Category Archives: Arts, Culture & Entertainment

This music startup provides a platform for budding indie musicians

Arts, Culture & Entertainment

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Music collaboration startup Trooze is bringing together up-and-coming indie musicians on one platform

An architect, an engineer and a student walked into a café. Hold on, this isn’t the beginning of a joke, but of a memorable evening at Aegam in Gowrivakkam near Tambaram. Over the weekend, Trooze, a newly-formed startup, brought together twenty-somethings from different fields with a common thread binding them: passion for music.

Founded by 21-year-old Eashwar Mathur, Trooze is aimed at supporting Chennai’s indie bands. It organised a jamming session for musicians to connect and collaborate with each other. “A lot of indie artistes are from the same locality, but there is no space for them to meet and collaborate. That’s where Trooze comes in,” he says.

Given the rapport the musicians built just half-an-hour into the jamming session, it was hard to believe that they were complete strangers. As song segued into another song, they gradually became familiar with each other’s styles. Once they were comfortable enough, they shared their own compositions.

Twenty-one-year-old Shivnesh Iyer is in animated conversation with C Surya. Moments ago, the two of them were having a song-off of sorts, coming up with random lyrics on the spot, set to the fast-paced beats of the cajon. Iyer, who started the band Vada Chennai Paiyan and Friends, is already getting invitations from others at the venue to jam with them at their house; his original folk-rock compositions have impressed quite a few. “At other venues, you are forced to sing covers of English songs. Here, I have the space to originals,” says Iyer.

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Iyer is looking forward to collaborating with Srikrishnan S, a percussionist who was on the cajon. A student of ghatam player Vikku Vinayakram, Srikrishnan is quitting his IT job to join a music school. Srikrishnan’s cajon playing has attracted as many people as another member, Chandar K’s violin solos of A R Rahman’s songs.

Chandar specialises in incorporating violins into the trance music he makes. “I rely heavily on computers for producing music, but I had been looking for someone to do the vocals. I am looking forward to collaborating with the ones I have met here,” he says.

Mathur’s friends were struggling indie artistes during their college days. Mathur, freshly out of college, started Trooze in June 2017 to help them out. “We collaborate with venues in the city to provide a platform for artistes to meet and also for bands to play gigs.”

Trooze also helps musicians who have collaborated through it in making videos and marketing them. However, as startups go, this one is barely breaking even. “As of now, we try not to ticket events. Financing the sound systems is a challenge then,” says Mathur. He is hoping things might change with the introduction of an app he is working on. “The app will act as a connecting platform for indie musicians exclusively,” he says.

You don’t know where you might find your soulmate, but a bandmate? Perhaps, this could be the place.

(The startup will be hosting another event on April 7 at 6.30 pm at the Urban Desi House in Thoraipakkam, where the bands Aatma and VadaChennai Paiyan will perform.)

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Entertainment> Music / by Sweta Akundi / April 05th, 2018

Kundam festival held at Bannari Amman Temple

Arts, Culture & Entertainment
Devotees taking part in fire walk ritual at Bannari Amman Temple in Erode on Tuesday. | Photo Credit: M. GOVARTHAN
Devotees taking part in fire walk ritual at Bannari Amman Temple in Erode on Tuesday. | Photo Credit: M. GOVARTHAN

The festival will culminate on April 9.

Over one lakh devotees took part in the ‘fire walk’ ritual during the annual kundam festival at Bannari Amman Temple, near Sathyamangalam, here on Tuesday.

The ritual was initiated by chief priest Rajendran at 3.55 a.m. Thereafter, devotees from various places in the State and from Karnataka walked on the kundam till afternoon and completed their vows.

Temple authorities said that pushparatham, manjal neerattu vizha, thiruvilakku puja and thangather will be organised in the next two days.

The festival will culminate on April 9.

Over 1,000 police personnel were posted in and around the temple premises to regulate the crowd.

Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation Limited (TNSTC) operated special buses from various places to the temple.

District Collector S. Prabhakar, senior government officials and others were also present during the kundam festival.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Coimbatore / by Staff Reporter / Erode – April 04th, 2018

Samaritan who dedicated his life for the needy

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features

Madurai:

For 50-year-old V Shanmugasundram, a road accident in the early 90s which killed three of his family members was a life changing moment. His sister, brother-in-law and their daughter were killed and this made him realise the temporary nature of humans on earth. It was then he decided to dedicate his life to the welfare of the society and fellow human beings.

