The children of Saigramam under the Satya Sai Orphanage Trust-Kerala staged the play \'Kabuliwala\', adapted from Tagore\'s famous short story, as part of celebrating the great poet\'s 150 th birth anniversary held at the institute here. Eminent poet ONV Kurup inaugurated the celebrations, in the presence of actor Venu Nagavalli and Anandakumar, the executive director of the Satyasai orphanage trust.

ONV Kurup enlightened the audience about Tagore\'s greatness which welcomed all foreign cultures, at the same time holding up Indian culture. The poet expressed his sadness about the sad state of affairs in Kerala where a child is taught the works of Shelley and Wordsworth in school but is unaware of Changampuzha and Kumaran Asan. He pointed out the greatness of Tagore who used English to convey his soul to the rest of the world, but wrote in Bengali though he was well versed in English.

The play \'Kabuliwala\' turned out to be a big hit with the audience who cheered and lapped up all that the 21 children had to offer. The play does full justice to the short story and portrays the daughterly affection a Kabuliwala has for a little girl called MIni, which she reciprocates. It is circumstances which make men criminals, even then the universal truth that is love remains the same- as was the case with the Kabuliwala who is sent away to jail and comes back to see Mini on the day of her wedding, with the same affection he had for her as a child.

The adult-like seriousness with which each child acted and delivered dialogues was a sight to watch. The hard work had paid off well- not a single line forgotten, no shade of doubt in any child\'s face; just total confidence as each dialogue was delivered.

The best part of the play was when during Mini\'s wedding celebration, the children started distributing sweets to the much delighted audience. The comfort level of the children was evident in the carefree way they too ate the sweets on stage as guests at the wedding.

The director of the play, Dr.Raja Warrier, talked about the amount of effort that had gone into making the play a success. He remembers how difficult it was in the beginning to bring out emotions from the children and how easy it became once they were brought out of their shells. "I can see the change in each child, they are not what they used to be a month ago, their inhibitions are gone, they are more confident and above all they communicate a lot better now" said a smiling Raja Warrier.

The associate director of the play, Ratheesh Krishna, had stayed with the children for about a month, become one of them and trained them to perfection. More than creating an art-work, the intent of Raja and Ratheesh was to bring a change in the children, make them more confident and teach them how to work as a team.

The script for the play was written by T Aromal who adapted the short-story without losing out on the essence.
At the end of the day the play did well to deliver the message of love to a world that needs it the most and still lacks it. Kabuliwala by the children of Saigramam truly was a play with a difference.

As part of the social banking projects, the Kerala Circle of Canara Bank donated an ambulance vehicle to the Shri Satya Sai Orphanage Trust at the Canara Bank circle office auditorium, Spencer Junction in Thiruvananthapuram on August 3, 2004.

Uthradam Thirunal Marthanda Varma of the erstwhile Travancore royal family handed over the vehicle to Mr Anantha Kumar, Executive Director of the Trust, at a function to be held at the Circle Office in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday.

Mathrupooja was celebrated on 22nd December with the rich participation of more than 100 children. They worshipped the elderly women inmates of Sai Gramam to the accompaniment of the chanting of Adi Shankara's `Matrupanchakam.'  Smt Elizebeth Anthony presided over the function.

Sri Sathya Sai Free Service Cell works to provide help, guidance and counselling for people from various walks of life - Trivandrum, Kollam, Kottayam, Trichur, Calicut, Malappuram, Iduki, Kasargod, Palakkad.

This Cell helps people  to get information regarding their pension papers, provident fund etc, saving them unnecessary travel and effort. It also helps people by giving them proper advice in appropriate cases.

The programme telecast on every Friday at 5.30 PM and sunday at 7.30 AM. on Asianet News Channel is named as “Sathyam, Sivam, Sundaram”. The aim of this activity is to disseminate the messages and teachings of Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Telecast of 400 live episodes was carried out in the course of six years.