Interesting School

Neelam , one of our actors in the movie , told me about an very interesting school

http://www.cfl.in

Need to read it up in more detail and must visit.

Ministry of Culture

Sept 24, 2009

Check out the website for 'Ministry for Culture' . There are a lot of schemes offered by the ministry that we could use for our forth coming projects. You could check this under the heading 'Schemes'

http://indiaculture.nic.in/indiaculture/index.asp

Also check the budget allocated and the actual expenditure under the 'Budget' link .

RoeRich Estates and Shankar Foundation

Today at around 2.30 pm.. Raghav and me decided to go for a drive.. The weather in Bangalore is getting more and more pleasant by the day and we decided to use this opportunity to check out sites for the Kruti School..

Kanakpura road has always been an all time favorite with both of us.. One primary reason also being that it is the road that leads to the Marlwadi Ashram where our guruji Rishi Prabhakar stays ( check http://www.ssy.org/ )Also, as you drive deeper, on kanakpura road you will get to see the western ghats .. and there are lakes and mini estates galore along this road.. An ideal place for the Kruti School .. !

As you drive about an KM on the kanakpura road.. you get to see a board that says 'Shankara Foundation ' A school for arts.. The boundary for this foundation has been done very well.. in fact in earth colours et all. The Shankara foundation seem to invite and implore us to get in.. The gates were closed and there was no gaurd there.. We knew that we might have been tresspassing.. but who cared..!

We went inside the gates and were in total awe at the beauty of the place.. Trees and parks .. just like the place we envision for Kruti.. about 50 mts from the gate on the left is a open hall that is at a lower level.. took us a min or two.. to figure out that this has to be the dance floor where dancing is taught.. !.. I took a picture of the same.. when I heard a lound voice asking us what we were doing here.. It was the gaurd, asking us to get out since it was a holiday today.. 11 am to 5 pm on any weekday - the offices are open.. we were informed.. Need to study this foundation.. How does their business work.. who are in their staff.. how does this school run.. everything.. ! Wow! we ARE getting in touch with similar projects as ours.. !



The highlight of the drive was however the RoeRich Estates( This estate has been created by the very famous Russian painter 'RoeRich'- Check http://www.roerich.kar.nic.in/)..This estate should be within 1/2 a km of the shankara foundation on the left side as you go towards Kanakpura.. Emboldened by our experience at Shankara Foundation, Raghav parked our car on the gate of this foundation .. and again we trespassed into the RoeRich Estate..



If Shankara was beauty with artificially created parks.. The beauty of RoeRich in stark contrast was very very Natural.. Muddy path ways with trees bending on both sides to provide the shelter from a harsh sun.. Cautious and curious we tredded softly to the end of the muddy road when we reached a house that said 'RoeRich's Residence'.. Wow ! We were actually seeing where the painter must have stayed .. There seemed to be 2 more pathways from this residence and we were debating whether to take the 'Roads less travelled :) '.. when we heard the familiar question again behind us.. 'Who are you ?' What are you doing here?'



Raghav goes - 'We are here to watch the paintings of RoeRich.. Does he have a gallery here' ? ;) .. The gaurd softens.. tells us he is the police in charge here.. ( Since the land is under litigation , ever since the painters death...now the state govt owns the land.. Read somewhere that the govt plans to make this a heritage site ).. he shares a little about the estate .. and asks us if we had already been on the path that we were about to take a few moments ago.. He informs us that there is a lake at the end of the road.. Lake .. ! We are intrigued now.. ! We would like to see it - if the gaurd did not mind .. we asked. For which he says- with a very straight face.. I dont mind.. only that there is a cheetah there !..



Ya Sure!.. We definately would go after hearing that!.. ! but we were curious anyways .. and we asked him to accompany us.. He agreed and we walked down that new path.. And lo and behold.. there actually was a huge lake at the end of that road.. Gosh ! Was it beautiful there ! on the other side of the lake is a forest that connects to the bannergatta national park.. Besides the lake are some 'perfume generating trees'.. The gaurd cut a small twig and the perfume out of the twig was too good . The lake was very inviting and there was a pathway that went around the lake .. I requested the gaurd to take us around the lake .. he agreed.. We had taken about 20 steps.. when we all heard a growl.. LOUD AND CLEAR..!.. we heard it again for two , three more times.. The dogs that were with us, ran back.. We knew the cheetah( My cousin says it cant be a cheetah , it has to be a leopard .. Cheetah doesnt growl.. Leopard growls . .).. was somewhere close by.. We made a hasty retreat back to the house.. and thanked God for saving us from such a close encounter... ;)..



Cheetah incident apart, the RoeRich Estate comes very close to what we envision our Kruti School to be .. Natural beauty and free flow of energy.. very conducive to creative pursuits.. Could we try and get a part of this estate.. Is the govt. listening.. ?



Readers of this blog, do you know of a place in Bangalore.. that is as beautiful as the place I described above.. ?.. Do let us know..

Kruti - A dream for you and Me

Readers you might be wondering , why I have put the name of our blog on the post . But this name is not the name of our blog. This the name of the school that want to create .


Time : Sunday morning

Venue : Cubbon Park

Participants : Kruti Core Team - Vilas, Sameer, Nilotpala, Brewin, Rekha, Raghav, Veena.

Absentees - Hema, Mahesh, Bijesh, My dad ?


:)


The alarm rings at 5.45 at my bedside and I as usual , sub conciously put it off, and go back to sleep . 6.15 - the bedside phone rings again. I try to put the alarm off- This time it just wouldnt be put off . Uff, I reach out to the mobile phone to see whats wrong. And to my surprise somebody was calling ! I take the phone and I hear Rekha's voice on the line - Shall I come down - Are you guys leaving now ? .


Gosh ! Then I remember I had to leave by 6.15 - to start the meeting by 7 - so that people could leave at 9 and attend to their other appointments at 9.30 ! :)


Raghav and me got ready at jet speed , and we were out of the house by another 10 mins. We picked up all the other members of the team and reached Cubbon park around 7.15 .


First of all we created the context of the meeting today - Which is creating long term members with Kruti ( This had been missing for some time in the earlier projects of Kruti ) .
There were parts of the group that did not know each other , yet within minutes we were talking to each other as if we were the best of buddies .

Comfort level set in, we got down to business. We discussed about the school project and decided on the following action areas on which to work on :

1. Find the physical space for the school - The venue should be full of trees and natural beauty - Action on everybody

2. Add the wiki to our mykruti.com - Action on Brewin, Raghav

3. Register Kruti - Action on Vilas, Veena.

4. Create the design for the Kruti School - Action on Sameer.

5. Solar Energy plan for the School - Action on Nilotpala

6. Visit similar projects ( Auroville, Shantiniketan , Nrityagram etc ).

The discussion on all the above points happened so naturally and with so much ease , that it looks like that doing the project itself is going to be full of ease and grace and will happen so very easily ! :)

Looking forward for the next meet !