 
While people in social service usually stick to a particular area, Shanmugasundram did not restrict himself. From helping underprivileged students to continue their studies, arranging for blood during emergency situations, sensitising people of road traffic, contributing to the green cover in the city, helping destitute and general public during natural calamities like Chennai floods, he reaches out to the needy. The resident of Pandian Nagar in Tinunagar has been serving the society for 25 years and says the only force driving him is self-contentment.

He got started in the 90s when he used to gather the children in his locality, arrange an auto rickshaw and take them to polio vaccination camps, as the awareness on the deadly disease was very less. “Both my brothers were differently abled and I have seen their sufferings since my childhood. So, I used to spend a part of my little earnings whenever there was a drive,” he said.

His job as the senior manager of public relations with Hi-Tech Arai Company in the city, has earned him many contacts. He has been serving as the point of contact between the needy and those who want to help others. “Many people are willing to help, but due to lack of time they are not able to do it themselves. Whenever I approach them, they are ready to offer help. Otherwise, being a salaried man, I can spend only a limited amount from my pocket,” says Shanmugasundaram.

His service to the society for such a long time would not have been possible without the help of his family, especially his wife S Rajarajeshwari. “My company too provides the space I need for social work. Whenever there is an emergency to attend to, permission was always granted,” he said.

Every New Year people take new sets of resolutions, but for Shanmugasundaram the resolution has been the same every year- to increase green cover. He gives away 1,000 saplings each year and also plants several. He makes sure that they are well maintained till they are grown to a level when they can survive on their own.

He has received several awards from various organisations. Among them an award for social service from Madurai district collector on the occasion of Independence Day in 2016 and an award from then Tamil Nadu governor K Rosaiah in 2016 are notable.

Shanmugasundram considers his contacts and people he has earned down the years as his biggest asset. Despite all this, he has never started an NGO or any organisation since he is wary of them.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Madurai News / TNN / March 28th, 2018

Community fridge at Kandanchavadi

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Science & Technologies

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The initiative is driven by a software company

Prodapt, a software and engineering services provider, has set up a community refrigerator at Prince Infocity II on Rajiv Gandhi Salai in Kandanchavadi. The company has an office at this IT facility.

Employees of Prodapt and other companies at Infocity II can stock the refrigerator with food, fruits, sweets and savouries.

The refrigerator will be kept open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m, all through the week.

This initiative of Prodapt is supported by Ayyamittu Unn, launched by The Public Foundation last year.

Mary Vikram, who is part of the human resources department at Prodapt, says, “We will ensure there is no lack of food in the refrigerator, between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. If necessary, Prodapt will buy food from nearby restaurants and food courts and keep the refrigerator well-stocked. Though the refrigerator is located on the premises of Prince Infocity II, a separate entrance has been created to enable access to it. This way, the movement of employees will not be hampered.

Prodapt has employed a security guard to manage the beneficiaries queuing up in front of the refrigerator. He also has to ensure that nobody takes more than their fair share of food. As there is always the possibility that some beneficiaries will sell the food.”

Uncooked grains, pulses and vegetables and raw meat, fish and eggs are a strict no-no. Vegetables that make up a salad are an exception though. Any food found bitten will not be accepted. Donors will not be allowed to keep the food in vessels. They have to pack the food before placing it in the refrigerator. The packed food should have a label providing information such as name of the cuisine, the time it was cooked and the probably time it can go stale.

A logbook containing the names of donors, their contact numbers, the food items they have donated, the time these items was cooked, and how long they will last, will be maintained.

Similarly, a record of the names and contact details of the beneficiaries and what they took will also be maintained.

Issa Fathima Jasmine, founder of The Public Foundation, says “As construction work is high on Rajiv Gandhi Salai, there are many daily wage labourers, including migrant workers, in the region. They will benefit from this initiative. And the IT professionals can be donors.”

The customised refrigerator has also been provided with slots with normal temperature where people can leave clothes, books and stationeries.

