Spider-Man on Republic Day.

The company I work for is associated with an institute called SOCARE IND, a home for children of prisoners in Central jail. There are about 30 children of the age group 3 to 15 who stay here. When I first visited the place, the owner told us stories about the horrific crimes that some of the parents of these kids have committed, I cringed every time he pointed to a kid and told his story. I can only imagine what they go through, their mental anguish ,the feeling of insecurity, not having their loved ones close to them, knowing that their parents are locked away for the shameful crimes they committed, it is scary! But they show almost no signs of it and are so full of energy and enthusiasm, it is infectious. That's one of the reasons I like visiting them.

On Republic Day we decided to organize a drawing competition and a quiz contest for the kids. (I came up with both ideas, thank you very much :)) The younger kids were supposed to draw the national flag and the older kids were free to draw anything they wanted. And boy, you should have seen the drawings! Flags were of all shapes, sizes and colours. Its not their fault, we hadn't clarified it was the Indian national flag that they had to draw. But the best painting was the one in which a kid had drawn a neat tricolour flag and standing next to it saluting the flag was none other than Spider-Man!!!!! I admire the ingenuity of the kid! I'd really like it if Spider-Man came to see our republic day celebrations. It would be fun wouldn't it? He could be the chief guest and could give an inspiring speech something to the effect of "With great power comes great responsibilities".Hehe!
For the quiz, I had no idea about the aptitude of these kids so I came up with simple questions like 'who is the president of India?'. I had to hide my face in shame when the children in turn asked us questions like which city is called 'Manchester of India'?(I bet you don't know that either, google and find out :p) We had to rack our brains and came up with some difficult questions. It turned out to be very interesting with a nail biting 'tie-breaker' in the end. This was followed by lots of masti, games and dance. It was the best republic day ever. The warden of the home, when we were about to leave told us that the kids hadn't had so much fun in a long time and thanked us profusely. I hadn't had so much fun in a long time! I am going to do this more often, spend more time with the kids, I don't know if I have anything to give them but there is so much to learn from them. :)

I also watched Rang de Basanti day on the same day. One word, Brilliant. I have only one qualm about the movie (it has to do with the ending) but I wont talk about it here. I'd say its a must watch. Look out for some super performances by Atul Kulkarni, Siddharth and Kunal. Aamir for a change, hasn't stolen the show. Music is awesome. Masti ki paatshaala......

Before I end this post I'd like to add that I take back everything I said in the last post. My cable wallah took off Zee Cafe. (We get Zee TV, Zee News, Zee Cinema, Zee Studio and Zee Telugu??? but no Zee cafe!) So no OC, no Friends. I hate him. He is my mortal enemy.

I am an addict after all.