The Sundar Nagar Joy of Sharing Club - Second Initiative

 Darahas once again helped with this idea, fully supported by our President and Secretary, who also graced the occasion. There were some more kids this time - books (over 60 books), headphones, shoes, play stuff and some other things. Darahas planned the event out with many youngsters - I wish some more adults had come too.

The Lot or the Loot

Anyway, it was a Sunday evening and the book sharing event started at 530. After an introduction by Anirudh I spoke about my thoughts and then the President and Secretary spoke and then it was a free for all. It was interesting to know that a fe kids had brought a book or two to share and even more interesting to see a six or seven year old kid taking away books way beyond his age by the stacks - one can only hope he gets inspired to read them. One young girl was looking rather disconsolately at a National Geographic without a cover and I told her to take it - the inside content was far more valuable.

The new committee

One other youngster told me how he read Roald Dahl and showed me what he had picked up - RK Narayan, Ruskin Bond and a couple of well chosen books. Smart fellow and a definite reader. I am sure he could have picked up some more. One kid asked me for a suggestion and I told him to pick up Guns, Germs and Steel. I remember giving a few more suggestions - there were so many good books on display. I was tempted to pick up a coupe including Zero to One - but hey, it was gone in a jiffy. Te kid who picked it up came and asked me - is it a good book sir/ I had to hold myself and say Yes.

Anirudh compering - he did a good job!

Once again, almost 80-90% of the stuff went off. Just some odd things and a couple of books got left out. The sight of two kids carrying books away by the bag load was most heartening. Darahas made a young team which he says will take the idea of the 'Joy of Sharing Club' forward and I am hoping they will. The President and the Secretary said we could do this activity every last weekend of the month which is very generous of them. Darahas tells me that the Model Colony people have also sent their appreciation of the initiative.

All of us 

Good job Darahas. 

One other thing Darahas did was to organise a small talk by me to a bunch of youngsters who he felt were at a stage when they needed some advice. Rishikesh, Bharath, Kivanth, Akhil, Akhilesh and Prabhaas, joined in, along with Darahas and Anirudh. I shared stories about howto work towards a goal, the learning mindset and stuff. They asked quite a few questions which was heartening. We parted with the thought that we could meet again like this another day.

Thanks Vinod bhai, Smitha, Vinesh and others for sharing your books for the cause.