opening of a village for orphans in Vediapanur, on solar-power

On 18 oct. 2012 the new village for 50 orphans was opened by an international gathering of the Regenboog trust.  It is build near the AVS school in Vediapanur, Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, South India.   

Madan Mohan worked hard to get the village ready for the opening. The 4 sponsors in the photo are from Switzerland and had come for the opening to Vediapanur.

Local sponsors and friends were also present.

From other schools and organisations friends were there. 

As it had been difficult to find water a natural well was made.

One of the 4 houses, with solarpower.

The kids did some singing.

And there was a Veena concert.

Rachel, Arun, Laxman (me), Madan.

Tamil-selvi, Who's been a great mother for several years for the kids. 

The roof above the communal building.

3 of the 4 houses and the solar panels. The small blocks are toilets and showers.

And than there was lunch for everybody

The builders were still working.

This photos does not need any words...

The Swiss sponsors enjoyed eating with their hands.

A view of Arunachala from near the orphanage.

Let's eat...

forest fires on Arunachala in 2012

Forest fires on Arunachala mountain in Tiruvannamalai 2012

These are photos from the forest fire on 23-05-2012.

Govinda is giving me some instructions on how to fight the fire.

Forest fires have happened several times this year. With the help of Govinda and many locals we have sometimes been able to stop some of the fires. 

It is difficult and dangerous. And very exhausting too. With just some small branches we beat the fire out.

Just some days before we had a meeting about organising a kind of "fire-fighters-support-group". And this fire was our first 'try-out'

We got food and drinking water for the 30 locals, who came as volunteers to help. From some projects they had come with bare hands, fire-extigueshers and bush-knifes.

 The devastation was enormous, Since May 2012 there have been at least 5 big fires on Arunachala. And they have been so systematicly started that it is clear that some one is doing it. 

Below; Me and Dev Gogoi who took the photos . Till late at night we transported food, water and torch-lights for the firefighters.

India Tiruvannamalai 2011

Welcome to this blog about my activities here in Tiruvannmalai in 2011.
Here you can see a friend who came to the AVS school here in the village to teach just one class to all the kids at once. His name is Suria Neelam, from France. We have been playing together with other friends last winter here.
He studied bamboo flute here in India for many years. and he has been teaching in several schools.

I still like to walk around the 'Holy mountain' , Arunachala with my friends. Here is Haitia from Bask-country and Kyoko from Japan. We walk 2 hours in the nature and one hour on the road and come back to Ramana ashram. I like to do this several times a week. Always different friends join me. We eat and drik tea on the way, or go for a swim in the forest. That way it takes some times more than 4 hours to walk around Arunachala.

A hibiscus flower in our garden. I have started to water the gardens in our compound a lot more than before and now the result is visible. It's much greener and we have more happy trees and flowers.

A cleanup trip up to the top of the mountain. With a group of mainly locals we have been cleaning up the paths and nature on the mountain. We did twice this year and the Swami from Skanda ashram made breakfast for us. On our return Ramana ashram feeds us lunch.

An other flower in our gardens. I live in a compound about 3 kilometers from the mountain and 8 km from Ramana ashram and the town of Tiruvannamalai. This year I have been even more active in gardening than last year. Last year I did a lot of translating and writing. This year I did non. and was cooking a lot for gatherings with volunteers, friends and musicians in my house.

This was our last group of volunteers who climbed up the mountain to do a great clean up around the top of the mountain. It was a long hot morning but the result was good. In the centre is Shanti Kumar, in a green t-shirt, one of the driving forces in all the good projects here in Tiruvannamalai.

A recent foto of me with the father of a friend and a volunteer from The Netherlands. This was a the occasion of the ear pearcing ceremony of his grandson in Pollur , about 20 km from here. Later in this blog you can see more of this traditional earpearcing.

In Tiruvannamalai is also a great shiva-shakti temple. This a view from the the mountain. It is very exceptional in India to be allowed inside a hindu temple. This temple you can enter to the centre and even do your ritual. Until now they are very welcoming to every one. It will be because Ramana Maharishi started his spiritual life in this temple. And many people from different countries and religions have come to Tiruvannamalai to visit his grave and old ashram. Ramana meditated many years in this temple before he moved to the caves on the mountain and later to what is now Ramana ashram.

The view of Arunachala mountain from the roof of my house. From this side the mountaintop looks like the head of an elephant, with his trunk going to the left. The mountain represents shiva in the form of a colum of light, or consciousness. Once a year there is a big butterlamp burning on the top for a week.

A tipical village shrine under a tree.

Dec 2010 Chennai= Madras 3000 concerts and dancepreformances

Jayanthi Kumaresh
She has a great voice and plays the veena very well I saw the on the 19Th of Dec. in the Krishna Gana sabha.

M.D. Pallavi a hindusthani singer

 The Saba hall is build by Mr. Nelly from the famous silk and sari shops. He build a small and a big hall in a nice park with a restaurant.
The concerts and the food are always very good.
There are always many lectures and demo's of music ,dance and vocal in the small hall.

Jayanthi and M.d Pallavi preformed a wonderfull story with music and clasic vocal. the other great star that night was the young talented singer abishek Rughuram. It was a mix of north and south Indian classic music with a good Mdrangam and tablas

Zakir Hussein

Sri nivas

Sri Nivas mandolin

 Sri Nivasa has been one of my favorites since a very long time. He plays a small electric 6 string mandoline. In 1985 when he was only 15 , I saw him for the first time in Chennai. Later I have seen him several times with the group Shakti. In that group was also Zakir Hussein the most wel known tabla player from India.
This year on the 20Th of Dec. they played here in chennai, but without John Mclaughlin and Selva Ganesh. Later in the same week Selva did another concert with Sri nivas band. All together I did see them 3 times in 5 days.

The mandoline sisters, Sri sha and Sri Usha.

Padma shankar, vocal, Karai mohanaraman violin

 The Mandoline sisters

Two hardworking musicians that play very nice together.

Sri nivas's Ghatam player

Look at our 'little' tickets

Shiv Kumar sharma played the santoor, He also played in the Shakti band before.

The Kalpalesh wara temple in Mylapore Madras

Mahalaxmi a great Baratnatyam dancer

Balachandran a very good flute player

Sri nivasa and Selva Ganesh

Selva ganesh played the Kanjira, he played for several years in the group shakti. His father played in the same band before that time.

Bangalore V Parveen played the mrdrangam with Sri nivasa

Sri Nivasa

Gaayatri.E. played a amazing veena on 25 dec. I went to see her after the concert.