For details, call 94451 97723 / 94451 97728.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by L. Kanthimathi / March 30th, 2018

Insect Museum opened at TNAU

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education, Green Initiatives/ Environment, Nature, Records, All, Science & Technologies

Under the theme ‘Bugs Are Kings’, the museum displays insects as preserved specimens and models on their behaviour, habits and habitat.

Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami opened an insect museum in Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) on Monday. First of its kind established at the Department of Agricultural Entomology of TNAU, the museum houses 20,000 insects from 50 species.

Inaugurating the museum, Mr. Palaniswami said that the research and expertise which helped to realise the facility will be beneficial to farmers, researchers, students and the public.

“Haling from agricultural background, I have seen farmers worrying over insects affecting various crops. The museum will help farmers to gain more knowledge about insects, those helpful and harmful to farming,” said Mr. Palaniswami.

Speaking at the event, Minister for Agriculture R. Doraikkannu pointed that insects were causing about 20 % crop loss in the State and the museum will be beneficial for farmers.

Established at a cost of ₹ 5 crore, the museum displays insects as preserved specimens, live specimens depicting their life cycle, images, videos and models on their behaviour, habits and habitat under the theme ‘Bugs Are Kings’.

Right wall of the exhibit area of 6,691 sqft covers insects under five sections namely insect diversity, insect biology, beneficial insects, insect and plants, and cultural entomology. The left wall of the museum displays curated specimens of 27 insect orders along with their charts. Videos related to insects are played through television on the walls. Three touch screen gadgets with information on insect trivia, insect records and insects around you are also kept at the museum.

Physically challenged persons can access the museum through a ramp. Financed by the Government of Tamil Nadu, the museum has electronic ticketing facility for visitors.

Minister for Forest Dindigul C. Sreenivasan, Minister of Municipal Administration and Rural Development S. P. Velumani, Deputy Speaker Pollachi V. Jayaraman, Agricultural Production Commissioner and Principal Secretary to Government Gagandeep Singh Bedi, District Collector T.N. Hariharan, and TNAU Vice-chancellor K. Ramasamy were present at the inaugration.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States / by Staff Reporter / Coimbatore – March 26th, 2018

Lessons on how to strike back

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Sports

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‘Sakiye Rowdhiram Pazhagu’, started by an Adyar-based firm, offers women free training in self-defence

Kadaiveedhi.Shop, a commercial venture, has started a not-for-profit initiative called “Sakiye Rowdhiram Pazhagu,” which offers women free training in self-defence. The name of this initiative has been inspired by the poem “Rowdhiram Pazhagu” by poet Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathi. “We often hear about attacks against women. So, we offer free self-defence training to them,” says Jay Thattai, founder of Kadaiveedhi.Shop.

Any girl aged above 12 years can enrol for the free training programme.

Besides self-defence skills drawn from various martial arts, the workshop teaches how to become aware of one’s surroundings and gauge the predator’s plan. “We will be approaching government schools and colleges to conduct this self-defence workshop. We aim to take this initiative across the country,” says Jay.The self-defence workshop will be preceded by a 60-minute cultural performance which is also titled “Sakiye Rowdhiram Pazhagu.” The performance, rendered by Jaypegs Creations troupe, involves villupattu, mime, street-theatre and martial arts. The workshop will be conducted every last Saturday at different venues in the city. Kadaiveedhi.Shop is also prepared to conduct self-defence workshops on their premises of institutions and residents associations and companies.

This month, the workshop will be conducted on March 31 at the office of Kadaiveedhi.Shop, located at No.19, Jeevarathinam Nagar, First Street, Adyar.

Time: From 3 p.m. to 4.30 p.m.

To take part, register at https://www.kadaiveedhi.shop/product/women-self-defense-workshop

Jay Thattai can be reached at 73388 83171 or 73388 81224.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by L Kanthimathi / March 30th, 2018

Strings from the past

Arts, Culture & Entertainment

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A resident of Saligramam is making the bulbul taarang heard across the city

For K.G. Jawahar, playing the bulbul taarang is a passion and a mad passion. He seems keen on bringing this string instrument back from oblivion.

Over the last two years, Jawahar has not let go of any opportunity to put the instrument on a stage. He has played it at gatherings of residents’ welfare associations, clubs and government departments. He has appeared on DD Podhigai with his pet instrument.

