Usha and the Red brigade

Usha is an energy bomb who trains 1000s of women (more than 2 Lakh women ) esp young ones on self defense to avert any sort of domestic violence and mainly for the young girls in their daily life at home and school or office..they have covered 225 schools in Lucknow and 200 villages around. she has been doing this untiringly for years now in Lucknow and see the number of awards and shields she has got in the background of one of the photos. Meanwhile an interesting anecdote: a young girl by accident is exposed to her training, uses the self defence skills.. Red brigade doesn’t allow girls below 11 to their trainings bcos they have to mention about some uncomfy incidents/words/acts of men. so as not to expose these kids to such shameful stuff they avoid girls younger than 11/12..But since this one in our story had come along with an elder sister and they couldn’t send her away or keep her alone else where, she also participated..(but Usha didn’t know of this) It so happened that there was a neighbourhood jerk, hefty and old and who used to harass this kid, who forced himself on this kid the next day (of training) too..This kid just fresh from the previous day's accidental training, manages to push him away using the technique that was taught, twist his arm and kick in his privy..so he was down wailing in pain.. the neighbours come and see this man in pain, understand what shud have happened and informs police & 1090- the women powerline! From there, escalation happens and they organise a counselling for the kid bcos of her age..this news goes up to the top of the women commission and a top police women (IPS) officer.. who calls Usha “hey. Lal Batte! Did u know a kid averted a crisis bcos of your training!” and goes on to tell her this story and later on she gets to listen to the kid too for a first hand narration.. Usha is full of such anecdotes..when ever with her we just ask for some and she keeps dishing out so many interesting anecdotes..all filled with hope and women valour! Its a pleasure that the Gandhian movement is throwing such interesting and fantastic folks in to my life..and am so happy to not just see their work closely but also travel along.. about the Red brigade: Red Brigade Lucknow is a women-led organization dedicated entirely to eradicating sexual violence. It was founded in 2011 by Usha Vishwakarma, herself a sexual violence survivor. Usha started this initiative along with 15 young women and girls, most of them also survivors of sexual violence coming from socially and economically marginalized sections of our community. More than 75 percent of the organization is lead and run by young women and girls, a majority of them represent the socio economically marginalized social groups (in particular, Dalits and Muslims). The organization believes in inculcating the principles of participation, representation and decision-making powers within young women and girls from the lower strata of the society as they face multiple and compound forms of discrimination. They all sport Red (& black) dresses, have more than 100 volunteers and have won soooooo many awards. Its just too much to type all those names here:) PS: This post just doesnt do justice to what they do..esp Usha just works incessantly and on so many issues..during the migrants issue and pandemic they started distributing groceries and food to so many poor neighbourhoods..she has so many stories around that too! now she is in to creating livelihoods, to try and revive some artisans..

Energy kid

Sanjeev Rao- u r gonna hear this name in the coming years for some very interesting products or awesome projects, am sure.
I heard about this guy thru a friend who stated that this maverick had designed and implemented a wind turbine (generator?) to harvest the wind for electricity in his house in Bangalore and that he was also doubling it up by designing a hybrid version that will make use of the solar energy too!
Hmm, sounds really interesting..so I couldn’t wait to visit Blore..
When I did last week, his house was one of the main agendas.

Meanwhile I happened to see his tamil blog. So when I enquired him ‘how come a Blore Rao had a tamil blog’ he said he was from Neyveli! Oh! Now I know why all this genius and green ideas..
(ahem, am from neyveli too as u all know)
So more reason to visit.

His room has all signs of a genius at work. Spares all around! Open(ed) circuits, half broken/dismantled toys and equipments, hanging wires, meters reading..
Then when we get to see his equipment, am even more baffled. It just has PVC pipes cut across (in to threes) that make up the horizontal wind mill! There were many reused parts and the whole thing was amazing. This design itself was to avoid any questions if a standard typical fan like wind mill was installed. Now, to enhance the harvest and to get the most, he has mounted this on a circular plate which itself is isolated with another one. To ease friction I thought, but this guy had more grey matter. He had opposite pole magnets on each of the plates and so for every small rotation the magnetic levitation would aid more revolutions! Stroke of genius, eh?

So this is helping him with 600 watts- at a cost of around 25k! He is trying many ways to improve the efficiency and to better the cost.

I thought the idea of using solar to trigger the wind turbine and to to have a hybrid device is sooper! The wind alone will need a good wind speed (9mts per sec) and so the hybrid can be a great model for urban users. see video here and more here

Magnets- I mentioned their use already right? But did u know China dominates that too? He needs quite some good quantity of them and they were pricey it seems. The Chinese dominate that area inspite of them having to import iron ore! So if you do have some good contacts, do pass to me/him. He needs some 64 magnets for one turbine and the Chinese ones cost 450 INR, where as in India the same costs 1350!

