Humanity

* I read this in the newspaper yesterday. A 16 year old boy dies in an accident in Chennai.
Even with the grief they are in, his doctor parents pledge his organs for donation.
Apollo hospital finds a 9 year old girl needing a heart transplant on the same day. Heart transplant, the newspaper quotes, needs to be done within a few hours of 'harvesting' (extracting from the donor i.e... sad word I know).
They request the help of the Traffic police. They facilitate the ambulance movement across the city - green lights at each intersection for the vehicle zooming at 120 kmph.
Next, the doctors achieve an extraordinary feat of implanting in a small girl's chest cavity, a heart from a grown up boy.

* A girl tugs at our shirt near an eatout. Manju and I are eating. Usually she buys such kids something to eat. May be we were a tad too lax today. When we turned around, we see a guy hand over to the kid, a fresh plate of dosa he bought and vanish in the crowd.

* Same place, earlier in the day. Manju and I are walking nearby. We see a young boy on the scooter relishing a morsel of dosa, which his grandfather is diligently feeding him. It was such a postcard picture.

* Same day, Manju and I, walk past a hawker on the footpath with his wares around him... squatting on the floor and bent over a 4-line notebook (like the ones we used in nursery).. and practicing English alphabets.

Such events... they are so refreshing. This is what we like to see everyday.

Russia invades Georgia

Overnight on Aug 9th I see in the papers that Russia invaded little Georgia.
It is shocking and surprising.. I never thought the next war would spew in that region.

I read that there was a small conflict simmering in the region since a few years - South Ossetian separatists; Russia hated Georgia's moves to get cozy with the US, etc.
US had welcomed Georgia's participation in its Iraq operation and was pushing the other Western countries to accept Georgia into NATO.
As expected George W Bush has issued a warning to Russia saying - "Georgia is a sovereign country and its sovereignty must be respected".
After his recent "Saddam has WMD and so we should invade Iraq" eyewash, doesn't one feel he has lost the moral right to correct Russia?

BBC Links
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7551375.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7553144.stm

George Orwell on Mahatma Gandhi

George Orwell on Mahatma Gandhi.

I read this article some time back and I liked it.

I like Mahatma Gandhi for everything he's done for our country.
But unfortunately, most people I have met or read about follow either one of the two extreme and inaccurate perceptions of him. Some vouch that Gandhi was an outright anti-national and the others who believe he single-handedly won independence for India.

Here in his essay, George Orwell gives a different and a very balanced, English perception of Gandhi.

March 16, 2008 - 10 kilometers in 74 minutes.
I took part in a 10K run organized by TeamAsha in Mountain View, CA.
This was the first time I ever ran 10K. My best had been 5K on the treadmill. I thought initially that just completing the distance in the allotted 90 minutes would be a great achievement. I was ecstatic when I not only ran non-stop, I even completed with some time to spare. :) Check the results on their site.

Mere desh ki dharti

Reading the Forbes list of richest people released recently, I was reminded of Marco Polo's account of India during 1500s... that Indians sold diamonds and other precious gems in heaps on roadside.

India actually had been the richest economy for ages until the last 300-400 years.

Looking at the Forbes list, I couldn't help but wonder if India is on its way back to the top again.

Four Indians feature in the top ten of the richest. Three of them having made their money from Indian businesses. The US is the only other country which has multiple billionnaires in the list - two people. The TOI reports that India contributes 53 billionnaires, more than any other country in Asia. I am surprised that its higher than Japan(24) and China(42)..!

No wonder every business in the world is looking at investing in India. It can soon be the largest consumer pool and evidently there is higher chances of making a billion dollars in India than in China.

There is something in the Indian soil that makes the civilization reap rich time and again.

Here's the list from Forbes.

India as home

I'm at Oakland, California currently.
It was 5 in the evening and I was hungry. I thought I'll catch a bite at the Starbucks.
I went and there was one person in front of the counter ordering for himself.
I stood behind him.
As I was standing in the line, the coffee guy asked me what I wanted to have so that he could ready it up by the time I paid for it.
The guy in front of me turned back as I was telling the coffee guy, 'excuse me, I was standing ahead of you.' ... in a kind of 'what man..! how can you get your order before mine?'.
I explained to him with a shrug that thats how they do. They have 2-3 guys to make coffee but only one to bill. So, when the coffee-guys are free, they ask the people in the queue, what they want, before they place the order.
He felt re-assured. By his looks it seemed that he was African origin.
He collected his coffee and as he passed by, he asked if I was from India. I replied in the affirmative.
Then he said, 'I'm from India too'. I was perplexed. He couldn't be Indian..

I collected my coffee and went over to his place and introduced myself.
He introduced himself and told me that he stayed in Mumbai for 10 years. He studied school and college there. And MBA in Symbiosis, Pune. He was Sudanese by origin.
And he'd been in the US for 7 years.
But.. for him, India is his home, he said.. and he calls himself Indian.

He's not an Indian by birth. He's just stayed in India for sometime. He's stayed in US for long enuf to love it.
But he still identifies himself with India.

More on this blog to follow soon..