“Recently, I was invited by the government library in Ashok Nagar to play the instrument. They gave me a fee for it. With the money, I bought library membership cards for students of nearby government schools,” says Jawahar, who started focussing on playing the instrument after his retirement from a bank.

Without any formal training, 63-year-old Jawahar plays the compositions of M. S. Viswanathan, R.D. Burman and other stalwarts of film music on his bulbul taarang. A few strings are missing in the instrument, but that does not detract from its value. When Jawahar was around five years old, he received it from his father as a gift.

“Each of my brothers also received a bubul taarang, and I continue to cherish the one I received. In those days, it was known as the “poor man’s veena’. The knowledge of crafting this instrument is now almost forgotten. The versions of the bulbul taarang available at shops are more toys than instruments,” says Jawahar, a resident of Saligramam.

Jawahar takes utmost care with his bulbul taarang, which bears the name and memory of his wife Rani Jawahar, who has passed on.

“I consider the instrument an old man who has to be hand-held while walking. I have to be careful with the strings, as getting a replacement must be next to impossible. Only once has the instrument gone for repairs; that was 20 years ago,” says Jawahar.

He seeks the support of other musicians in reviving the instrument; he is also keen on teaching people how to play it.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by L Kanthimathi / March 30th, 2018

The hands that toil, create

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education, Records, All

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Archiving Labour examines history, society and art through the lens of labour

Between sweltering skies and sea breeze at the tiled-roof veranda of Spaces, a prodigious handcrafted volume titled ‘Create’ is the first exhibit. In it, student artist Kamashewaran has explored the plight of bonded labourers at brick kilns in his village. We turn the pages to find endearing portraits of brick makers, and hand impressions alternating with words such as ‘sengal’ (brick). At the bottom, a brick sits in a deep receptacle, engraved with the word ‘Labour’. This bond between labour and creation is at the core of Archiving Labour curated by CP Krishnapriya, an alumnus of the College of Fine Arts.

Produced by a collective of 33 students from Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai and Kumbakonam, the exhibition, which was part of the Student Biennale, Kochi 2016-17, garnered a national award. Of 15 emerging curators, Krishnapriya won the Tata Trusts International Award, granting her a trip to experience the Venice and documenta Biennales.

Raison d’etre

Her vision for the year-long project was bi-fold — one, leading the students of the two schools to re-examine their artistic practice and two, re-visiting the Madras School to trace its roots to industrial crafts. On their trail, the artists discovered a brick kiln at the Chennai campus where bricks were once manufactured. The evidence, a replica of an old brick with the ‘School of Arts Madras’ insignia sits like an unassuming marker on a pedestal.

With intensive workshops for reading and criticism over four months, Krishnapriya steered the group away from the sacrosanct white cube gallery. The artists took the path less trodden, using low-cost and accessible materials to explore art in a small, meaningful way. The mysterious locked-up school museum became the imaginary site which photos, videos and impressions would bring alive. These innocuous exhibits are magical when you unlock their codes.

Positioned against the grand metaphor of the Triumph of Labour statue (1959) at the Marina by erstwhile sculptor and then Principal DP Roy Chowdhury, the artists queried — how does labour triumph? “Many of the students come from rural backgrounds and their families are engaged in brick making, weaving, metalwork and labour,” says Krishnapriya, whose mentoring opened channels for the students to examine their own origins and communities. Student artist Karthikeyan’s portrait of his father is accompanied by a sign, ‘My father is a signboard artist’, painted by his father. Such paradoxes resonate throughout the show.

The product of labour — be it a beautiful monument or a Kanjivaram saree — belongs to the one who commissions it, while its real makers are never credited. Material becomes message in Sindhuja’s portraits of weavers on silk sarees, documenting her family of weavers. And so, who do we celebrate? Artist Thalamuthu chose Revathy, a cleaner of railway tracks and made her bust, displayed at Chennai Central for several days.

“This was planned as an exhibition where you have to spend time, read the notes and make an effort,” says Krishnapriya. The exercises linked ‘how do you view?’ to ‘how are we viewed?’ using writing, sound recordings, photography and video, relatively inexpensive media. Reviving the context of the old photography department at the College of Arts, a group selected images from the British Library archives to compare anthropological views of Indians from the Colonial era with present day.

