I am Srikala Ganapathy , PhD Research scholar from Chennai .I was curious and passionate and had keen interest to make use of technology in a positive way. I was particularly interested in creating something meaningful using this whatsapp technology which we access everyday for personal and professional purposes. The idea of creating a learning group using Whatsapp germinated in my mind and I created a group called Discovering life in September 2014, later evolved and rechristened the name as Beautiful life . It is a forum of like-minded resourceful people from different sectors, contribute and celebrate our common interests, enrich our minds with knowledge and everyone stays inspired and we reach out to community and do bit of service in small ways. Currently, we are a team of 23 members comprising working professionals, businesspersons , doctor and research scholars and home-makers.
Over 2 years of friendship built through mutual respect and understanding ( irrespective of varied personal likes and dislikes) with openmindedness healthy positive connections and good rapport in the group is established.
Experiencing Beautiful life together :
Oct 4 2015, We celebrated our first group anniversary meet . When Joy of giving week celebrations was celebrated across India, we were fortunate to be a be a part of Daan Utsav . I hit upon the idea of doing some thing meaningful in our meet and communicated with my friends in our group. Everyone agreed . Positive thoughts were transformed to positive actions. We spent time with visually challenged girls of Nilacharal trust in Nanganallur, Chennai. Thanks to RadhaKrishnan Sir, Trust founder for giving us this opportunity to help. He was such a welcoming and a wonderful humanbeing dedicating his life for service.
We gave away some basic everyday stuff like soaps, toothpastes, shampoos, sanitary napkins, bracelets ( as suggested by one of our group members) . We distributed away biscuits as they travel far distances in buses and trains from college back to the trust. It was thrilling when people in our group so willingly pitched in to contribute. There was a generous contribution from one of our group members who wish to remain anonymous and I respect that.
The gifts brought happy smiles on the girls faces. They were all so sweet , well mannered and talented. They sang and danced and most importantly very friendly, cheerful with no complaints about life regardless of the fact they are deprived of . They readily posed for photo sessions. We kept flowers on their hair and sensing the smell brought joy to their hearts . It was interesting to see them so happy and appreciate simple pleasures of life which we so often miss .We left the place with so much positive vibes and that made our day even brighter!
Second anniversary in 2016 also turned out to be a meaningful positive meet. We visited Lotus Blind trust for girls at Mylapore Chennai. We held academic reading sessions where we read out lessons from their subject books and explained to them. The response from the girls was amazing. They welcomed us and introduced themselves and were amazed seeing the girls self confidence, determination and passion to excel in life and in overcoming their problems.We served them sweets and snacks. It was a memorable evening spent and a beautiful learning experience for all of us and left the place energised and positive.
In retrospect, it was one of the most enriching and beautiful experiences I have had! It was amazing to be around people with shared purpose with unity .Its about enjoying each of life’s new experiences . Felt great and grateful to be a part of this giving away work with our group members . Giving is simple and great. That day proved that ! We realised we wanted to do more and look forward to more such wonderful meaningful e x p e r i e n c e s.....! Sharing our experiences with Yourstory team gives me abundant joy!Its not that we need to do great things to be great ...we can do little things in a great way with great spirit!! Get inspired. Start small. Bring ideas to action. Every drop in an ocean counts is my message !
Srikala, I am pursuing PhD in pharmacognasy at Bharathiar University, Coimbatore.
