-
The Little White Pipe Into My Sink: Reusing RO Purifier Waste Water
For years, the little white pipe from the RO was bothering me a lot. Every time I used our RO purifier, two or three glasses of water went straight down the drain. Here is how I started collecting and reusing that RO waste water at home. I felt guilty every time I stood at that…
-
₹39, a Village Tower, and the Man Who Holds the Switch
Thirty-nine rupees I was in Mumbai recently, running work calls and answering emails off my phone’s hotspot for two days. At the end of the trip, a notification told me what it had cost: ₹39 for 3 GB. For reference, ₹39 in Mumbai is two vada pavs and some change. I had spent more on…
-
The lost art in our families
Rey, itu vachi konchem ee nadumu, kallu thokku: Come, press my back or legs for a bit, Come, press my back for a bit. As a kid, I heard this almost every day. Many homes were full. Grandparents lived, and aunts, uncles, and cousins came and stayed for weeks. There was no privacy and nobody…
-
The Dosa that didn’t fit
After a long day, my wife Bhavana and I had no energy left to cook dinner, so I grabbed our steel dabbas as always and walked to the neighbourhood restaurant (tiffin place) for dosas 😋. The waiter looked as tired as I felt. He glanced at my box, then at the two, golden dosas rolled…
-
Tribute to Earth’s dearest friend – Yellanna
On the morning of Vinayaka Chaturthi, homes were filled with joy, flowers and pooja of Vigneshwar. I got news that stopped me cold. Yellanna had attained sadgati and is no more. Most people live quietly and leave without much of a ripple. But once in a long while you meet someone whose life is so…
-
The Girl at the Roadside Eatery and Samvedhana
Samvedhana translates to empathy or a deep feeling of shared pain and compassion for someone’s suffering in English. My work at Seva Bharathi revolves around thousands of such stories on ground. This week’s story is about how a girl running an eatery showed that to me. It was a pleasant Saturday and I had typically…
-
My first 10K experience
Part of Run organising team to a runner For over ten years, I am part of the organizing team of Seva Bharathi’s Run for a Girl Child, during these days I actively manage the event, coordinating with department heads, sorting out last-minute hiccups, and cheering for thousands of runners. Whenever my friends and other participants asked…
-
A summary of Saadhana
When I was 19 years old, studying mechanical engineering in a college with very basic facilities, computers felt like magic. A professor who came to my college as a guest lecture to teach Finite Element Analysis, Dr. N. Shyam sir, was the one who introduced me to what computing could actually do. Back then, my…
-
The Broken Bottle
While writing down the story of Rajavva: The Maharaja who slept forever about my grandmother, a memory struck me from my childhood. When I was around eight or nine years old, I was studying in a residential (boarding) school, while my parents lived back in our village. Before sending me to the hostel, my Amma…
-
Rajavva: The Maharaja Who Slept Forever
The name itself has raja in it, and she was a true maharaja, though she never wore a crown. Now she is no more. My 82-year-old grandmother has left to the lotus feet of Bhagvaan, and I write this so you know the life she lived. She came from a remote village, born to a family dependent…