The artists posed, mimicking the earlier orchestrated set-ups: a girl with a food processor versus 20th Century women at grinding mills. In another exercise, P Parthik’s photo-collage of the hands of labourers from Kumbakonam show their hardships. Extensive sketchbooks of brick workers, railway cleaners and launderers reveal an empathetic understanding of the gaps in our society. A 10-paisa coin — a paltry sum paid for husking one coconut — is framed and positioned next to calloused hands.

The inquiry to find the artist’s role and the institution’s throws up several questions. Can anyone make art? Who can sculpt? Who can create? Here, the lens turns to people relegated to toil in our society, to ask: ‘Are not bricks, baskets and woven handloom, art?’

The exhibition with evening lectures is on at Spaces, Besant Nagar, till March 30.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society / by Sujatha Shankar Kumar / March 28th, 2018

D’Angelis now dust

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All, World Opinion

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Yet another Madras Court-listed heritage building bites the dust with not a question raised by Authority. The latest victim of the wreckers’ hammers is a building better known in recent times as the Bata Showroom. The desecrators have been clever; they’ve left in place the Mount Road façade, and crushed the rear where remained many a feature of the building’s 100-year-and-more heritage . The façade itself is not the original; it was rebuilt in the Art Deco style sometime in the early 1930s.

To make sense of the paragraph above, let’s go back to 1880 when Giacomo D’Angelis, from Messina in Sicily and who had trained in France, arrived in Madras and set up shop in small, rented premises on this site, called it ‘Maison Francaise’ and announced he was a “manufacturing confectioner, glacie &c., general purveyor and mess contractor”. For this service he’d established a “Kitchen Department”, the “first of its kind” in South India. I think what D’Angelis was claiming was that he had an outdoor catering service for large parties, which the hotels of the time, like the Connemara, mostly residential, did not have. This service, supervised by a “First Class French Chef”, was, before long, catering to Government House and, in time, became the official caterer to Governor Lord Ampthill (1900-1906) for all his parties, balls and banquet.

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Once Ampthill set the tone, D’Angelis was sought by everyone who was anyone in Madras. With prosperity, the Italian decided to open “a small hotel on the premises, Mount Road, for our customers from up-country”. The property opened in 1906 and by 1908 had developed into Madras’s leading hotel.

Seen from the Mount Road entrance was a three-storey building with splendid decorative wrought iron railings on the first floor verandah. This is the beautiful façade (see picture) that was replaced by what still stands. Off this verandah were the rooms with Mount Road-facing entrances as well as entrances off a verandah at the rear facing Blacker’s Road. These rooms were identifiable even in recent years, being occupied by a variety of small shops. And it is this historic part of the building that has been pulled down.

Between Blacker’s Road and the rooms was developed a Parisian Garden, one of Madras’s most popular places in its day for wine and roses. Within was a restaurant as famous for its French and Italian cuisine as for its Tea Service, mesdames dropped in to enjoy after shopping expeditions. D’Angelis also had Madras’s first electrical hotel lift, making possible a roof garden, hot water on tap, electric fans, an ice-making plant and cold storage. Its floors were of imported tiles and there was elaborate wrought iron embellishment everywhere. A three-table billiard room and a pub-like bar made it an inviting haunt of an evening for gentry who had no club to go to. With all these facilities, it was renowned as Madras’s No. 1 hostelry till 1937 when the completely rebuilt and refurbished Connemara re-opened after three years of rebuilding. But by then, D’Angelis had changed hands; an Italian confectioner in town, Bosotto, had taken it over and was probably responsible for the new façade. The continuing classiness of the hotel was attested to by Douglas Jardine’s English cricket team staying there in 1934, and Sassoon’s of Bombay, a five-star emporium, having a shop in it.

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Before the Bosotto transaction went through, Giacomo D’Angelis had left for France and the business was run by ‘Giacomo D’Angelis and Son’, the son being Carlo. A duck-and-teal shoot in a jheel 20 miles from Madras went wrong in 1920 and Carlo drowned. Giacomo’s youngest son, Louis, who was in New York, returned to Madras and from that time tried to sell the hotel, complaining the while that the attempt was going very slow. Eventually it was 1928 or 1930 before Bosotto bought it and the D’Angelis connection with Madras came to an end.

