Goonj - Old Clothes have Diginity

Over the past two weeks, I came across 'Goonj' through various links. [Unfortunately, I think, their website was under virus attack, but now seems to have recovered]
Goonj is an NGO which channels our old clothes to the poorest of the poor in remote villages across India. Its easy to type this sentence, but the logistics behind this effort is mind blowing. GoodNewsIndia has a very insightful writeup on Anshu, Meenakshi and Goonj

Till three years ago, the collection used to arrive in Gupta's small house, where volunteers and paid staff processed the clothes. [Goonj has a separate office and work place now]. Intimate wear is rejected. Torn clothes are set aside for conversion into usable products. Good but dirty clothes are removed for washing. Then, requisitions from organisations are taken up. These contain requirement by gender, age and size. These are selected and packed in used sacks. Sacks are numbered and the numbers recorded in a database. And finally they are on their way to close to 200 destinations around the country. No cloth is ever wasted. They are converted to school bags, tote bags, quilts, and mats. A great quantity is converted into narrow tapes to be used as drawstrings for petticoats. The ultimate, unusable waste is chopped up and stuffed into pillows and quilts. Perhaps, the most poignant of all products that Goonj makes are sanitary napkins of its own design.

Now, you know whom to call for giving away your old clothes. There might be pride in giving, but we should not forget that there is dignity in receiving too.

Letters to a Soul mate

Kamat.com is one site that never ceases to surprise me. Info abt how they could manage to build such a website is equally impressive.

The long-distance family life of Kamats meant frequent letter writing among them and decades later, these carefully preserved letters formed the basis of the Timeless Theater Archive. Much of the Kamat's Potpourri website's content is culled from these letters.

Some selected letters written by Krishnanand to wife Jyotsna were first published in Kannada (the original language the letters are written), as Letters to a Soul mate (Preyasige Patragalu - cover) and were very well received.

Jyotsna Kamat in her foreword to the book writes

There is no shortage of writers and poets who have glorified and immortalized love. However, there are but a few, who decades after decade have found a lover in a wife to write letters on a daily basis. I hope that readers will enjoy reading them at least a fraction of as much as I have, because you will discover a true passion for life in them.

Man..they sure had a rocking life!