when did avenue regent put up flexes and what does makante achan mean?”
Negative creep – “ROFL!!!”
Me- “What”?
Negative Creep- “ It means bête ka baap AND you are at shenoys and YOU are screwwwwd “
Me—“AAAaaaaah FISSSSH”
Negative Creep—* Russell Peters’ Style* – “All set hike hike. Now run. Run run run. Run with it. I’m waiting here, GOOOO. *tch tch* we’re winning….NO i’m winning – you are screwed and you’ll be late hahahaha”
Me * disregards its last*- Chett(e) ! Avenue Regent”
Auto –“ Seri seri, pandarannd ruba”
Me- “eh”
Auto – “tollve rubees; tollve!! tollve!!”
Me- “oh 12, yea ok. Run!”
0958 hrs
Just outside loungevity:-
Current Emotion: *Loungevity +10 AM=?!?!?!?! What will be this like, hehe J
But then I remember what Jr said.
Loungevity + 10 AM = WE GET IT!!!!*
I walk in to find everyone sitting and chatting and laughing and happiness all around.
Current Emotion: *Energy level rising. Just left Ground state… Level 2, 3….penultimate state now.*
Then I find Paul waving at me.”Oh here’s Karthik….Heyyyy”
Current Emotion: Highest excitation state. THIS IS AWESOMENESS!
27 March, 0523 hrs
Current Emotion: *My first blog . Is this awesomeness?*
Negative Creep – Yes, of a different kindJ.
Me – “Who is this?”
Negative Creep – buhahahaha….bc ! no internet !
Me-“oh, you are back again! For a moment i thought…..ah nevermind…SCREW YOU!!!”
…to be continued.
Introducting YMCA : Part 2
Posted by Jr. in Volunteer Files... on March 14th, 2009
I know I was supposed to do this post a couple of weeks back, but just couldn’t get all my Wednesday volunteers together at YMCA before class ended..
After relentless pressure from a certain Lil Man, I’ve decided to do the post anyhow, with what I have, as it would be wrong to end the year without speaking about the people who really make a difference on my beloved Wednesdays..
So here goes…
Level 1 : With Skool Boi and the Camyera Man
Real Names : Prakash and Arun Pios
One guy who’s in school and actually doesn’t sound like it, and another guy who’s in college and sounds like he’s still a school kid (sigh)
On Wednesdays Prakash rides with me to YMCA, and I’m quite proud to say I’ve scared him on more than one occasion.. He’s also the only volunteer at YMCA who is younger than some of the kids we teach…
I don’t know what’s with the school kids in Mad !! There are three of them, and at times, it seems they are twenty years older than me.. Anyhow, moving on…
Arun meanwhile is supposedly the best camera man to have graced the shores of Cochin.. (Actually, I just tell him that to convince him to take some pics of me.. Works like a charm every time.. )
Took him to Fort Cochin one time, gave him Anu’s camera, and he embarassed us all.. He was jumping and diving around, Matrix style, pretending to take pics.. Yeah, quite a few were pretty good ones too, but still, come on, public venue dude !!! As if I don’t have a reputation to protect !!
I’m especially proud of these two coz, unlike Fridays, where some of the volunteers had to leave in between, these two stuck to it through the year.. And the kids love them too.. In fact we even got a complaint from the warden one time sayiing that the kids were ‘too’ happy after the Wednesday class.. !! (Did Arun promise them he’d take pics of them too perhaps?? )
Level 2 : The Two Mottas
Real Names : Arjun M Nair and Jr (Oh wait, that’s not my real name!!)
The two of us started teaching together from July onwards, and it has been one hell of a blast.. The guy can always handle any sort of situation.. How, is beyond me at times !
Of course, he goes around telling people that my hair is now close cut, to imitate his style.. I’ll have everybody know, that NO, it was just my choice, and NO, it’s not Arjun’s style, it’s just all the hair he’s got left..
I used to think Arjun was a true lawyer in the making, and that he didn’t have feelings (Sorry Niki, Aps and all you other Nuals ppl) but I still remember the last day of class.. He was so upset about leaving, that he brooded around all night until he dropped me back home.. Of course, funny thing is he’s gonna be here for two more years, which made me want to feel like I wanted to kill myself, but hey, what can a guy do eh??.. (Lawyers!!)
Level 2-a : With…. Err… Liz?? :O
I just realised two things :
1 . I don’t have a nickname for Liz (Jake, Jonva, help me out here !! )
2. I don’t have a pic of Liz with her kids either (Arun, for all that jumping around !! Jeez man!! )
But still, she and Sibi have been the greatest help to the tenth standard boys this year.. It was a job she didn’t like doing much, but she did it anyhow, and did a great job I’ve to say… Teaching school syllabus requires a lot of patience, which I knew I didn’t have, but Sibi and Liz pulled it off anyhow.. Cheers to you guys..
