A sign I saw first outside The Bowring Club in St. Marks Rd bangalore.
I find it totally rediculous.
Please!!!
Its the popular means of transport in this city.
(Bangalore doesnot have taxis, no black and yellow types at least)
No entry!: "If you are going to a five-star hotel in an auto, get ready to walk up the driveway. The guards will make you feel like scum and force you to get off in a corner. While the management at some hotels feigned ignorance, others said they were aware of such a rule and supported it.
Here’s what Lajwanti D’Souza had to face when she tried to enter hotels in a rickshaw"
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Will you think out of that box of yours, Please..
Excerpts from one of the most impressive lectures I have ever heard.
This is December 2001, three months after 9/11, a month after the US had bombarded Afghanistan into submission.
A year after Clinton's term ended.
I saw the lecture live on BBC.
I had just receved a letter saying my joining at Infosys had been postponed indefinitely, partly due to 9/11
Read the whole thing if you have the time
William J. Clinton Foundation "BBC Richard Dimbleby Lecture, 2001":
"What this is all about is that simple question: which will be more important in the twenty first century - our differences or our common humanity? This encounter we have had with the Taliban and Mr. Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda and all the debate that has filled the airwaves since, has given us a picture of this debate and of the very different ideas we have about the nature of truth, the value of life, the content of community. Like fanatics everywhere throughout history, these people think they've got the truth, and if you share their truth, your life has value. And if you don't, you're a legitimate target, even if you're just a six year-old girl who went to work with her mother at the World Trade Center on September 11th. That's what they think. And they really believe it, like fanatics everywhere. They think to be in their community, you have to look like them, think like them and act like them and they know people will stray every now and then, so they pick a few people to beat the living daylights out of those who stray.
Now most of us believe that no one has the absolute truth. Indeed, in our societies, the most religious among us sometimes feel that most strongly because we believe as children of God, we are by definition, limited in this life, in this body, with our minds. That life is a journey toward truth, that we have something to learn from each other, and that everybody ought to have a chance to make the journey. So for us, a community is just made up of anybody accepts the rules of the game, everybody counts, everybody has a role to play, everybody deserves a chance and we all do better when we work together. Now, that's what this is about.
This is not complicated. The people that want to kill us over our differences do so because they think their life doesn't matter except insofar as they are different from and better than others. Those of us who are trying to change ourselves and change them, we think our common humanity is more important and if we could just live up to its potential, the world would be a better place. And which side wins will shape the twenty first century. What do you think is more important? The answer is easy to give, but very, very hard to live. Think about this as you go home tonight.
Think about how important your differences are to you. Think about how we all organize our lives in little boxes - man, woman, British, American, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Tory, Labor, New Labor, Old Labor, up, down - you know, everything in the world. I like red ties, I got a blue shirt on, you laugh about it, think about everything you define yourself by. Our little boxes are important to us. And indeed it is necessary, how could you navigate life if you didn't know the difference between a child and an adult, an African and an Indian, a scientist and a lawyer? We have to organize that, but somewhere along the way, we finally come to understand that our life is more than all these boxes we're in. And that if we can't reach beyond that, we'll never have a fuller life. And the fanatics of the world, they love their boxes and they hate yours. You're laughing, that's what this is all about. And it's easy to give the right answer but it's hard to live.
When I was my daughter's age, just about to embark on my great adventure in England, just before that Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, two of the heroes of my youth, were murdered by their fellow Americans for trying to reconcile the American people to each other. Gandhi, the greatest spirit of the age, murdered, not by an angry Muslim but by a fellow Hindu because he wanted India for the Muslims and the Jains and the Sikhs. And the Jews and the Christians. Sadat - murdered not by an Israeli commando, but by a very angry Egyptian - a member of the organization now headed by Bin Laden's number two guy - an angry Egyptian. Because how could he be a good Egyptian or a good Muslim because he wanted secular government in Egypt and peace with Israel, though he got the desert back. And one of the people I have loved most in my increasingly long life, Yitzhak Rabin, was murdered not by a Palestinian terrorist, but by a very angry young Israeli Jew who thought he was not a good Jew or a good Israeli because he wanted lasting peace for Israel through the recognition of the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians for a homeland. And that guy who murdered him got exactly what he wanted - he derailed and delayed the peace process and let it be swarmed and mauled by all those people who were under the foolish illusions that their differences matter more than the fact that they are all the children of Abraham.
So that's what I want you to think about. It's great that your kids will live to be ninety years old but I don't want it to be behind barbed wire. It's great that we're going to have all these benefits of the modern world, but I don't want you to feel like you're emotional prisoners. And I don't want you to look at people who look different from you and see a potential enemy instead of a fellow traveler. We can make the world of our dreams for our children, but since it's a world without walls, it will have to be a home for all our children.
Thank you very much. "
This is December 2001, three months after 9/11, a month after the US had bombarded Afghanistan into submission.
A year after Clinton's term ended.
I saw the lecture live on BBC.
