COIMBATORE: Green activist Jawagar Subramaniam turned the wedding reception of his 26-year-old daughter into an occasion for people to help tribal students. Guests who came to wish S V Swarna Prabha and M K Thiruvikram at the Ayyappa Seva Sangam marriage hall in Ramanagar on Wednesday evening brought books as gifts.
Jawagar, who is actively engaged in reviving water bodies and planting saplings, suggested this to his relatives and friends, and they responded by donating coaching manuals on cracking UPSC exams, books on history, self-development Tamil literature, etc .
He created a stall in the wedding hall where the guests gifted over 400 books on different subjects.
Jawagar told TNIE that he wanted to do something for the tribal students who are economically poor, and made use of his daughter’s wedding since he had hundreds of friends and well-wishers. Jawagar added that people should use marriages, birthdays and other celebrations in their families for similar acts.
Jawahar handed over the responsibility of collecting books to Kishore Chandran, managing trustee of Dr Kalam Foundation which has set up Dr Kalam library in six corporation and a government schools in the city. The trust would distribute the collected books to tribal students in Valparai, Anaikatti and Karunga Nagar on Siruvani road after getting permission from the district collector Kranthi Kumar Pati and Chief Educational Officer.
Kishore Chandran told TNIE “If the couple agrees, they can hand over the books to the students. We want to encourage students read a wide range of books apart from textbooks as they would expand their intellectual horizon and instil confidence to write competitive exams . We received books written by motivational speakers like chief secretary V Irai Anbu and DGP C Sylendra Babu. Apart from distributing books, we would request teachers to make sure the students read them during their leisure time,” he said.