Kudur Rural Reach Program Short Story - Jayaprakash

Program participants: Krishna, Rajesh, Damodar, Sai Krishna, Murali, Vidhyadhar, Vinayak, Jayaprakash, Somashekar, Saritha, Shubha, Mridula, Gurunath, Sanjay, Krishna, Shreenidhi

The trip schedule and agenda for the Kudur Rural Reach Program was well planned and informed to all the parties by E & R department.

Then it all started on cool Saturday morning (22-July-05). The Bus took off from Infy Campus with all the computers, books, pens required for the program loaded in its booty. Bus left the campus at around 7:30am with everyone getting a missed call. It followed the route from INFY CAMPUS ->Raghavendra Math->Silk board->Devegowda petrol bunk Banashankari bus stop-> Vijaynagar Main Rd->Jalahalli cross, stopping only to pick up the E&R executives. Jalahalli cross was the last stop for the pickup and then we stopped only once on the city outskirts of city for having Break fast.

Break fast was packed Idli, vadas from Adiga’s supplemented with gulkan ban. Breakfast tasted really good, Somehow I have always found that Idlis taste yummy when we are on trip and Gulkan bun was really excellent. After breakfast everybody had a gulp of water and we started of on our onward journey to Kudur grama 60 kms aways from Bangalore.

The journery to Kudur itself was fun filled; it started of with everybody giving 2 mins introduction about themselves. We were all around 16 in number. Rajesh entertained the crowd with his good old kananda songs, jana padha geetaygalu, Murali and everybody joined with their bit of talent in singing. All this while the bus was on the move and either side one could treat their eyes with the green trees, the black/brown mountains, the well cultivated lands, and some cultivated lands still dry and waiting on monsoon rains to quench it with water. The fresh air was blowing on our faces and the air was so fresh filled with aroma of country side, I guess Murali also joked about the air being so fresh that is not good for our health. On our we also saw a mountain engulfed in clouds which almost resembled like a volcano J this was one of the most captivating sights.

We reached Kudur grama round 11:00pm. It was a small, sweet and quite village away from hustle, bustle of the City. The main source of income seemed to come from handlooms and agriculture. The Government Middle school had around 300+ kids. As soon we reached the school we were allocated 4 rooms for the Rural Reach program. We set up one room for introductory presentation and other 3 rooms for setting up 10 computers for practical session.

For introductory presentation all the village heads, school heads, school teachers & around 100 schools were present. It started with Head Master’s welcome address, followed by a prayer from a school teacher. Then Vinayak from Infosys Team provided brief explanation about the objective of the Rural Reach Program.
“Rural reach programme is a one day programme to students of classes 5, 6 and 7 in rural area schools delivering the very basics and needs of computer and give them practical hands on session on computers. The students are given a day to see, touch and explore a computer and its peripheral. This program only sows the seed and it is responsibility of the school officials to take care and grow it into a big computer”

The 300+ kids were divided into 3 batches and each batch were given a presentation in Kannada about the computer, its components, working, uses and step to gain more knowledge. Looking at the enthusiast children listening and questioning was a treat to eyes and ears. Answering there simple basic curious question was really fun to the Presenters. Kids enjoyed the show and most of them volunteered to read the contents from the PPT.

After the presentation the kids were divided into batches of 7 each for the practical session. In the practical session we showed the different parts of computer, most of them were keen and curious to touch different computer parts. They were shown how to use Word, Excel, calculator and Paint. And as usual MS-Paint was successful in captivating their attention.

At round 2pm we came to the end of our programme and kids ran away to grab their share of sweets. Kids were also given Notebook, Pen and a book on computers written by Sudha Murthy and then it was lunch time for kids bringing to an end a memorable day for the kids. I am sure in the coming days most of them would be talking about computers and at least 50% would be inspired to know more computers and thus achieving objective of the RRP.

We then started packing/loading the computers back into the bus. Then started the group photo sessions followed by lunch organized by school officials. For lunch we were served with Puliyogare, Avalakki masaru, Rice and huli which all tasted extra fabulous and satisfied our hunger.

