Say hello to Toybank Pune

Hey all!

How's everybody doing??

You must be wondering if Toybank shut down its Bangalore operations. We apologize for not being in action for close to 5 months! The last event in Bangalore was on 21st of Dec for kids from Annanya.

Time for a quick recap!

Coordinators for Toybank Bangalore:
Vinay D R and I are the coordinators for Toybank Bangalore. The Bangalore Chapter started on 18th Aug 2007.

The journey so far:
We had toy distribution events with Nele (18th Aug) and Makkala Jagriti (8th Sept), Swanthana , Suraksha Makkala Rakshane (2nd Dec) and amazing toy collection drives in Raheja Residency, Koramangala (22nd Sept) and Akme Harmony (5th Jan 2008) . We celebrated Children's Day with kids from Balajothi Centre for the Disabled, Benson Town. Also we had a fantastic time with kids from Annanya where we celebrated Christmas on the 21st of Dec!

A lot of changes have happened at Toybank Bangalore in the past 7 months.

I moved out of Bangalore in mid October last year to Mumbai and then to Pune in December. Since then I have been caught up with work and then there was my 'marriage':-). Now we are working on building up the Toybank Pune Chapter!

Vinay works for Motorola, Bangalore and has moved to Pre sales a year ago. His new role requires him to travel extensively abroad and hence he too isn't able to give a lot of time for arranging more events.

Till now we were using iVolunteer's Bangalore office for the gift wrapping sessions as we don't have an office in Bangalore. We thank Prarthana and iVolunteer immensely for giving us the space! Even now I guess there are a lot of toys lying around at their office :-)

We are now looking for active volunteers in Bangalore and also a couple of coordinators who would arrange toy collection drives/ toy gift wrapping sessions and toy distribution events.

If you are interested to coordinate or volunteer for Toybank Bangalore, please write to us on mail-bangalore@toybank.co.in

Also volunteers interested in volunteering for Toybank Pune, please do write to us for volunteering opportunities and any queries at toybank-pune@toybank.co.in

Be the reason behind their smile.

To 'a happy beginning'

Yeah...finally am back! That was indeed a long break, completely away from the world of blogging.

But the bestest things happened to me in this long break. Many of the questions that haunted me a year ago have now been answered. Not by someone else but by 'myself'.

Though to a large extent still the way the world works wrt to marriage continues to be ridiculous, I answered few of those questions and I am so happy I answered them at the right time.

Enter 'Kunal Dua'. Into a life which was wondering what was going to happen in the years to come. In over a year and a half he was given a challenge of performing various roles. He has so far tried his hands at being a good friend at work- to being my love - and then currently he's doing the toughest job he would've ever done - being my husband :).

I am glad I met the 'right' person at the 'right' time.