Bihar Flood Relief - Full Coverage

After first round of collection of RM(relief material), people just kept calling and bringing in more and more, for helping our brothers and sisters in Bihar. So yesterday being a Sunday, the organizing team decided that it was the right time to go to the parcel office (of course we had to collect the RM first in big trucks :-) ).

This drive started in various areas in Bangalore around 9am and continued till evening 8pm.
In Koramangala my friend Ujval got a big truck from somewhere ( he has amazing enthusiasm and also plenty of contacts :-) ). As I joined him, the truck got punctured, not an auspicious start but when intention is good nothing can stop you. Also Gyanesh,an enthusiastic young boy, who came to Bangalore only few days back to start his engineering studies,joined us.
So somehow we (of course driver :-) ) got the truck ready and started to roll and then immediately God decided to sprinkle some water on us, so we waited near SSRVM (Sri Sri RaviShankar Vidya Mandir),HSR Layout, till we got our act together and got hold of a big cover for the truck and with grace, Sun God decided to give his darshan in full glow. One more friend Shankar joined us at HSR Layout in his car. And then story unfolds as follows
1. We went to Belandur on Outer ring road were our friends were ready with the RM, so after putting the RM time for some PR :-)



2. Then we went to Ujvals office on the same road, he and his teammates had already packed the boxes one day back so again ....



3. After that our friend Abhishek also joined us at Marthahalli for next destination which was in Whitefield (it is pretty green area, will go into nomenclature sometime else :-) ). There our other friends Radhika and Arun had already done a superb job, they properly packed collection of RM and so we decided to have some fun in between loading those heavy boxes.









4. The truck got full but our stomachs were empty so we decided that we will eat something on the way to the station and we kept teasing Abhishek (he is very fond of food and food and more food :-) ) that today we wont eat anything till we reach Railway Station and that happened that way only.

And finally we reached Parcel Office at 4:45pm and if had been even late by 10mins we would not have been able to unload the truck, as people from various areas had already brought RM and Parcel office was full. The place was buzzing with smiling and enthusiastic young and old volunteers, people were carrying boxes as if boxes had nothing inside (man they were heavy !)
One thing which I have realized is, that if you are doing selfless service, you are never alone, there is an invisible power which is helping you out.









This is just the beginning, there will be no stopping till we realize our goal. You are all welcome to join us in future endeavors.

Keep looking for more interesting updates !

Bihar Flood Relief

There is a state by the name Bihar in India which is very famous (infamous) for various reasons all over the world, but I have a personal liking for this place for various reasons. There is a river by name Kosi which passes through it and every year floods are experienced in neighboring areas but this year Kosi has spread itself into lots of areas of Bihar, resulting in a national disaster. Almost 30 lakh people have no home, people are not getting much to eat as well, whole situation is in a jeopardy but our politicians are busy in finding out whose responsibiliy is to take care of people who have been left stranded without food and shelter. But there are some selfless people and organizations who have come forward to help provide relief there.

Art of Living as ever is already active in the flood hit areas and volunteers are helping there day in and day out. So this week we started a drive in bangalore to collect some material (clothes, ready to eat stuff, medicine, plastic sheets etc) to be sent across to Bihar and it was an overwhelming experience.
Tuesday night we decided to go to an apartment complex and ask people for RM(relief material), the enthusiasm was palpable, we were just running and knocking doors, waking people up (some people sleep early :-) ). When people opened their doors, first facial expression was "who the hell is disturbing at this time" and when we told about the drive, they were also happily driven into it, we asked them to drop the material in one of our teacher's spare flat and believe it or not, within 3-4 hours in the morning that flat was jampacked with material. Who told human values have dissolved into oblivion, we just need to remove some dirt from the top and you will get ever shining human values.
Wednesday our friends in IndiraNagar caught hold of a truck and started to collect the RM in the nearbay areas, I joined them at Koramangala and then we collected some more RM and went to deposit the RM at Ashram. When we reached there, not many people were there, so we alongwith some Ashramites decided to sort the RM properly so that we could send it to Bihar as soon as possible, meanwhile some devotee came with another truck load of RM which he collected from his apartment and then it was decided that we will use the same truck to take the packed RM to Railway Station, my friend went with that truck.

After sometime we loaded another truck and I boarded the same for Rly Stn. One more friend started from Banashankari in another truck at the same time. We reached the parcel office and even though it was past 8:00pm (Parcel office closes at that time), the railway authorities helped us in all possible manner. So now at this time we did not had enough people to unload the 3 trucks, but where there is a will there is way and from no where some people came and helped us in that situation. So after a super day, we went back physically tired but mentally in a blissful state. Next morning again came to the parcel office, helped in loading the RM into the train and then bid adieu to the train and left for office.