I was at the Chinmaya Yuva Kendra Culturals Ablaze 2008 the whole of Yesterday. So morning Narain and me(or is it I?) walk into the Chinmaya Heritage Center after a late night at the office the previous day and we started off by putting up Banners and setting up the www.findnearyou.com stall (failed miserably though)
it took Seshadri ( a friend at work ) to actually setup the stall. Where do I put up banners? This was running through my head for a while by then.

So while 2 Banners went to the stage flanks one went right inside the elevator. So when the elevator door opened up there we had a sign saying

“Stop Searching Start Finding” I was waiting for the elevator and two oldies joined my wait. So they were reading the back of my T-Shirt. which says www.findnearyou.com and then the elevator door opens and there they see the banner. They got a funny look on their face. and their eyes started to go between the banner and my Tshirt. So smart guy I am said “Yeah, it is Find Near You and I was the one who put it up there” , they said “Clever thinking” So I murmured my thanks and stepped out of the elevator.

We had all these contests and I found that boys and girls go crazy about

Freebies, A game where you have to rip the paper, crush it and then basket it with your left hand and of course brain teasers. I met some really sweet kids. I was shooting off like crazy about findnearyou and one kid I was talking to was like “I came here for Creative Writing and But I am being forced to perform Ship wreck and worse I have to play Salman Khan. Now why do kids have to play some dumb celebrity? I met some kids from St. Bedes and when I told them I was from Don Bosco, Egmore they got pretty excited and we shared some cultural stories. Previously I had watched them dance and trust me they were so different from all other schools. They were appreciated but did not win any prize. It is just like in Harry Potter when Dolores Umbridge says this is what school children should do more than this they should not. It kills the spirit inside the kid . They had made a lot of effort to do what they did. The judges should not say things like “You were very good, but this is a school culturals and we don’t entertain commercially good performances. ” Hey Teacher leave those kids alone… All in all you’re just another Brick in the wall” It is sad that talent is controlled and driven by people who are controlled and driven by some others.

Sad but True.