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DEATHQUAKE;
GOOD SAMARITANS
State-Of-The-Heart
MUMBAI
For Sale. Collector's Item.
Vijay Deshpande, an avid collector of autographs - J.R.D. Tata, Martina
Navratilova, P.L. Deshpande and Jimmy Carter are some of the celeb signatories
in his collection - has decided to sell them all and donate the money
for earthquake relief. Deshpande's collection, which began over 45 years
ago with the autographs of cricketers who flocked the Shivaji Park for
practice, has now grown to over 1,600 autographs and 500 signed photographs.
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Deshpande
with his treasured autograph
and picture collection |
"Later,
I consciously started attending functions where players, statesmen, writers
and artistes were invited," says Deshpande who has held exhibitions
at Nagpur and Pune besides organising shows in Mumbai. He does not want
to commercialise his hobby but cannot digest the fact that people would
want to celebrate when so many have been orphaned and rendered homeless
in Gujarat. "Just as collecting the signatures has given me pleasure
I want others to derive joy from the money I donate," he says.
ROPAR
Grain of Empathy
The
heart-wrenching visuals of a fractured Gujarat on his television set were
too disturbing for Suba Singh. A farmer belonging to Ropar in Punjab,
Singh emptied wheat from his store-bins, loaded it on his tractor-trolley
and drove 15 km to donate it to the earthquake relief centre. "I
don't know where Gujarat is but I could feel the victims' anguish,"
says the middle-aged farmer.
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"People
rushed to help because they have faith in one another."
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When
DR SULOCHANA GUNASHEELA, a leading gynaecologist in Bangalore, donated
money for quake relief she started a chain reaction. Truckloads
of relief material, including cash, blankets, food, utensils and
medicines, began pouring in. Clothes store Kids Kemp and an Infosys
employee also chipped in, buying air tickets to fly teams of doctors
to Ahmedabad.
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DELHI
Benign Purchase
Brij Bhasin
is a former IPS officer committed to promoting folk art and textiles.
Craftsmen from Kutch were in Delhi to participate in Gujarat Utsav, a
crafts fair at Dilli Haat. On hearing of the quake, Bhasin immediately
bought all the handicrafts from the craftsmen so that they could travel
back home post haste with as much money as possible. Bhasin now plans
to raise more money through his crafts co-op, Vrindavan. Meanwhile, the
Gujarat Youngmen's Association, which organised the Utsav, spread out
a chadar in the complex appealing to the people to give at least 10 per
cent of the amount they spent on purchases. Almost Rs 1.5 lakh was collected.
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| Sen
(left) and his friends are on a fund-raising mission |
KOLKATA
Payback Time
It was the
one-armed woman that did it. When Kunal Sen, 19, was served food by a
woman soon after she lost an arm - and six members of her family - in
the quake, he knew he had to do something. A student of Bangalore's Srishti
School of Art, Design and Technology, Sen and 26 other collegiates (along
with three teachers) were in Anjar, 10 km from Bhuj, when the quake struck.
They had spent three weeks studying art in the small town and had become
friendly with the locals. Back home in Kolkata, Sen is approaching schools,
banks and corporate houses to raise funds for the people of Gujarat. "Everyone
I knew in Anjar is dead," he says. "Even as we speak, people
are dying. Not because of the earthquake, but from starvation, disease
and neglect." What really galvanises the youngsters-who instead of
running away from their worst nightmare are collecting aid-are their own
experiences. Three of them were tossed out when the building floor crashed.
One teacher took a headlong tumble. Sen himself was trapped for two hours
before being rescued. En route to the safety of a Gandhidham shelter,
the youngsters saw orphaned kids and handicapped people. This week they
will meet in Bangalore and move on to Kutch with the material they have
collected. A small payback for being alive.
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