He is in the process of designing a bigger wind turbine as a special case in pollachi and wud supply to the grid. (that’s for another day)

Ever thought about the wind throw behind every vehicle when it whizzes past on the road? Our man did and so he took this small horizontal model and installed it on the median of the highway near Krishnagiri. On an 8 hour stretch with 9600 of the 4/6 wheelers passing by, he says he could harvest so much that the numbers point to 1Mega watt a day!
Its so simple and easy and if the govt were to do that at say 400 places, u don’t need the recent nuclear project at koodangulam that is making so much noise! (its ofcourse an ecological disaster) .
Then he goes on to show how with just a small strip of solar panel(costing Rs.20 a piece) on the car roof and a rejected (re-used) CPU fan from a PC he circulates the air in small cars to increase the efficiency of the AC. He says this can be bettered and implemented in the buses in Chennai so easily (regulating the air by better circulation) and even could make it work like an air cooler, thus doing away with the AC vehicles and so save fuel and the environment!

What more – he also had made some useful gadgets from used/rejected parts, like a torch from an used up mobile phone battery. There are some other items that he had made but not in any commercial scale or even replication in mind, but just to overcome any shortcomings he wud face. (like while cycling he felt light was an issue so he made one). Even the wind turbines shall be open source. He just plans to share his ideas/experience and help people build cheap ones and generate their own power. Just reduce our dependency on the grid/government he says.

He has accepted to design a cycle operated washing machine for me. He has also offered to work on trying to harvest energy from such cycles to run standard equipments like TV, fridge, washing machine etc. Here again he is contemplating using Magnetic levitation so that more revolutions happen. This, he says, if incorporated in to our genric cycles can help with minimal energy!

There is so much this energykid can do that makes me feel so good that he is not one of those who was merited way high in our academic system. So much for our education system as Sriram rightly points here.

Have we forgotten basic courtesies?

Have u gone thru this? U go to some body’s house and a single syllable welcome (hmm..hey..hi..welcome..etc) and a brisk turn of head to another direction or a single sentence “hey..see who has come” or “hi..how come this far today???” and a brisk turn of head..and in the rarer cases just no (re)action, almost discounting u without any notice..

Wondering whats the ‘other direction’ offering? Simple folks! TV and mostly a serial running..these days its sacrilegious to visit most folks during the ‘serial times’..
IMHO serials are the single biggest source of negative energy accumulators and pessimism pumpers,..pulling the society’s sanity graph further down in these already bad days..

That’s why I love houses without TVs in the hall or living room (Ra comes to my mind)..and value folks who just don’t switch their TV on when there are guests..even more the people who (till u enter are watching TV) puts them off and jumps in to conversation with u..Those are the rare and pleasing ones..
I went to one such house last Sunday and was pleasantly engaged by all in their family so well that none thought of the TV the few hours that I spent there..my good old friend Pa and his family were the ones who gave this great feeling..Its not just the lack of TV watching that was comforting me, many more..(ok forget the snacks and beverage offered)
I also donot like the other common practise in the ‘visits’ - asking the chottus to sing cinema song and such like..thats a disgusting habit..I think as adults we shud not indulge in such wrong guidance. We shud never be the reason to glorify such crap songs to the kids..hey, ask them to recite some rhymes or some other better things than cinema songs..even worse is asking the kids to dance for songs..i feel ashamed when such things are encouraged esp during my visit to some one’s house..some times u stand a poor embarrassing party to these..

Ok, coming back to the point – at this friend’s house I was saying one kid showed his talent of Drawing the other singing! Man what nice talents to share. The younger one (all of 5-6 years ) draws a replica of any thing u show..a mag cover or his story books or such like..with just one pencil and not withdrawing his hand off, also no eraser used thru the whole drawing..and the elder one sings karnatic songs with such ease of a pro..and he sings a bit (arohana/avarohanam) and looks at me quizzically asking me to cough up the raga name..and is maha pleased at my failure as much as at my ‘pass’;-)
Forget that tastes differ and that one might like to listen to music where as another might want to read and so on..but bringing the TV and movie influence on the chottus is not something we shud do..NO, don’t get me wrong..i listen to movie songs, infact have very strong likes and dislikes, the same on movies too..but when it comes to influencing (esp wrongly) the kids let us take care..
The feeling I had in me long after leaving Pa’s house was mindboggling..

Touching and inspiring! Motivating too!!

