April 19th – Shankhumukham
– by Vidya Gopalakrishnan (Vids)
Buahahahahaha!! I feel like blogging!!! 
[Which means it's not gonna be to-the-point! 
]
This Sunday, I knew that Cris wouldn’t be able to make it since she had to go to her office. I had to wake her up from her Saturday morning slumber to find out that, sorry!!!
has this habit of freaking me out, telling me to take charge of things when she has to stay away from TidyCity activities due to office-work! And Aneesh has this habit of telling everyone that I am in charge of things and then asking ME what has to be done next, when Cris is missing! And I have the habit of talking in my highest pitch when Cris says something that vaguely translated means, I have to take charge! 
hehe! Till now, I have been saved by the presence of a member who CAN take charge of things! And this time when I broke into the “high-pitch”, she calmed me down by saying that Nithin will be there and all I have to do is to BE there!
Anyway, I reached Shankhumukham and waited near the park to spot any fellow TidyCity-ians who might have reached there. I didn’t know who all were coming, except Nithin and Sreenath. Sreenath had called me from Medical College, asking which bus he was supposed to take to reach Shankhumukham, and I having gone to Medical College less than 10 times (one for my birth, 22 years back ) wasn’t sure that I was giving the right directions! So I knew that, if at all he makes it, it’s gonna be a miracle!
But I saw Srijith some time later, standing a long way in front of my car. But by the time I took my things and got there, he was missing! I had been informed earlier by him that he won’t be coming, so I seriously doubted whether it was just my imagination! But he again emerged out from some stone-house kind of thing, and on reaching there, I saw the other members:
’s house to get the placards.
After distributing the badges, we moved to the beach area where we planned to fill the bottles with sand, making it heavier for the wind to blow them away. I must not forget to mention the discussion we had over filling the bottles whether with water or sand! hehe!!! Bindu opted water and Aneesh opted sand! Anil said that we must fill alternate ones with sand and water and I said that we should fill each bottle with halfway sand and halfway water, of course, we were not helping!
After we filled the bottles (with sand alone!!) we decided that we should arrange the bottles to say “NO PLASTIC” and also to incorporate a skull and crossbones (which was only a vague idea until Arun sculpted it marvelously out of sand! 
) We did a test run on a somewhat deserted side of the beach! We didn’t know whether there were enough bottles to spell it out. But it seemed like we had more than enough! I said that we could photograph the test run and then refer the photo while doing the actual one! I thought it was a pretty good idea, but suddenly everyone started laughing! 
Meanwhile, Nithin
and Sreenath made it there as well! Some people had already become curious during the test run!
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Anyway, we moved to a hilly side of the beach where we planned to do the actual work. It came out really well, and it looked impressive too! (I will put up the pics soon. Right now, I can’t upload them as my card reader is not working 
) Kudos to the guys for doing such a good job! We kept the Powerpoint presentation running in the laptop continuously in front of our bottle display. Children kept playing near the display and when they were becoming a serious threat to it , Aneesh went and sat uphill to guard it!!!
People started coming and asking questions to us, a few of them signed up to join. And some of them were given awareness by Bindu regarding the ill-effects of burning plastic. There was a family which said that they were trying their most to avoid plastic by taking big-shoppers along for shopping and disposed plastic by burying them in the ground. The response was quite nice, really better than what we’ve had till now Nithin was jotting down email ids and phone numbers in his diary, and Srijith was doing the same in his mobile. It seemed like we’ve successfully passed the message to at least a few people out there. I’m glad that we did this, I’m sure everyone is.
This method of awareness seemed to yield better results than our usual clean-ups, maybe it’s because we provided lots of things for people to see and wonder, and thereby, lure them! This time, we were out there and reachable to the people too. We should have had better planning and better materials, but there is always a next time to correct mistakes. This proved to be a success, and I must tell you, I felt this as the most satisying work we’ve done, though I think it’s partly because we didn’t have any activities for the past two weeks! hehehe!!!
And thanks a lot to Siva for dropping Aneesh, Bindu and me The Tattooist ipod in our respective homes!
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Fantabulous Vidya!!!
how u posted those faces??
one more thing ur humour sense is quite admirable-i want to post here a smiling face but dont know how(sad face)!
Thank u!
If u know the basic smiley codes which we type using colons and brackets like, : ) and : ( etc (without the space), you can have any number of happy or sad faces you want!! 
You can refer our forum for help!! It has a number of smileys that we can use while posting a reply 
heyy that was something gr8…i reckon the response was overwhelming thanks to the unique idea!sad tht i missed it…exms shud b banned
..nyways its nice that we are spreading the msg across.guess vll have more such successful ideas to implement in the weeks to come 
anju
Once again excellent work friends. I have been a regular follower of your activities (the physical distance is not allowing me to be part in your efforts). Thank you for devoting such an amount of time and effort for a social need. Whenever I have been to Shangumukham, I have tried to do my bit of cleaning. But such a concentrated effort as yours, with several volunteers also spreading the message is definitely more effective. I like it that you guys are also turning this into a fun activity. Its the best way to enjoy what you are doing.
Looking forward to the photographs.
First comes stress easing exercise – Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
(In case anyone is wondering that was the noise of unhappiness at having had to miss it- some people call it brawling)
Ok now with a clearer mind let me applaud you guys!
Aneesh had send me a message after the event- “now we know what all are actually required for a good exhibition of our ideas”
The instant reply I thought was “My absence? Waaaaaaaaaa!”
Well anyway cant tell how much I feel bad having had to miss this. But I am sure glad we didnt back out because of last-minute uncertainties like last time. I have a feeling we work best that way now
Should we quit planning ahead??
But this really means we need to bring in new things. What about another brainstorming session? To bring up such ideas?
And lets not forget to thank Shibu! Hes the one who gave us the idea in the first place! Thanks Shibu!
And oh Vids!! Really.. thank you so much for taking charge (the high-pitch squeaks are worth it!). And really wonderful report. I nominate you to be a permanent blogger-reporter of our group!
One loud point raised on this event was need for uniformity. A unique tshirt or a cap is a must! And sorry Nithin for taking extra burden to pick banners from Cris’s place. I was not sure whether I could make it this time , so had told cris that I wont come
. And poor nithin missed funniest part of this week’s event. :
what was that?:)
Nice work guys! (with a tad of J)
I am never able to make it for any of the activities either due to office or family… Grr…