Memoirs of Amravati

Shortly after my graduation, I decided to work and learn together. That was the time I met the most revered personality for his dedication to FOSS(Free and Open Source Software). Now it has been 3 months I am working in IIT as a Junior Programmer under the guidance of Mr. Krishnakant Mane. We have a team working for a FOSS software called GNUKhata (Accounting Software) similar to Tally in windows. Whatever credits GNUKhata have achieved till now is just because of the faith and trust of the domain expert Mr. Arun Kelkar, CA by profession. Among this team there is a special team who have firm interest in rural development & this team decided to go for a workshop at Amravti,Wardha & Anandvan.

17th July 2012: 7pm Amaravti express from Dadar station. Being programmers, we fail to sleep early without cracking few LOC. Bit annoyed with our giggles and murmurs, our fellow commuters asked in typical Marathi language “tumcha kiti vel chalnar ahe?” which means how long you people are going to annoy us? They were lucky as laptop battery exhausted and we slept by 12.30 am. At 8 am we reached Amravati station. Two students were waiting to receive us. They took our luggages and lead us to the cars ready to pick us up. Those cars lead us to Vandhu International Hotel of Amravati.

Two rooms were already booked by the professor of Sipna college of Engineering Amravati. The very first day we had our first and my debut workshop in Amravati. This was actually a learning experience for me and I did not personally teach anything. We had workshop as per the assignment set by us. The first day was bit hectic as we had to teach students from the very core of Ubuntu and FOSS and it lasted till 7.30pm. 
After the workshop, we rejuvenated ourselves and then hurried to a hotel called Chanakya. We celebrated gatari.

18th July 2012: We enjoyed the second day of the workshop as the students were bit more responsive than the day before.

19th July 2012: Time for Wardha Ashram. An ashram which was more of a traditional and pleasant kinda to become nostalgic of Bapu's era. It was a guest house of Bapu kutir. All traditional meals like jhunka bhakar,ambadi sherbat etc. From there we went to Wardha college of Engineering for ubuntu distro all rounder installation. Unfortunately, we couldn't because the college didn't have proper management and infrastructure. So it was decided that students will be taught on their laptops.

20th July 2012: First day we just taught the basics of Ubuntu.

21st July 2012:It was bit of tedious day as some students were so naive that they didn't even know what's the configuration of their laptops. Later we decided to visit Anandvan.We had a simple marathi meal. The servers were deaf and mute but very friendly and hard-working.

22nd July 2012: There was no network over there.We met Dr.Vikas Amte,son of Dr.Baba Amte. There was a team of play actors who had a play that day. We reserved some of our time for the wildlife and samadhi of Baba Amte. Anandvan is of 60 km in total area.

23rd July 2012:We met Kaustubh Amte, the grandson of Dr.Baba Amte. We saw the blind school which was the most provocative and sentimental day of my life.The students there are so enthusiastic and have hunger for knowledge. For them we decided to revisit Anandvan soon in early October this year itself. We installed ubuntu in one of the labs. We decided to go back to Amravati the same day. We went straight to the Sipna College where we had our first workshop. We stayed there in their guest house.

24th July 2012: Next day we had booked a car early morning to Chikaldhara, the mini Singapore of Maharashtra. What a breeze! We had the scrumptious “masaledaar” lunch at desi dhaba on our way back to our hotel rooms.

25th July 2012: We had our workshop at Prof Meghe College of Badnera, Amravati on kernel installation. We were served with dryfruits and sweets as the Principal was Muslim and that was the period of Roza. We had our train by 7pm. We learnt Symfony in the journey bothering other commuters.

26th July 2012: Returned back to Mumbai.

The real programmers enjoy every part of their life they spend in coding and our life is to learn earn travel and experience that's what I learnt from the very first workshop of my life. This is just the beginning. Sky is the limit.