How lucky are you?

Something to ponder:

• If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world.
• If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.
• If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.
• If you can go to church without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.
• If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
• Only one in a hundred people receive a college education.
• Only one in a hundred people own a computer.
• If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

As you read this and are reminded how life is in the rest of the world, remember just how blessed you really are!

Have you tried everything?

This story is from a sermon preached by a priest in my church. I don't remember which of the priests it was, but this is a thought-provoking story about God's fatherly love for us.

Once, a man bought his son a model train set as a gift. The lad was overjoyed with his new gift. The trains ran on batteries, and when running, the light on the engine lit and smoke came out from the chimney. It even had stations and signals. The boy spent many hours happily playing with the train set, rearranging the tracks in different layouts and making the train start and stop at the stations.

One day, the engine stopped working. The boy was heartbroken. He decided to fix the engine. He brought out his geometry set and tried to repair the engine with his scale, compass, pencil and other instruments. The father was watching his futile attempts. The boy then brought a box of tools and tinkered around with the screwdriver and pliers, but to no avail. By now, the boy was almost in tears.

The man then asked him "Son, did you try using everything you have to repair the train?"

The boy replied "Yes, dad"

"Have you really tried everything?"

"Yes", the boy replied again.

The father then tenderly put his arm around his son and asked him:

"Did you try using me?"

Like the little boy, so many times in our lives, we try to solve our problems ourselves, without asking help from God, our loving and caring Father. God is always ready to help us and will always do what is best for us, if only we trust in Him.

Yeh Honsla

This is a song from the soundtrack of the 2006 Hindi film Dor. The music by the Salim-Sulaiman duo is based on Rajasthani folk music.

The lyrics of this song by Mir Ali Hussain are some of the most inspirational and powerful ever, and the poetry is excellent. The lyrics make this song nothing short of an anthem and give it a hymn-like status.

The soulful performance of the song by Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan really moves you if you understand the words. This is one song that motivates me when I'm down.

Here are the lyrics of the song in Hindi:

Yeh Hosla Kaise Jhuke,
Yeh Aarzoo Kaise Ruke?

Manzil Muskil To Kya,
Bundla Sahil To Kya,
Tanha Ye Dil To Kya?

Raah Pe Kante Bikhre Agar,
Uspe To Phir Bhi Chalna Hi Hai,
Shaam Chupale Suraj Magar,
Raat Ko Ek Din Dhalana Hi Hai

Rut Ye Tal Jayegi,
Himmat Rang Layegi,
Subha Phir Aayegi

Hogi Hame Jo Rehmat Adaa,
Dhup Kategi Saaye Tale,
Apni Khuda Se Hai Ye Dua,
Manzil Lagale Humko Gale

Jurrat Sau Baar Rahe,
Uncha Iqraar Rahe,
Zinda Har Pyar Rahe

Here is my translation of the song into English. This is more of an equivalence translation than a literal translation.

How can we be discouraged,
How can this longing cease?

No matter how difficult the goal is,
No matter if the shore is out of sight,
No matter if we’re alone

Even though the path is scattered with thorns,
It still has to be traveled
Even though evening has hidden the sun,
The night must pass someday

This season will end,
We will reap the rewards of our courage,
Morning will come again

When we are blessed,
The sun will shine through the shadows
We pray to our God
That our goal may embrace us

May we dare a hundred times,
May we uphold our pledge,
May every love remain alive

I'm sure you will agree that this is really motivating stuff.

Tips for life

Please note that I don't necessarily agree entirely with all of these.

• Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
• When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
• Follow the three R's: Respect for self, respect for others and responsibility for all your actions.
• Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
• Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
• When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
• Spend some time alone every day.
• Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
• Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
• Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
• A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
• In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
• Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
• Be gentle with the earth.
• Once a year, go some place you've never been before.
• Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
• Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
• Give people more than they expect. Do so cheerfully.
• Memorize your favorite poem.
• When you say, "I love you," mean it.
• When you say, "I'm sorry," look the person in the eye.
• Never laugh at anyone's dreams. People who don't have dreams don't have much.
• Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.
• In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.
• Don't judge people by their relatives.
• Talk slowly, think quickly.
• When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, "Why do you want to know?"
• Say "bless you" when you hear someone sneeze.
• Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.
• Pray. There's immeasurable power in it.
• Don't trust a man/woman who doesn't close his/her eyes when you kiss.
• If you make a lot of money, put it to use helping others while you are living. That is wealth's greatest satisfaction.
• Remember that your character is your destiny.
  
