Lending a helping hand at the opportune time

A team from Puducherry is helping underprivileged children realise their dreams with help from trained professionals

Theme restaurants have become popular only in the past decade. Photo: Bijoy Ghosh

Many children living in welfare homes nurture big dreams, but many of them do not have enough guidance to realise their goals.

A team from Puducherry is helping such children from across the State get motivated by young professionals. The programme, called ‘N’KaNa’ (short for en akka, en anna ), facilitates mentoring of underprivileged children by professionals.

For instance, choreographer Shobi Paulraj has been mentoring Ruban, a class X student who lives at Baby Sarah Home in Puducherry. “The team, Trust for Youth and Child Leadership (TYCL), approached me when I was at a shoot in Puducherry and I immediately agreed,” she says.

Ruban’s dream is to become a dancer, and Shobi will help guide him. “The idea is not for me to give him a chance to enter movies, it is to help him understand what it takes to become big in the industry,” Shobi says.

TYCL aims to make ‘N’KaNa’ a mentorship programme where children interact with trained professionals for moral and emotional support.

“We want these children to see there is support for them and they can do well,” says Suresh Krishna, coordinator of the programme. To help mentor a child or to know more about the programme, visit nkana.tycl.org.in or email nkana@tycl.org.in.

Theme restaurants, a refreshing change

The blueprint of any restaurant in the city would generally comprise rows of tables and chairs, walls tinged with attractive colours, a few portraits, and designer lighting to give a typical ‘eating out’ feeling.

However, there are a few restaurants that stand out with their themes that range from wildlife to prison. The latest entrant in this category is Ciclo Café, a restaurant that has the modest cycle as its central figure.

Nidhi Kapoor Thadani, director, Absolute Speciality, says the concept of a theme restaurant is to give customers a break from the ‘mundane’ by extending the food experience.

The café, which has a tie-up with TI Cycles, has not just food on offer, but also cycles. One of the first theme restaurants in the city was ‘The Cave’ on Anna Salai. It is no longer operational there.

Karthik Ramaswamy, co-proprietor, Veg Valley in Adyar, says the trend of theme restaurants has become popular only in the past decade. “Normally eating out in theme restaurants is considered expensive, but not at our restaurant. Our menu has exclusive vegetarian fare,” he says.

Mr. Ramaswamy says his actual plan had been to create an aquarium. “But the scale of economy and also advice that an aquarium theme would not be suitable for vegetarian fare made me take up the valley design,” he says.