E-Paper
Straight from Kapil's heart
The cricket legend stole the show with the release of his autobiography, writes Shalini Narang in California Diary.
For the cricket buffs of Bay Area, Saturday, April 16, was a special day of meeting a cricket legend. Kapil Dev came to release his autobiography Straight From My Heart in a fundraising charity event held by the Silicon Valley chapter of Literacy India, an NGO working for underprivileged children and women in Gurgaon and Delhi.
The event to raise funds for the construction of a school building and to promote awareness towards the practical problems of literacy in India for the needy children took place at the Golden Peacock Banquet in Fremont. About 150 people attended the $75 per person charity dinner.
The programme picked pace when Kapil Dev arrived and mingled instantly with the guests in an informal milieu. Tons of cameras and camcorders clicked in tandem for one and all to capture a clip of the cricket czar of the eighties.
Anupam Singh, the Vice President of North California Cricket Association, and Satish Dalal, Captain of the Indus Cricket Club, came with their spouses. "Currently in Northern California, there are over 40 active teams and more than 800 players affiliated to various cricketing clubs. We are glad to that Kapil Dev has come to the Bay Area and has agreed to visit myriad teams and offer informal tips to the players about the game," said Anupam.
The popularity of cricket is undisputed amongst Indians and active play has grown over the years with the rise in the number of South Asians in the Silicon Valley. Software professionals planning, writing and cracking code on the weekdays are avid cricket players and followers on the weekends when bits and bytes give way to bats and balls.
Cricket matches are a common sight in the local parks and are played alongside soccer and baseball games. The sport has also attracted front-page coverage in the mainstream local media. The first generation expatriates are promoting the sport of their motherland in their adopted land via formal training sessions for youngsters and inter-club matches.
A fifteen-minute documentary film on 'Literacy India' followed socialising by the cricket icon. The movie depicted the history, current projects and the future prospects of the varied programs of the philanthropic organisation. Captain Indraani Singh, Asia's first woman Commander of Airbus 300 and Secretary of Literacy India, opened the forum for questions.
She talked about the myriad programs of 'Literacy India' like Pathshala and Vidyapeeth (primary schooling for young children), Jagrukta (creating awareness towards education, personal hygiene, environmental cleanliness and other social issues), Gurukul (private school funding for higher education of meritorious students) and Karigar (vocational training for women and youngsters) aimed at not only providing vanilla education to young children but also vocational training to women and older children, educational grants to deserving students for perusal of higher academics and promotion of a fun to learn school milieu via performing arts.
The organisation, incepted seven years back with five children and humble goals of primary education for underprivileged children, has reached out to over 900 children with its expanded educational initiatives and programs. Recently, the children in learning via Theatre and Performing Arts program titled Shiksharth have acted in a movie named Blue Mountain to be released in June. Vishal Bhardwaj of the Maqbool fame is directing the feature film.
Indrani and Kapil appealed to the gathering to contribute towards the cause. "The contributions to Literacy India from individual donors has exceeded the help from corporate sponsors. We want to expand the programs to reach out to more children and women and continue quality projects like theatre workshops to sustain the school appeal for children. It's an uphill task to keep up the momentum of education for the children and their families. For value-add activities, we need resources and funding," says Indrani.
Kapil added, "A dollar-a-day from NRIs will go a long way in India." Several beneficiaries responded with instant grants towards the cause. Indrani thanked Mr Virendar Rana, the Bay Area representative of Literacy India, for providing a place in his ancestral home in Gurgaon for computer training, tailoring, beauty culture workshops and reading for women and children.
The general sentiment amongst the Non-Resident Community and a big factor determining the grant giving is transparency of the work of an organisation and communication of fund channelisation. Verifiable work and authenticity of philanthropic causes incites long-term expatriate involvement and sustained financial flow.