In later years, Bosotto’s was succeeded by Airlines Hotel, a restaurant and the Bata Showroom backed by cubby-hole shops which enabled the hotel rooms, their numbers, verandah-cum-corridors and toilets to remain recognisable. As usual, in the case of Madras’s heritage buildings, a fire, in 1986, threatened it but it survived – its fate uncertain. Your columnist had approached the Taj Group and a couple of other hotel groups to take the building over and develop it as a boutique heritage hotel. But I could never understand their lack of interest.

D’Angelis, legendary in many ways, also ran from the 1880s till 1925, Sylk’s Hotel in Ooty (owned by Sylks but which had started as Dawson’s Hotel in 1842-43). When D’Angelis gave up its management, it was re-named in 1943, but still later owners as the Savoy and continues to this day as such, owned by Spencer’s but run by the Taj Group.

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When the postman knocked…

Yusuf Khan continues to attract attention. Theodore Baskaran, a person well-versed in Tamil history, writes: “When Yusuf Khan (Miscellany, March 5) controlled Madurai, the people, impressed with his benevolent rule, called him the icon of Madurai — mathurai nayagam. In colloquial usage, particularly in the South, kuthirai morphs into kuruthai and mathurai becomes maruthai. It was an affectionate name given by the people.

“Secondly, in Tirunelveli’s Evangelical Christians: Two Centuries of Vamsavazhi Tradition edited by Packiamuthu and Sarojini Packiamuthu, (2003), there are chapters on 18 families. One on Chandran Devanesen, by Vasantha Appasamy, traces CD’s ancestry to one Shanmuganathan, who was working as an odhuvar(who sang hymns in temples). She makes no reference to the Yusuf Khan connection. Dr. Devanesen and I interacted often, particularly in Shillong, and we have talked about Palayamkottai. But he never mentioned the Khan factor.”

The chronicler of Madras that is Chennai tells stories of people, places, and events from the years gone by, and sometimes from today.

source:http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> Madras Miscellany > History & Cultural / by S. Muthiah / March 26th, 2018

Not just any old wall

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features

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Kavitha Jenarthanan talks about why she created a Wall of Kindness in the city

“My parents have never turned away anyone who asks for help. They are very kind people and I got that quality from them,” says Kavitha Jenarthanan, founder of Kavitha’s Ini Oru Vidhi Seivom, a trust in Tirupur.

The outside view | Photo Credit: The Hindu
The outside view | Photo Credit: The Hindu

She has set up three Anbu Suvar (Wall of Kindness) in the state, one being in Coimbatore.

This is not a new concept, says Jenarthanan. “It is very popular abroad. I read about it on social media. I loved the idea and wanted to do it too. The first was set up at Komarapalayam in Erode; then in Tirupur and the latest in Coimbatore (September 2017).

The wall belongs to the Corporation and is situated near Devanga Higher Secondary School, RS Puram.”

This 300 sq ft wall took a week to be made. “After I received permission from the Corporation Commissioner, K Vijayakarthikeyan, I designed the wall with two plywood cupboards. These are open and accessible to anyone at any time. The walls are painted with instructions on what to and what not to keep and with verses from the Thirukkural.”

The public can leave old reusable clothes, books, toys, slippers, bags or any other items in the cupboards to be picked up by people in need.

Jenarthanan also has volunteers who tidy the shelves. “Corporation workers also arrange the shelves everyday. The wall is for the people in our city and so it is everyone’s responsibility to maintain it.”

She admits that there are challenges. “People sometimes leave dirty and unusable clothes. Please don’t. The whole idea is to provide decent items to those in need. Those who pull out the clothes do not rearrange them properly. I wish there would be a change in this attitude.”

Jenarthanan is happy that with the positive response. “The racks will always have something to offer and that is a good sign.”

Jenarthanan plans to have more such walls in and around the city.

She also recently organised a Womanathon in Tirupur. “It was to create awareness on women’s safety and education. With the proceeds, 11 children from underprivilaged background were given ₹ 5000 each for their education and healthcare.”

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Life & Style / by Susan Joe Philip / March 24th, 2018