Tirupur based K. Shivasubramani, who has been creating awareness on organ donation and road safety since 2006 in Tamil Nadu and other States and earned the sobriquet of ‘Awareness Appa’ launched the awareness campaign in the district on Tuesday.
The sexagenarian was the cynosure of all eyes when he visited the District Police Office to meet Superintendent of Police Omprakash Meena as he was dressed in a shirt and pants fully imprinted with slogans on organ donations and road safety and his two-wheeler was fully pasted with awareness stickers in yellow backdrop.
Stating that age was catching up with him, Mr. Shivasubramani said he was on ‘Iruthi suttru’ – final round of his awareness campaign. After covering all the districts in the State, he would confine himself to his home town and nearby areas. He had launched the final leg of his campaign in Kanniyakumari district.
The widower, who has no permanent residence after his wife died four years ago and three daughters got married, launched the campaign in November 2006, visiting educational institutions, non-governmental organisations, government homes and Rotary Clubs and exhorting people to donate blood and other organs, especially eyes.
He initially campaigned along with his wife Janaki and focused on awareness on organ donations. The couple had persuaded more than 85,000 people to take a pledge to donate their eyes and other organs after death, he said. He had also launched the campaign in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan and Puducherry.
Perturbed by increasing road accidents, he was focussing on road safety in his final round of campaign. He distributes pamphlets, stickers and displays placards urging people to wear helmets, seat belt and obey tariff rules. He receives bouquets and brickbats and he takes them in his stride, he says. Some people, he says mock him and ask him to mind his business but unperturbed he moves on.