I had just receved a letter saying my joining at Infosys had been postponed indefinitely, partly due to 9/11
Read the whole thing if you have the time
William J. Clinton Foundation "BBC Richard Dimbleby Lecture, 2001":
"What this is all about is that simple question: which will be more important in the twenty first century - our differences or our common humanity? This encounter we have had with the Taliban and Mr. Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda and all the debate that has filled the airwaves since, has given us a picture of this debate and of the very different ideas we have about the nature of truth, the value of life, the content of community. Like fanatics everywhere throughout history, these people think they've got the truth, and if you share their truth, your life has value. And if you don't, you're a legitimate target, even if you're just a six year-old girl who went to work with her mother at the World Trade Center on September 11th. That's what they think. And they really believe it, like fanatics everywhere. They think to be in their community, you have to look like them, think like them and act like them and they know people will stray every now and then, so they pick a few people to beat the living daylights out of those who stray.
Now most of us believe that no one has the absolute truth. Indeed, in our societies, the most religious among us sometimes feel that most strongly because we believe as children of God, we are by definition, limited in this life, in this body, with our minds. That life is a journey toward truth, that we have something to learn from each other, and that everybody ought to have a chance to make the journey. So for us, a community is just made up of anybody accepts the rules of the game, everybody counts, everybody has a role to play, everybody deserves a chance and we all do better when we work together. Now, that's what this is about.
This is not complicated. The people that want to kill us over our differences do so because they think their life doesn't matter except insofar as they are different from and better than others. Those of us who are trying to change ourselves and change them, we think our common humanity is more important and if we could just live up to its potential, the world would be a better place. And which side wins will shape the twenty first century. What do you think is more important? The answer is easy to give, but very, very hard to live. Think about this as you go home tonight.
Think about how important your differences are to you. Think about how we all organize our lives in little boxes - man, woman, British, American, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Tory, Labor, New Labor, Old Labor, up, down - you know, everything in the world. I like red ties, I got a blue shirt on, you laugh about it, think about everything you define yourself by. Our little boxes are important to us. And indeed it is necessary, how could you navigate life if you didn't know the difference between a child and an adult, an African and an Indian, a scientist and a lawyer? We have to organize that, but somewhere along the way, we finally come to understand that our life is more than all these boxes we're in. And that if we can't reach beyond that, we'll never have a fuller life. And the fanatics of the world, they love their boxes and they hate yours. You're laughing, that's what this is all about. And it's easy to give the right answer but it's hard to live.
When I was my daughter's age, just about to embark on my great adventure in England, just before that Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, two of the heroes of my youth, were murdered by their fellow Americans for trying to reconcile the American people to each other. Gandhi, the greatest spirit of the age, murdered, not by an angry Muslim but by a fellow Hindu because he wanted India for the Muslims and the Jains and the Sikhs. And the Jews and the Christians. Sadat - murdered not by an Israeli commando, but by a very angry Egyptian - a member of the organization now headed by Bin Laden's number two guy - an angry Egyptian. Because how could he be a good Egyptian or a good Muslim because he wanted secular government in Egypt and peace with Israel, though he got the desert back. And one of the people I have loved most in my increasingly long life, Yitzhak Rabin, was murdered not by a Palestinian terrorist, but by a very angry young Israeli Jew who thought he was not a good Jew or a good Israeli because he wanted lasting peace for Israel through the recognition of the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians for a homeland. And that guy who murdered him got exactly what he wanted - he derailed and delayed the peace process and let it be swarmed and mauled by all those people who were under the foolish illusions that their differences matter more than the fact that they are all the children of Abraham.
So that's what I want you to think about. It's great that your kids will live to be ninety years old but I don't want it to be behind barbed wire. It's great that we're going to have all these benefits of the modern world, but I don't want you to feel like you're emotional prisoners. And I don't want you to look at people who look different from you and see a potential enemy instead of a fellow traveler. We can make the world of our dreams for our children, but since it's a world without walls, it will have to be a home for all our children.
Thank you very much. "
Monday, September 05, 2005
The world's coming to an end...
Rupesh Mohanty from office is great source of wonderful stories from his boarding school childhood.
His was a Convent school
It seems, every time there was a flood, quake, riot famine anywhere the sisters would remind the kids
"The world is coming to an end
Get ready.
Jesus is coming.
When it is time, there will be great floods and you will find your friends and family missing."
As a 10 year old the though that was the reason they checked attendance four times a day.
His was a Convent school
It seems, every time there was a flood, quake, riot famine anywhere the sisters would remind the kids
"The world is coming to an end
Get ready.
Jesus is coming.
When it is time, there will be great floods and you will find your friends and family missing."
As a 10 year old the though that was the reason they checked attendance four times a day.
Do these things happen to you!!!
One day you go eat in a fancy Korean Restaurant.
The overly friendly and polite waiter suggests a chicken dish you cannot pronounce.
Its wonderful and you wonder how they got that texture to the meat
Next day you see a dog catching van.
The guy hanging from the back turns around and you get this feeling
"Have I seen this guy somewhere?"
The overly friendly and polite waiter suggests a chicken dish you cannot pronounce.
Its wonderful and you wonder how they got that texture to the meat
Next day you see a dog catching van.
The guy hanging from the back turns around and you get this feeling
"Have I seen this guy somewhere?"
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