Also, during the course of the year, she also had to listen to an accidental blurt out from the One Eyed Santa, that me, Paul and Sibi still laugh about at times.. He he he.. That was fun.. But still, in Liz’s defense, she did try and pretend as if she hadn’t heard anything.. (sigh)
So, that’s it !! That’s Wednesdays at YMCA.. Or what used to be, Wednesdays at YMCA..
To compensate for the missing pictures, and in the general spirit of the end of the year, and as a thanks to all my volunteers for making this year so great, I’m uploading the group pic..
That’s what we’ll hang on to till the Farewell at YMCA, and then on to the next year..
PS : Arjun, Karthik and Prakash are missing.. Where did you guys run off to before Christmas anyway !! We’ll take care of the group pic soon.. Can’t forget 2008-09 too soon..
The Last Day
Posted by Jr. in Volunteer Files... on February 15th, 2009
This Friday was our last class at YMCA…
Unlike every other time I’d gone there, I had no idea how to prepare for it… Preparation for that class had started a week earlier and I still had no idea what to do…
The kids had asked me once before, a really long time back, if I’d be around next year as well, and I had told them that in all probability I wouldn’t be.. I dint want to be asked that question again…
I got on Arjun’s bike and we set off for class.. As we were going, I remembered a day in May.. I was travelling on a Pulsar that day too… With Hijaz, on my way to my first Mad meeting… So much had changed since then…
The class itself was not like any other we had.. The kids were somehow more focused than on other days.. I had took a video to class.. A video that had influenced me a lot,Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’, to see what they thought of it..
Amazingly enough, the very same kids who’d always joke around with everything, came up with some really good interpretations of the subject.. In fact, even after we’d moved on from the topic and I’d started off my usual yelling and screaming and making fun of everybody routine, they were still serious, and thinking about what they’d seen…
We then moved on to revising the comparing themes, and strangely enough, nobody complained about anything… A kid called Bipin always complains about everything as long as it has anything to do with learning.. Even he was smiling and trying to participate..
Last half hour, I told the kids they could do whatever they wanted… Some raced for the computers immediately.. But a couple came, sat by me and Arjun and generally talked about stuff…
I think Friday is the day that I realised that my kids weren’t kids anymore.. Somewhere down the line, they’d grown up… And for the past eight or so months, I’d been witness to that growth.. Yes, we had succeeded… We’d changed lives… Mine and theirs, both…
And while I was leaving, I was feeling really down… But not the kids.. They were going to miss classes just as much, but they kept staying stuff like, ‘I’ll see you at the Navy thing.’ and ‘I’ll drop by your place on my way home.’ and stuff like that.. Man, if I were that optimistic, I would’ve been so much better off…
It was a really good day, and an equally worse one at the time, coz we had to leave..
When we got out of the gates, Arjun had a really long face on him… He didn’t want to wait till next June to come to YMCA again.. And funny thing was, he’s going to be here for another two years.. And, in all probability I’m not going to be..
I’ll miss a lot of things.. I’ll miss laughing with the kids, the Ona Sadya, the Christmas and the One Eyed Santa all that.. I’ll miss ‘the Usuals’ near MEC.. The typing races, the ‘alphabet find’ games… All that !
A week ago, I gave the kids sheets of paper with every volunteers name on it, to write whatever they felt like about us.. To make us feel better, my level 2 kids had tried writing the entire thing in English.. And they only had good things to say about all of us… Until I see them next time, I’ll have to make do with the memories of the past year and those feedbacks, it seems…
It was a good year.. And I’m happy for that..
PS : I’m really bad at photoshop, so pardon me for the attempted collage that you see..
Introducing YMCA : Part 1
Posted by Jr. in MAD Resource Centre, Volunteer Files... on January 31st, 2009
Before I say anything, let me thank Harsha for her Nutshell post, which was the inspiration behind this post as well..
I remember Kenney commenting on that post saying that he knew couple more MAD volunteers because of it.. It barely makes sense to work with so many people and not know them !!
In keeping with times, let me introduce M.A.D @ the YMCA Boys Home…
Fridays first :
Level 1 : With The M.E.C Twins
Real Names : Eobin & Rubiya
Engineering students apparently.. The disciplinarian, and the good cop.. Perfect Team !!
Eobin does some car designing or some shit apparently.. (Of course not !! I dint ask how ! As if Sibi doesn’t bore me with enough Engg talk for a week ! ) Oh, I should tell you, if you don’t like wearing helmets, don’t forget to tell Eobin that.. He’ll have a couple of very interesting stories to tell you.. And, good luck with digesting all those statistics you’ll hear.. (Engg students !! *Rolling Eyes*)
Rubiya, meanwhile, is the only volunteer I have who rewrites the logsheet after class to try and improve on her handwriting from two hours ago..
