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Monday, March 30, 2009
ABYTE OF LIFE
SURIYA’SCOUNTDOWN
Ayan releases on April 3
FREE CIRCULATION
Vol. 3No. 59
FIRSTINNINGS
Taking inspiration from books
05
HUGS FOR FREE
A.R. Rahman’s free hugs video inspireda group of students to initiate the FreeHugs Campaign in Chennai.
 Vipasha Sinha reports
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 T
here were days when peoplequeued up in front of herhouse to catch a glimpse of her. The vernacular presshailed her. But she decided to callits quits. Amudha, or ‘Aavi’ Amudha asshe is popularly known, is nomore a ‘medium’ now. For thoseof you who don’t know, a ‘medi-um’ is a person through whomthe spirits of the dead are sup-posed to contact the living. And Amudha was one such medi-um, which she says was aGod-given gift. “In 1993,during my highschool, Ibe-came a medium and with thatpower I have communicated withmore than 500 spirits. My Guru(in a metaphysical state) helpedme talk to spirits.”
Issues with the dead
Most of the people who cameto Amudha wanted to settle prop-erty issues with their dead rela-tives, she says. “They wanted toknow whether the dead soulsare happy and if they neededanything for ‘athma shanti’.There were also cases wherethey asked about money orproperty matters. So far, thespirits have not harmed meand I think it’s because of my Guru, who is my guiding soul.”But certain problems couldnot be solved, says Amudha, andthat’s when she stopped being amedium.
Kriya calling
“I changed my journey and de-veloped a passion for under-standing my own self – me, themind and the truth beyond themind. These things made peoplecall me a spiritualist,” says Amud-ha, who recently released a book called
Ennai Naan Theadugiraen
(In Search of Myself).Then she chose the path of ‘Kri- ya’ and changed her prefix toSangamithra from Aavi. “‘Aavi’,meaning ‘spirit’, had negativity connected to it, so I changed it to‘Sangamithra’, meaning friend.” Amudha now runs SanmargaFoundation, where she teachesKriya techniques to students andprofessionals. “Kriya means ac-tivation of mind. The techniqueinvolves activating the mind tointrospect and identify one’sgoodness while simultaneously removing negative thoughts.”The practitioner provides stu-dents a diary to note down eve-rything that happens in his or herlife. She also teaches some code words, so that others will not de-cipher what one has written.“When you start writing and in-trospecting, you can experience asea change. I am doing this insome schools and a few IT com-panies. On March 30, I am alsostarting this mind exercise for theinmates of Puzhal Prison,” says Amudha, adding that it was for-mer President of India A.P.J. Ab-dul Kalam who asked her to teachKriya to children.
V. HARIPRIYA
haripriya@goergo.in
‘Aavi’
 Amudha is back
ERGO
Monday,March30,2009
NAMMA CHENNAI
02
Shirt fad
A leading cinema public relationsexecutive seems to have developed anobsession for shirts. At a recent filmlaunch event, the lead actor came in awhite-and-blue shirt, while the PR manchanged three different shirts in amatter of 60 minutes.
No comments
Khakis, both senior and junior, are quickto shy away when the words ‘High Court’are pronounced. Recently, a top cop washeard saying “I don’t want to sayanything positive or negative” whenasked about the court issue.
Cold war turns heated
There has always been an ego issuebetween the Railway employees andstate police posted in Chennai Centralstation. Recently, the cold war turned toverbal abuse heaped on each otherfollowing the discovery of anunidentified dead body on a platform.The fight sparked after there was a delayby a senior railway official in issuing acertificate for the state police to clearthe body.
Not as a ‘medium’ but as Kriya practitioner and with a new name – ‘Sangamithra’ Amudha
PHOTO: S.S. KUMAR
 
Monday, March 30, 2009
03
 What on earth am I standing here for? What if the copscatch me? Before I could an-swer with my ifs and buts, Ifelt a kid hugging me tight. It wasthen that I knew that our FreeHugs Campaign had begun,” re-calls 20-year-old Rohith Nathan,one of the initiators of the FreeHugs Campaign in Chennai.Rohith Nathan, an Engineering student, and his IIT buddies Pu-neeth Raj, Chethan Bikkina and Amit Saxena, were seen anywh-ere between Citi Centre andLighthouse station on Valentine’sDay, inviting (and sometimeseven persuading) strangersaround to receive free hugs.“We met during the Youth Em-powerment and Skill (YES) coursein Chennai. Wavelengthsmatched and we decided to dosomething different – spreadhappiness and have fun at thesame time.Then one day Rohith comesshouting ‘Machaan, let’s hug people!’” says Puneeth.“I thought it was yet anotherattention-seeking idea of Rohithand discarded it at once but whenhe explained the concept we all just loved it,” continues Amit“It was A.R. Rahman’s free hugsvideo that inspired me. I alwaysloved to make people smile and what better way than
 jaadu ki  jhappi!,
” smiles Rohith “When Ishared my thoughts, my YEScourse buddies loved it. Only now I knew that they thought I was joking,” he pats Amit
 V-Day
 With zero planning they decid-ed to start it on a Saturday, whichcoincidentally happened to be Valentine’s Day. The Free Hugscampaigners did invite people,but a majority were scepticalabout the whole thing. They alsohad people backing out the lastminute.“I was videotaping the otherthree holding the placards calling for free hugs in Citi Centre. Thefirst to hug were children. Later, afew others followed. Most of them found what we did amus-ing, but nothing stopped us,” ex-plains Chetan.Then came the show-stoppersand Punith was the first one toface the security. “It looked like aTom-and-Jerry chase when thesecurity personnel were chasing us. After warning us thrice, they forced us out. We knew that ourcharts would be torn, so we hadcarried three extra ones. Like weanticipated, we were left with on-ly one chart.” he says
Hug hops
 After being thrown out of CitiCentre, the EMU local trains weretheir next destination. They hugged people on the platform as well as in the trains all through-out the journey. They intention-ally avoided hugging women toavoid trouble on Valentine’s Day.It went on for just two hours,but they did end up making a lotof people smile. “Though not on alarge scale as in Mumbai, in ourlittle ways we did what we aimedto – go mad, make a difference,”the team echoes.
Despite curious onlookers and angry security personnel, the FreeHugs Campaign succeeded in distributing hugs to anyone whoneeded one or could be persuaded to receive one
VIPASHA SINHA
Jaadu ki jhappi
Children’s camp
Super Skills invites children to join in for their summer camp. Kids couldexplore their skills through photography, puzzles, games and otherhobby classes. The camp is on from April 15 to 30 at Sishlok. For detailscall 9381202785/ 9444200463.
It was A.R. Rahman’sfree hugs video thatinspired me.I always loved tomake people smileand what better waythan jaadu ki jhappi!
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