22/06/15; 02:23:
I really need to note down the two weeks gone by, before they are all but a hazy memory. I’ll have to admit that the last two weeks did indeed go by in a blur.
Monday morning, on the 8th of June began with a trip to the office of the NGO I’m working with; of course, the home of one of the volunteers doubles up as the office and it’s a rather warm place to be, but, that’s perhaps a story for another time. I picked up a bunch of posters that were to be dropped off at Wipro’s Koramangla campus- in keeping with the blood donation drive to be held there later in the week. I also returned the resource bag and camp paperwork that had been with me. A 40-page document detailing guidelines for assessing the suitability of donors for blood donation was to be handed over to the senior doctor at the blood bank at NIMHANS (National Institute for Mental Health and Neuro Sciences). Having picked up whatever was needed for the day, I prepared to head out when Ma’am added that something else was to be handed to me. I was then handed an envelope which I figured had a letter or further documents that I would need through the day- I was however promptly informed that this was my stipend for the month and proven terribly wrong. I hadn’t really realised that I would be receiving a stipend, much less expect to be suddenly handed a cheque halfway through my internship. En route to NIMHANS, I called up my parents, trying to figure out what was to be done with the cheque- eventually it made sense to just keep it around.
Once at NIMHANS, I managed to locate the blood bank after a lot of asking around and managed to meet the senior doctor after even more asking around. I was then given access to a large pile of donor forms arranged month-wise in giant files. I sat around sifting through them and completing all the missing data.
On my way out, I noticed the Brain Museum that I’d been earlier told about- I made a mental note to make sure I come back and visit- unfortunately, I never did get around to making that visit. I was soon on my way to the Wipro campus- once there, I spent an unreasonably large amount of time trying to get the security to accept the posters and/or get them to the concerned person in the Admin team. Eventually, fortunately, I managed to succeed and both the posters and I were on our own merry way.
I picked up cold coffee on my way home; on Tuesday i.e. 9th June there was a blood donation drive at the Wipro, Bellandur campus- we headed to Pritech Park in EcoSpace, which was also one of the first locations I’d ever been at, in Banglore- the feeling of having been around long enough to be going back over things, a second time! The security at the entrance decided that the banner that we were carrying looked suspicious enough to merit its own entry record. The venue for the donation drive was the Wipro cafeteria on the 9th floor. We got ourselves breakfast as we waited on the blood bank. The camp initially saw a less enthusiastic response than we’d anticipated; accordingly, we went around the cafeteria at lunch time, handing out pamphlets and information detailing the need for and the ease of blood donation- it takes only about 20 minutes and each unit of blood can go into saving upto 3 lives. The talk did probably help the turnout.
On Wednesday, I was to make my last blood bank visit for the purpose of completing the donor reaction data. I headed out to Bowring Hospital in Shivajinagar. The lady I’m staying with has been off from work, owing to a minor bike accident, sometime in the first week of June (on her birthday to be precise); she decided to accompany me. There was a lot of traffic and it took us quite a while to get there even though it was mostly a single straight road from home to Bowring. Once there, I got help with filling in the data and was done soon enough. Both Church Street & Brigade Road were close-by and we headed there- once there, it was like a Zomato page, right on the road- an array of great eating places, on both sides of the road; we eventually decided on one and had a nice evening. Right from there we headed to have good coffee this place called Coffee on Canvas, close to Sony signal; some coffee later, we were at Legends of Rock for they had a Karaoke Night running. A late night long drive later, we were fast asleep.
23/06/215; 14:44:
I was all set to get to Wipro’s Koramangla campus on Thursday. Once there, we had a little issue trying to get past the security at the gate; they recognized me very well from the posters I’d tried to deliver a few days earlier. Eventually, we got ourselves inside and the camp started a little earlier than scheduled. The camp was set up in the basement; we had a decent number of people show up to donate blood. The guy I work with had stuff to attend to and was gone after lunch-time. The camp was rather efficient, thanks to the enthusiastic blood bank team! The camp wrapped up close to 5 p.m. post which I was on my way home.
There was to be a camp on Friday i.e. 12th June which was cancelled at the last minute; I was to work on getting donor quotes (we encourage donors to share their experience/feedback post-donation, in a book maintained expressly for the purpose) up on the website; I tried but failed- the system doesn’t quite like me too much.
On Saturday, I continued working on entering the now nearly complete donor reaction data (courtesy the blood bank visits). In the evening, we headed out to meet a couple of our friends from IIT-Indore who’re also doing their internships in Banglore.
25/06/15; 12:27:
14th June aka Sunday- more importantly, World Blood Donors’ Day was spent at an event held at Victoria Hospital, to celebrate the gift of donated blood. There was an almost three-hour long function, where different personalities, including head doctors and the local director of NACO spoke about the progress and the pressing need to further blood donation. A lot of the function was conducted in Kannada and I had to make do with picking up on the tone of things. The NGO I work with was one of those that was felicitated at the function, for their work in the field of voluntary blood donation. I spent all of Sunday afternoon and evening out with a friend; ending with picking up apples and enjoying some street food in Banglore.
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