From: sri@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (a.natarajan)
Subject: Brother, Can you Help me? (baheno! aap bhee madad keejiyE!)
Organization: AT&T
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 21:07:43 GMT
Followup-To: poster
Keywords: Slides, Pictures, Info., on BHARAT

Dear friends:

If any of you can help me with slides or other material for
a presentation I have been invited to make (see the letter I wrote
to the Indian Embassy)  I shall appreciate it. I also spoke to
India Tourist Office in NYC. They will help me with five or six slides.
However, both the Tourist Office and the Embassy do not have what
I need. I need slide pictures of 
the President, the Vice-President, the Chief Justice,
and the Prime Minister,
of Parliament House, Rashtrapathi Bhavan, AIIMS, IIT, IISC,
pictures of personalities such as Raman, Bhabha, Ramanujam, Tagore,
Gandhi, Ravi Shankar, Raj Kapoor, related to space program,
etc.
Can some one help me?
Regards
Natarajan at AT&T BL.
************************************************************************
November 25, 1992.

Mr.  M.  Mishra 
First Secretary, Information
Head  of Chancellery
Indian Embassy
Washington D.C. 20008

Dear Mr. Mishra:
                 Thank you for your response to our  request  for
information on India that we plan to use at a presentation to the
faculty and administration  of  our  local  school  system.   For
mutual  benefit,  let  me  recapitulate the main items of what we
discussed on phone yesterday.  Marlboro Township  in  New  Jersey
has  a  large  population  of people of Indian origin, several of
whom work as  professionals  in  nearby  AT&T  Bell  Laboratories
facilities.   The township also has a reasonably good educational
system made up  of  a  culturally  diverse  student  body.   With
assistance  from  members  of  the  local community that included
several Indian families, the township school system put  together
a  successful cultural show last summer that was well received by
the local community.  The school system has decided  to  continue
this  as  a sort of tradition each year and has now invited a few
select members of the community to conduct lecture-demonstrations
on different nations and their cultures.  The first such event is
planned for the first week of January, 1993.  Each such lecture -
demonstration  is  planned  for  approximately an hour and thirty
minutes.  It is hoped that  such  presentations  would  help  the
teaching faculty and the school administration to know first hand
about the various countries whence the families of their students
have  come.  All  the  benefits  that  result  from  such  better
understanding of other nations and cultures  go  a  long  way  in
improving  the  educational  process.  To  include India in their
agenda, the township has invited two members  of  the  community,
Mrs.  Chitra Venkateswaran and Mr. A. Natarajan (the undersigned)
to participate in the program.  We are starting  the  process  of
gathering   appropriate  material  about  India.   We  need  your
generous help in the form of publications,  slides,  photographs,
video-tapes,  etc.  to  enable  us  to  put  together  a superbly
professional  presentation  that  will   educate   the   American
educational system on several aspects of India.  We wish to group
the topics into three major areas, viz., government, people,  and
geography. 

o   GOVERNMENT:

The political structure of India; material  on  how  the  world's
largest democracy functions; the structure of the government; the
central  and  state  governments,  the  major  branches  of   the
government;  the  multi-party parliamentary system etc. (I expect
this to be well received now,  soon  after  the  US  Presidential
elections.)  Slide pictures of the President, the Vice-President,
the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of the Supreme  Court,  the
Rashtrapathi  Bhavan,  the  Parliament House, Republic Day Parade
are helpful.

o   PEOPLE:

India's  comparative  advantage  is   its   people   of   diverse
background.  Material on the Indian mosaic, the various cultures,
languages, religious beliefs etc. The lives of the people, Indian
economy,   their   aspirations,   their   challenges,  and  their
achievements. We might want to  include  on  their  dealing  with
other  nations,  the new economic agenda; the challenges in areas
of education; the growth of science  and  art  in  India.   Slide
pictures  of  people  from  different regions, different walks of
life, people from urban and rural areas,  of  buildings  such  as
IIT,  IIM,  Space Research Organizations are helpful. Also slides
of C. V. Raman, Tagore, Ravi Shankar, Dr. Chandrasekhar, and  any
other  personality will add to our presentation.  Slides of South
Indian temples, the Cathedral in Calcutta, the Golden  Temple  of
Amritsar,  the  Jain  temples of Mount Abu, the Budhist vihaaras,
the Cochin Synogogue will be nice to have. 

o  GEOGRAPHY:

India, a land of tall mountains, broad  rivers,  fertile  plains,
green valleys, and long shore-lines, and hot deserts; its diverse
fauna and flora; its natural resources; its varying  seasons  and
how  they impact the average Indian's life (e.g., how a good or a
bad monsoon could  impact  the  day-to-day  life  of  an  average
Indian),  etc.   Slide  pictures  of  mountains, rivers, deserts,
green valleys, sea-shores, cocoanut groves, wild-life,  etc.  are
helpful.   Also  of dams, hydro-power stations, irrigation canals
etc. are useful. 

                  Your generous and timely help in  providing  us
with  slides,  video tapes, maps and such appropriate material in
support of  the  above  will  enable  us  to  weave  together  an
informative  presentation for the occasion.  Although the program
is targeted for early January of the  coming  year,  it  will  be
helpful  to  have your information material in our hands by early
December  so  that  we  have  time   to   format   the   material
appropriately   for   the   audience   and   make  a  preliminary
presentation to a select Indian audience for comments and review,
before  making  our final presentation to the township community.
The tentative agenda is to present each of the above three topics
in  25  minutes each, with a 15 minute introduction, totalling an
hour and thirty minutes.  All the material you send  us  will  be
promptly returned back to you soon after our use. We will let you
know how the presentation was received, and also send you a  copy
of  our  format,  so  that  you  might share the same with others
planning a similar presentation.  Once again, thank you very much
for your generosity and willingness to help us out so promptly.

Sincerely,

A. Natarajan