Pillars of Footwear Project

A month back if anyone had told me that our footwear project would come to this level, I would have said "Not Sure". But many deserve the credit for carrying
out this project in a great way. Without our Chief hunter Mary Preethi nothing would have started. For many of us,the article in Hindu about school children walking barefoot was nothing more than a news item and some would have skipped that article.
Our Chief Hunter thought otherwise. She wanted to do something. She spoke the journalist who had written that article and she found the school in Saligramam.
It was General Carriappa Hr.Sec. School. She went that school and took a list of students who needed those footwear. Really great Preethi.

Next is our Secretary Harish. He is the main man of SWAT. One person I really started to admire in college after my close friend Vignesh. I think Harish has the in-born quality of a great leader. It is really impossible to work with me and Gajan if you don't have the patience. Harish has a lot of that. Harish has grown in our department from a reticent boy and volleyball player during the second year to a icon and leader in the final year. Only few of us knew the difficulty we had in getting the footwear from the shop and that too at 12.30 midnight. But he enjoys everything without any fuss whatsoever. Great da. One additional gossip : Many
of department girls(especially juniors) are ogling at him. But this fellow is not at all responding.

Next person is our print partner and future CEO of TrueCopy Corporation(Since 1983). He is Aravind. He is the romeo of our class for different reasons. Everyone in my class would agree to that. He also went with Harish to the footwear shop to get the
load. He came with me to the "Khadims" Showroom in perumbur to finalise the order.At every stage in this project he was the constant one and either me or Harish accompanied him.Fondly called as "xerox" Aravind or truecopy Aravind is indispensable in all our SWAT projects.

Madhangi and Sivaranjani's work in this project cannot be left out. They worked with preethi from the beginning and they too deserve the accolades.

On the day of the event and during the previous night, we really got some great help from both the Ashwins of St.Peters and Karthik on the day of the event. They really helped us to complete everything quickly. With some astute and smart thinking from all the three, we were able to finish things.

Our ever reliable Treasurer Ragu attended the event in spite of his tightest of schedules and I was really happy that he was there. I have to mention my close friends who have helped in publicizing the event Dhana, Gautam, Sethu and Raman.

All our donors deserve the most Special accolade for their generosity and faith they've shown in us. I should thank all our members who have donated to this project.
We saw something called happiness in those students which they don't get all the time. Many factors are responsible for that. But we can help them in some
of their problems. This was one of those. All I want is this has to continue. Yes We can.

Who is a narrow-minded person??

Two of my friends sitting next to me in the ultimate row of our college bus were having this heated conversation. Lets assume them as Mr.G and Mr.S

G: You're so narrow-minded like Ashwin.
S: What??? ME!!! you're talking like Ashwin, so you're narrow-minded.

That was the end of that conversation and by the way My name is Ashwin. They both were referring to me. But to be honest until that moment i didn't have any idea whatsoever about what the altercation was about. This wasn't the first time someone has branded me as "narrow-minded". I wanted to know the exact meaning of that word. So I browsed some online dictionaries and the exact meaning is given below:

narrow-minded(adj.) - having a biased or illiberal viewpoint; bigoted, intolerant, or prejudiced.

Now I'll tell the instances where I was branded as a "narrow-minded" person. First one was in my home with one of my relatives who is a ardent BJP supporter. He was talking to me about the Ruchika Gilhotra case and how justice has gone from abyss to something further down. Suddenly the conversation went to the liberhan commission report and our conversation turned into a altercation where he spoke in length about the good works of BJP and he said they only can save our country. I simply couldn't agree with that because the things I believed were completely different from his' beliefs. I would have agreed if he had termed them as his beliefs but he said those were the truth.

Not only me. Most people like me are branded as "narrow-minded" people. If we go too literally on the word then everyone of them involved in a debate are narrow-minded only. They stick to their views and they're quite unrelenting. So can we brand all those people as narrow-minded?? Absolutely not.

The second instance was the one I described earlier in this article. Mr.G and Mr.S had this debate about Belief in God. Mr.G is an agnostic and Mr.S believes seriously in God. Here both have their set of views and both did not want to relinquish their views. Is it right for them call me a "narrow-minded" person?

People have a misconception about this word. They think that anyone who contradicts his/her view(s) is a "narrow-minded" person. But those views differ from person to person depending on the influence of the society he mingles and his family. In a healthy debate there is no need for narrow-mindedness. When a person listens to you and if he disagrees with you on certain issues and tells his views, then that does not mean he's "narrow-minded". He's just like you telling his views.

Before telling someone "narrow-minded", Please bear in mind that its you who become a narrow-minded person and not the one whom you branded as "narrow-minded".