Jillus blog: Visit to Sphoorti Foundation (An orphanage)

I wrote this piece way back in 2008 when we went to an orphanage in Hyderabad. I still vividly remember that day. It was one of the most memorable days in my life.

Visit to Sphoorti Foundation

We in zen have been looking for avenues to channel our energies towards something fulfilling and out of the ordinary for quite some time which would be a change from the monotony of work and personal life. So when Mr. Naidu suggested that we go and spend time with someone in need of money, care, support and love, we all jumped at it.

After a bit of research we chose the Sphoorti Foundation (www.sphoorti.org), it is an orphanage in Cherlapally, Hyderabad which accommodates about 53 boys and girls. The orphanage provides them food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care and recreation. Now that we had decided on going to the orphanage we were a bit confused on what is to be given, the kind the of activities that we would be having at sphoorti and were also kind of apprehensive about the kind of welcome that the kids at sphoorti would give us. Nonetheless we started collecting money from interested people and what started as a trickle soon became a flood with zenists along with family and friends contributing for the cause. At the last count, we had a handsome sum of Rs.35000, A portion of which was used to buy some books, biscuits, chocolates, skipping ropes, casios and the rest of it was to be given as cash.

On the second Sunday of june we all assembled at the ECIL bus stop at around 9 AM. It was wonderful to see zenists eagerly volunteering on a dull Sunday morning for the cause. We then left in an armada of vehicles to the orphanage. Though we did not do an iota of planning we were somehow confident of pulling it through with the kids and we were not disappointed.

We were given a joyous welcome by the kids, they showed us around the place It was very well maintained, the rules and regulation were prominently displayed on black boards. There were 7 living rooms, a kitchen a common room a big veranda and common bathroom and toilets. Each room could accommodate 8 kids with the eldest child being the room leader. The drawings of the children were displayed at many places; they also had a couple of computers for the children to learn. Each room was neat and places were demarcated for various items like shoes, soap cases, books, clothes etc (It was a far cry from most of our utterly disorganised and chaotic rooms!!)

Once we settled down the kids showed us their drawings, they sang and danced for us while a few of us played cricket with them. After a while we played antakshari by dividing ourselves into boys team and girls team. Initially the girls had a distinctive advantage (the boys team being severely affected by their star singers devoting their time to the noble sport of cricket J) but once the boys got the necessary reinforcements they were on equal grounds. The memory of the kids was incredible; they could sing a song starting with any alphabet while we zenists could draw only blank faces. After some time we took the kids to the parking lot and they danced to the tune of popular telugu songs played from our car stereos. Groups of children were trained to dance to certain songs and they danced beautifully. While we youngsters were enjoying with the kids, the wise men from our group discussed with the caretakers about the future plans for sphoorti and how we could contribute to the well being of the children.

After about 3 hours of fun and frolic it was time to go. We gave away the money and other items that we had bought with us. The kids then gave us a sad and in some case a tearful farewell. From sphoorthi we went to a place where zen has installed an aircraft simulator. We tinkered around a bit with the simulator and went back home with the feeling of achieving some thing and complete satisfaction.

Looking back at the sphoorthi visit, I feel that the everyone of us have this urge to contribute to the society it is only that we need to be motivated and shown the right direction. I hope zenists continue to participate in such endeavors that not only help the society but also build the team spirit amongst us. We would emerge as better and satisfied individuals in the end.

V Srinivasa Iyer

Team Leader

Software Quality Assurance.