  

Sunset on Mars

On May 19th, 2005, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this stunning view as the Sun sank below the rim of Gusev crater on Mars. This Panoramic Camera (Pancam) mosaic was taken around 6:07 in the evening of the rover's 489th martian day, or sol. Spirit was commanded to stay awake briefly after sending that sol's data to the Mars Odyssey orbiter just before sunset. This small panorama of the western sky was obtained using Pancam's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 430-nanometer color filters. This filter combination allows false color images to be generated that are similar to what a human would see, but with the colors slightly exaggerated. In this image, the bluish glow in the sky above the Sun would be visible to us if we were there, but an artifact of the Pancam's infrared imaging capabilities is that with this filter combination the redness of the sky farther from the sunset is exaggerated compared to the daytime colors of the martian sky. Because Mars is farther from the Sun than the Earth is, the Sun appears only about two-thirds the size that it appears in a sunset seen from the Earth. The terrain in the foreground is the rock outcrop "Jibsheet," a feature that Spirit has been investigating for several weeks (rover tracks are dimly visible leading up to "Jibsheet"). The floor of Gusev crater is visible in the distance, and the Sun is setting behind the wall of Gusev some 80 km (50 miles) in the distance.

This mosaic is yet another example from MER of a beautiful, sublime martian scene that also captures some important scientific information. Specifically, sunset and twilight images are occasionally acquired by the science team to determine how high into the atmosphere the martian dust extends, and to look for dust or ice clouds. Other images have shown that the twilight glow remains visible, but increasingly fainter, for up to two hours before sunrise or after sunset. The long martian twilight (compared to Earth's) is caused by sunlight scattered around to the night side of the planet by abundant high altitude dust. Similar long twilights or extra-colorful sunrises and sunsets sometimes occur on Earth when tiny dust grains that are erupted from powerful volcanoes scatter light high in the atmosphere.

Goan with the Wind - Rajdeep Sardesai

Goan with the Wind

Article by Rajdeep Sardesai on IBNLive. 21 March 2008

In the early 1990s, Air India printed a calendar showcasing people from different states in their traditional costumes. The Goa portrait had a couple at a church wedding in bridal finery: the lady in a flowing gown, her partner in a jacket and tie. The publication sparked off protests within the Goan community, who accused the national carrier of portraying a flawed image of the state. 

In a state where over sixty per cent is Hindu, the calendar was seen to reinforce the stereotype of Goa as a "westernised" Portuguese enclave. Ironically, the protests were led, among others, by the redoubtable architect Charles Correa, a Goan Catholic proud of his Saraswat Brahmin heritage, someone who was perfectly comfortable in his kurta pajama and Kolhapuri chappals. The protestors were successful enough to force a change in the calendar. 

When the Air India Maharajah gets it wrong, what chance does the average Indian have of getting Goa right? 

For decades now, Goa has been the victim of a rather perverted caricature: the stereotypical image of the state has been of a lazy, fun-loving coastal community with a weak moral core. Bollywood, often the trailblazer in setting cultural trends, did Goa no favours: the majority of Hindi cinema showed the Goan as the drunk Anthony Gonsalves-like character, a woman on one arm, a whisky bottle bottle in his pocket. Even the otherwise well made Dil Chahta Hai created the idea of Goa as the ultimate fantasy of the young Indian: girls were easy, sexual freedom guaranteed with the puritanical streak of the rest of the country absent here. 

Rewind to the original "Goan" film, Bobby in the 1970s: find me a Goan fisherman's daughter who dresses in skimpy bikinis and shorts like Dimple Kapadia and I will buy you a villa next to Vijay Mallya's seaside bungalow in Candolim. 

Unfortunately, it hasn't been easy to shake off the "live the good times" image of Goa, especially when the mainstream media has lapped it up so easily. If a few years ago, it was fish, feni and football that was considered to be the limit of Goa's vision, its now sex, sin and sand, courtesy the Scarlett Keeling controversy. For an increasingly tabloidish media, the Scarlett controversy is manna from heaven. 