Level 2 – A : With Lil Man And Kaddy
Real Names : Paul and Karthik
One is jobless coz he is taking a year off, and the other is jobless because, well, because.. well, he’s at Cusat.. (You can find him online half the time)(Fact!!)
Again the formidable Good Cop, Loud Cop Combination !!
Paul tries to fool people into thinking he’s a hard metal fan by that fake pasted on beard of his.. Then again, if you’ve seen him dance to ‘Appidi Podu Podu’ you’ll never make that mistake again… !! The kids go easy on him as he’s almost their age !! (Have to make him sub @ Pallu one of these days) My best memory of him though is making him sell vegetables at his interview.. He he.. If I remember correctly, the only vegetable for which he knew Malayalam was ‘tomato’ (sigh) He managed to sell around two kilos to the entire gathering I think..
Karthik has amazingly wierd bad days… On such days, if he is taking class, he gets spellings wrong..
Kid : “C-U-P-B-O-A-R-D”
Karthik : “Aaaah, no.. You missed one letter in between !!”
Paul : “Yeah, you did.. (10 second gap) Eh??”
He also has a wierd way of posing for photographs.. Tongue out, eyes rolled up.. You get the point…
Thankfully I managed to fool him while taking this one !!
Both joined up in December, so still in the process of getting to know them.. Let’s just say that some of the stuff I found out so far are not worthy of this blog, trust me.. He he.. Just kidding..
Both make up for one hell of a team though.. It was my pleasure having to invigilate them on several occasions already..
Level 2 – B : With Sh-ibi
The guy who’d always been there.. From my first day at the YMCA..
Inventor of the tradition of “the usual” after-class trips to the shop near MEC.. Can’t count the number of times we were there.. Nor the time that we went there, I felt nauseous and Sibi and Arjun had to help me inside to Vinu’s hostel room… And how the story got changed to me “fainting and falling, and being delirious” the next day at the OBT..
Also the inventor of the concept of the “Usedometer” (Inside YMCA joke, Sibi and Arjun woulda got it)
And, most importantly, the most patient amongst all of us at YMCA.. Which is why he does a real good job with the tenth standard kids..
There you have it.. That’s full house on Fridays..
Watch out for Introducing YMCA : Part 2 next week..
Till then…
Family Reunion
Posted by Jr. in Volunteer Files... on January 8th, 2009
Funny thing happened today…
At the Holy Ghost camp a couple of weeks back, when Jithin was doing his Mad intros, he introduced me and said I taught at YMCA in passing..
I figured nobody was paying close enough attention, but apparently someone was..
At the end of the day, as I was packing up and preparing to leave, one of the girls, Kausalya, if I’m not wrong, came up, quite timidly, and asked me if I indeed did teach at YMCA.. And I said, “Yeah, why?”
She asked me if I knew Abhimanyu.. Her brother, apparently… I faintly remembered one of my Level 1 guys mentioning a little guy of the name, and telling me how impossible a prankster he was and all.. But since I don’t actually teach Level 1, I didn’t know for sure..
So I took my lap, and pulled up the YMCA Christmas celebration pics.. And there he was !! Making faces at the camera, pulling out Santa’s beard, generally running around, he was there in most of the pics..
She was so happy that she called all her friends and they all crowded around to take a closer look at his antics and tut-tut him and all..
Before I left, she asked me to tell Abhimanyu when I saw him, that I had run into his sister, and that if he didn’t behave, she would knock some manners into him when they met (not kidding)
She reminded me again the second day of the camp as well, and said “Cheta, marakkalle” before I left that night…
And I’d completely forgotten about it…
Today, as part of the New Year spirit and all, Arun, Prakash and Sumit, my Level 1 guys were doing some group activity or the other, and since I’d already finished off my class, I joined them..
I saw Abhimanyu there, and remembered…
So I told him I’d run into his sister a couple of weeks back..
And, man, was he happy..!! He jumped up and down around me for five minutes, clapping his hands, and telling his friends what had happened..
I dint tell him about the disciplining part though.. It just felt too good acting messenger between the brother and sister who apparently hadn’t seen each other in a long time..
Going to Holy Ghost this Saturday.. Have to tell Kausalya that her brother said Hi…
Christmas at YMCA : The Attack of the One Eyed Santa !!!
