Sri sathya sai awards honour seve lives given over to service

MUDDENAHALLI: Far away from city lights, a sea of people, dressed in all white, bowed with humility to greet people strangers and celebrities who entered their premises.Several of them were volunteers, but most of them disciples of Sri Sathya Sai Baba, whose teachings celebrated lives of service and love.
The Sri Sathya Sai Loka Seva Trust's auditorium in Seva Trust's auditorium in the small village of Muddenahalli, 59 km from Bengaluru, on Wednesday evening came alive in celebration of the 91st birth anniversary of the late spiritual leader.Among his disciples present at the event were cricket superstar Sunil Gavaskar and musicians Pandit Shiv kumar Sharma, Hariharan and Shivamani.Both the venue and the occasion served as a platform for the Trust to share stories and celebrate the seven inspiring individuals who won the in augural Sri Sathya Sai Award for Human Excellence.
The awards were given away in six categories -education, health, environment, music and fine arts, unity of religion and women & child welfare to people belonging to India and Asian countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Taiwan.
As the achievements of the awardees were played out through audio-visuals, the overflowing auditorium erupted in applause. However, the stories of Sunitha Krishnan, a gang rape survivor striving to save women and children from trafficking, and that of Dr M R Rajagopal, who is working to alleviate suffering by providing terminally ill with a life of dignity, were greeted by an awed silence.