We then had a walk towards a Tender coconut groove. Here we were introduced to tastiest fresh tender coconuts; we all dived upon the coconut like hungry bees starved for the nectar, sucking the sweet liquid to quench our thirst. It never ceases to amaze me of how the coconut tree manages to convert our polluted water into such a holy life saving liquid. After empty nearly 2 dozen coconuts we traced back to the school, on the way spent few mins playing cuckoo with kids, the kids were very enthusiastic in showing of their talents in front of us (aliens). That was end of our stint at Kudur, we then boarded the bus eagerly for our return journey back to our Big Bang hustle bustle Bangalore.

On the way back in the bus, we were again entertained by Dance from Rajesh & Krishna. Rajesh turned out to be real crowd entertainer bringing waves of laughter from the crowd. It had started raining by then; the village side looked greener than never before. The cool breeze mixed with rain droplet blew fresh on our faces. The aroma from breeze was a welcome relief to our tired lungs. It was still raining when we reached Bangalore around 6:00pm.
This brings to the end of the most memorable trip and the Kudur Rural Reach Program

Trip to Mount Bonnell

Mount Bonnell
3800 Mount Bonnell Road
Austin, Texas

This weekend (Feb 15 2003) we (Jayaprakash & Prashanth Hallur) had been to Mount Bonnell located in Austin, Texas, U.S, a natural paradise on earth. As the name indicates Mount bonnell is a place in the mountains. From atop Mount Bonnell you could see the river (Colorado River) winding through the Hill Country. It is supposed to be over 700 feet above sea level, a natural limestone formation standing about 200 feet above the surrounding area.

The Drive to Mount bonnell itself was very exciting, the drive started from our suite in the heart of the city with highways and flyovers surrounding it. We left our suite around 3:00pm, we had the Austin Map to guide us, and it is around 20 mins drive to Mount Bonnell. After around 10 mins of driving through the Austin weekend traffic, we hit the road leading to the Mt Bonnell; the traffic and straight roads gave way to dense vegetation and winding roads.

We used to have the glimpse of the green tree topped mountains now and then, at one point when we turned a winding road, instantly the steep mountain covered with ever green trees loomed in front of us, there were houses constructed cunningly on the ledges of this mountain, just the place for any nature lover. As the winding road led into mountains the view got better and better, we were climbing the mountain now, as we turned another winding road, we got a glimpse of gleaming water, now we were around 200 feet above the surrounding area.

At one point, the vegetation on the right side cleared and we could see the river almost 200 feet below us and on the left side was the green mountain with houses hanging here and there. We parked our car and climbed the final 10mts to the side of the mountain, as we reached the side we saw one the magnificent views of the lifetime, believe me guys if I say it is a natural paradise on earth, I won't be wrong, no words can describe the view better, and Let me try my best to put the view in words.

View Description: "On my right was the mountain rising above me with wooden houses on the ledges, 200 feet below us was the flowing river, on either side of the river were houses, they were like palaces, the houses was so magnificently constructed, every house had a Pier leading into the river, on the far side of the river was a hanging bridge and behind the houses was again the steep tree covered mountains ................ that is all my eyes could capture"

For a second I felt god has betrayed me by providing only two eyes. For the first time I believed what we studied in our history books that the "Civilization starts on the river side".

As we trekked along the mountainside, the view never ended it only got better; it never stopped to loose our attention. There was one house on the river side that caught our attention, the story about this house is that it belongs to a World Cyclist champion, and it seems that at point in his career he broke his leg in an accident, but that didn't stop him from cycling, he practiced hard again and went on win the World Championship for the second time, an inspiring story at an inspiring place.

We reached the Top point on the Mountain side, from here we could see the Downtown Austin (The state capitol, The football stadium and other sky scrappers), the river, the houses on either side of the river, the bridge, mountains on either side of the river, the view for breath taking...You have to see it to believe it, words are betraying me.

After spending some time we walked back the way we came treating our eyes with the view again. All along the path we have tried to capture the view in our camera, hoping to show you guys some day, guys that ends our trip to Mount bonnell.