Malibu Drive

We had a very successful drive at the Malibu Temple yesterday. Sarayu's sister Kala and my wife Suvasini were the prime movers behind the drive. As late as Wednesday we weren't sure things would come together in time for Saturday, but something told us that we should not miss the opportunity of Ganesh Chathurthi. Kala had made arrangements with the temple authorities. We got the NMDP cheek swab kits and training on Thursday and coordinated with our batchmates and other volunteers on Friday.

Besides our batch mates, Bala, Bapa Rao, Mots and Sammy, we had Kala and her mother, Suvasini, Dr. Lakshmi Dhanvantari and her twin daughter Anita and Sonya, Yatin Mody (IITM '82?), Shantha Kumar (wife of Dr. Ravi Kumar of USC, IITM '74 Jamuna Hostel), and Elise Latewic (friend of Suvasini and Shantha from Pasadena).

We had Ted Nguyen from A3M (Asians for Miracle Marrow Match (http://www.asianmarrow.org/) join us. This helped us set up two separate tables to ensure a more leak-proof way to catch the traffic.

Bapa Rao's daughter Dana, Mots's daughter Priya, Dr. Dhanvatari's daughters Anita and Sonya, and my daughter Sheila gave all of us hope for the next generation by really rising to the occasion. In the beginning they were a little shy, but soon they got into the swing of it, and towards the end of the day, they had devised several process improvements and had no hesitation in offering persuasive arguments to convince unsure would be donors. Great lessons in learning wonderful life skills for all the youngsters.

Suvasini, Kala and her mother made sure that all the volunteers were fed lunch and Dr. Lakshmi Dhanvatari was kind enough to do a Starbucks run.

Many of us got to talk to Prak and Sujju over the phone in the middle of the drive. Prak was in fine mid season form as far as his joking went. His counts have come up nicely from the time he got hospitalized at the start of the week and he was feeling better.

Between A3M and us, we collected over 320 samples. Let us hope one of those is a match.Clearly we can not rest. More drives are being planned and many of us also intend to join other drives like the big drive planned by A3M for October 14 in Cerritos.

Situ