Posted by Jr. in Volunteer Files... on December 22nd, 2008
Some of my fondest memories of the kids at YMCA will have to be the day we celbrated Onam…
The kids had fun, we had fun, and everybody started the holidays by taking back pleasent memories of the day…
I didn’t want Christmas to be any different… But unlike Onam, I didn’t have to take initiative this time around.. Mr. Prez already had it all figured out.. He’d already taken care of the cake, and all that was left for us lesser mortals ( ) to do was come up with a fun day…
So Friday it was, when we showed up at YMCA… All my volunteers who were still in the city, and an assortment of invited VPs… And, along with the kids, looking forward to a great day…
Now I’ve to thank Rose here… We decided to borrow her Santa Hats idea…
So when we entered the compound, we were armed with chart paper, colour paper and a seemingly very little quantity of glue…
Now, when you see the pics, you’ll ask yourself, why are the santa hats white? Aren’t they supposed to be red??
I read somewhere that some drink company had made Christmas red.. Before, Santa was just another ordinary guy..
So we decided we’d celebrate a non-commercial Christmas, and stick with white…
(Now, that’s the official story.. Actually, like me, my boys were just too impatient to stick red colour paper on the charts… )
Meanwhile, Mr. Ramu Sajan, esteemed VP PR, was struggling into a Santa costume upstairs, that Paul had managed to find from somewhere…
He became the worlds first official one eyed Santa, owing to the fact that the mask was so imperfectly made, that one eyehole was actually somewhere around the ear… (exaggeration )
Although, I was scared that he might scare the kids, we went ahead with it anyway…
And, man did he do a good job… Ramu is by default any sort of mascot for any kind of celebration..
In fact, the kids warmed upto Santa so much that a few of them even ended up tearing off a bit of white beard as souvenirs.. (not kidding)
And then it was time for the cake cutting ceremony…
And, whoa that was a huge cake.. I mean, me and Ramu knew more than anybody else coz we were the ones who transported it to the venue.. It’s not an easy job people, clinging on to a cake while travelling as fast as a Splendour will take you…
The cake disappeared in record time, though, the now-ungarbed Santa is suspected most.. Sorry bro, couldn’t resist taking a dig at you..
And it was totally great, watching the kids enjoy themselves.. They’d already had cake from school apparently, but I’d like to think ours tasted better.. ( I’d no idea the schools would end up being our competition !! )
And then it was time for everybody to go outside and lay ourselves at the mercy of MAD’s official photographer ( who still doesn’t have a cam of his own!! ), Mr. Pios… And here’s what resulted. :
Anyhow, let me thank my volunteers : Sibi, Paul, Eobin, Rubiya, Liz, Arun for puting this together…
And also, Prez (for planning ahead) , Riz, Ramu (for the best Santa performance I’d ever seen), Sanju ( for, inadverently, doing some disciplining in the middle of all the fun.. And disciplining not just kids mind you) and ofcourse, Avenue Regent for that magnificently yummy cake..
That’s it till next holiday…
- (mostly ONLY known as just Jr. these days. )
Technically Wrong; Ideologically Right; and 4 Stunned Teachers !!
Posted by Jr. in The Classroom Docs on October 25th, 2008
I still remember my second class at YMCA vividly. It’s probably one of those classes that go so well, that you think about it all the time, especially at the end of those days when you know you have not done that good a job in class. But more importantly, I remember it because of a kid called Sanal, and his ingenuity. He has since left the orphanage, and this story is the only thing that still reminds me of him..
Anyhow, me, Ishan, Arjun and Andrin were teaching prepositions that day… As I wasn’t prepared (Yes, in direct violation of the MAD Bible), I played spectator, doing the odd correction here and there, while the rest went about their job.
After giving them a brief description and run through of prepositions, we decided to give them Malayalam sentences, and asked them to translate into English. The idea was to give them sentences that would require that they use the very same words they had just learnt.
It was working, and we were all having a good time of it.
Then, Andrin came up with the sentence “Ente purakil police undu” (The police are behind me) and asked them to translate.
Now this batch was really bad at stuff like this, but, to their credit, they did smoke their brains while trying to find the answer… Point is we got varying answers from “The police is my back”, and “The police across my behind” to “I police chase”.
We told them that once everyone had written their answers and revealed it, we would tell them if someone got it right, and if no one had, the right answer..
Apparently no one did..
Sanal was the first to show us the answer and it had some mistake, so we asked him to go sit back down, while we checked everybody else’s answers…
But, he would have none of it.. He sat there, thought for a while, and then came up with another answer…
He came running and gave us his notebook…..On his notebook was written, “I’m in FRONT of the Police.”
Now… We volunteers were all baffled for a second.. We had never even thought of thinking of it that way.. And, here was a 12 year old kid, who had flabbergasted everybody with the most simple solution..
And when we tried to rescue our faces by saying that it was not exactly technically correct, he wouldn’t give in . Adamant, he was.. So we finally gave in and decided to applaud him for his immeasurable genius in language appropriation…
Anyhow, it’s one of those moments that you carry around for the rest of your life…. I will never forget the moment’s architect or how much we laughed…. Come to think of it, it’s the cumulative effect of such moments that make me want to go back again and again, no matter how many bad days I have….
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