Loganathan- lost his father when he was very young and hence had to work to win bread for him and family..but wanted to study..couldn't do due to domestic pressure..
So what will one do? He resolves to save 10% of his monthly income (which amounts to Rs 300/-) and collect over an year and donate it to some one who wants to study but is unable to pursue due to lack of money..
Not big amount..but the heart?? Yes, I too brace to hear more as I think this is stupendous..
And then? This man meets a toilet cleaner who was just out after donating blood.. so loganathan is impressed and asks him about his story.. That man says, 'I am from a lower caste and hence there isn’t much acceptability, but for blood there's no caste..so I do this very regularly..' This man is touched..so as they exchange stories, the blood donor is impressed by this ‘educator’ and says, what will u do if u get more?
But how asks Logs..and this man says, 'I have been asked to clean toilets in a few additional places but lack of time, am unable to take them up.. are u game? This means cleaning the toilet in an office that will get u Rs 400 a month and another private premises which can fetch u Rs 300/-..'
Oops- This is a 3 times jump and this means 1k a month for my contribution..so Logs jumps at it..
He now has to spend 2 hours extra in the morning and 2 in the evening..he does that with glee as he now gets a 3 times higher amount to donate!!
An amount that most of us would just throw for a dinner- has such inspiring story!!

Rajini- a student from a very poor family..gets top mark in his public exam..so is being felicitaed and gets a grant..He then checks out the value of his fees in the next year..does a quick math and tells the ones who give him the grant to take the rest 90% of the value and support 9 more poor students.. every one is blown over! Actor surya who was witness to this is flabbergasted..and so he starts his own agaram foundation motivated by this extraordinary move by a kid..

A grave yard keeper (vettiyan) in some interior TN village wants to help poor students study well and so saves money from his income and ‘over time’ and helps organise tuition for poor students to fare well in exams..

An old poor couple who have no children, suddenly get this wave to adopt banyan trees and take care of them as their own children..so when they were last visited their score was 100..so how many 100s does a tendulkar need to score to come near them?

So whats this? Where did I hear all these touching and inspiring stories??

Jagan from Pakkam village 40kms from Madras near thinanoor was the one who stumped me with such stories..He himself can fit in to one such story..that comes later..
He was given this challenge to bring some lesson (education?) to students without being part of text book, additional period or classroom..so he got this brain wave to go around identify great men from humble settings and show case them.
He travelled around TN and identified such great men from very ordinary background and small places and would take them to a big school in the near by town or city.. this way he managed to educate (open eyes?) the city students and also bring these great gentlemen to forefront..

He has 500 such stories…hmm…pant..pant..This collation of extra ordinary stories is called “ennangalain sangamam-எண்ணங்களின் சங்கமம்) he even organizes a meeting of all such amazing folks the first Sunday of every January!

So if you did some small deed somewhere, contributed an amount once in a blue moon for a cause, please come to my side and stand humbled..yes you can cringe like me..

This man jagan came to the meeting in the beginning of this year, where I had shared my Kisan swaraj yatra experiences. Even there he impressed me with a fantastic observation he made..
He came up with one of the best observations backed with stats that I have ever come across.
He said he had asked all his fellow villagers to note down every expense and income for 3 months. Then he collected it from all the 120 house holds in his village.
And found that just above 1 crore Rupees is spent on only 3 items.and this is more than 80% of the total expense!
Now take a guess on the 3 top expenses..

No u wudnt have, am sure..
Its Pesticides n chemicals, Drugs (medicines) and Tasmac (the great TN entertainer- alcohol)..
His observation was this full amount was a bleed and went out of the village..so he said it was unfair economics and a needless drain..
But what he told next was the steal..
He said if they went back to traditional farming (organic/natural) the 1st 2 could be avoided..and to avoid the 3rd he has already started youth groups to campaign against drinking alcohol and has faced fair amount of success..when I visited his village,I did meet some of the youth who had vowed not to drink in their life and also working on rehabilitating others.Jagan also runs a school for poor and orphans in his village. For more info see here. This by itself needs to be another story, for later.

Now he has turned his eye on organic farming..he has taken some land on lease and has even hired and motivated some local farm labours to work along with him in his land..he has contacted many families and asked them to be a part of this organic movement by being captive market for next one year by contributing some money in advance and in turn get organic veggies and fruits from his land.. a Novel idea and am sure it will succeed, going by his energy and pace..i for one has assured to work closely with him and wish to help him achieve his goals and even do more..

Way to go jagan..its on seeing people like you that I renew hopes on humanity..I feel motivated and start expending right energies..hats off and you keep walking..some of us will get influenced and contribute in some ways like the squirrels of Ramayana..