A teenage white woman drugged, drowned, possibly raped, perhaps murdered, on a beach in Goa by mysterious shack owners: what more can a carnivorous media ask for? Especially when there are enough close up pictures of a semi-nude Scarlett with marks all over her body, suggesting foul play and a possible cover up? That the area where the incident took place is notorious for drug peddling, that Scarlett herself appears to have had an active sex life, that the girl's truant mother has a past history of crime, and is now embellishing her public remarks with unsubstantiated allegations against Goa's top politicians, that Goa's netas and local cops have a terrible record in fighting crime, can the media really then be blamed for seeing this as a sensational crime story which will catch restless eyeballs? 

But Scarlett's story is not simply another whodunit, nor does it fit in within the "fight for justice" framework that in the aftermath of the Jessica Lal case seems to have become the new war cry for a section of the media. Instead, the Scarlett saga lies at the heart of a more abiding conflict between diverse cultural strands of Goa: between licentiousness and piety, between new world normlessness and old world certitudes. 

There is the Goa of the beachcombers, of the hippies who discovered Baga in the early 70s, of the rave parties, of paedophilia, of decadent hedonism. But there is also the Goa of deep social conservatism, of folk religiosity in its village temples and churches, of simplicity of lifestyle within rural communities, of a premium on education and of immense pride in its plural, multi-cultural heritage. The Goa of a tiny strip of beach between Candolim and Anjuna is constantly in the media gaze and makes front page headlines. The vast majority of Goans who live outside this world are rarely documented because their lives seem much too unexciting to be explored. Historians and anthropologists have done much to unravel the "real' Goa, but for the national media, it is so much easier to reduce an entire people to a tourist brochure . 

Indeed, Goa's tourism industry - earning the state approximately 10,000 crores in foreign exchange per annum -- has been at the heart of the modern-day mythification of the state as some form of a sexual paradise. It is estimated that around 25 lakh tourists come to Goa each year, a vast majority of them local tourists, eager to explore the "idea" of being in a "free" state, free from the restrictions of middle class attitudes. Only a fifth of the tourists who visit the state each year are foreigners, most of them looking for a cheap holiday. The Caribbean is too expensive, the Costa del Sol not exotic enough and Australia too far: so why not clamber onto a chartered plane to a land of the "carnival"? 

Unfortunately, the postcard image of Goa often has little connection with the living reality of its people The result is a clash of cultures that has partly shaped the debate over the Scarlett issue. 

For many Goans, the foreign tourist is a needless intrusion into their community life . Even now, the idea of any form of nudity on the beaches offends Goans, at times even the sight of a half clad gent on a bike troubles villagers. Which perhaps explains why very few Goans seem to have any sympathy for Scarlett's mother, shocked as they are by her decision to leave her teenage daughter behind and travel to neighbouring Karnataka on her own. The Keelings' behaviour offends Goan sensibilities, it reopens lingering fears of a traditional society being overrun by the "outsider". That a young girl might have been raped and murdered by locals doesn't seem to concern a majority of Goans as much as it should. 

And yet, the real threat to Goa's cultural identity does not lie in the lifestyle of the tourist, confined as they are to a small stretch of the state. In fact, in a state with limited employment opportunities, Goa needs to attract more, not less tourists. 

The critical threat to Goan society instead comes from within: from the brazen sale of priceless real estate to those who have little stake in the state's future . It isn't the influx of tourists which should trouble Goans as much as the growing influence of the builders and construction agents who appear determined to destroy the state's environmental treasure in violation of all existing laws. While Goa's politicians go into cataclysms over the Scarlett case, how many of them have bothered to raise their voice against the virtual auction of the state to land sharks? Is it any surprise that in a state which has seen as many as 19 chief ministers in 21 years of statehood, politicians have lost the moral authority to speak up on the issues of governance that really matter to the average Goan? 

Frankly, the challenge before Goa today is not the one which is being posed by a Scarlett-afflicted media: a permissive drugs and drink culture might make for good television, its not central to Goa's impending identity crisis. 

The real challenge for Goans is whether they can preserve the uniqueness of their land by ensuring that it doesn't become another concrete jungle. Environment may not make sensational headlines like a murder can, but in the long run, preventing environmental degradation can alone secure Goa's future. 

Post-script: Let me also debunk another stereotype: the "desai" in my surname often leads people to presume I am Gujarati. The fact is that my father was a Goan, and I am proud to be one too.

Starry Night over the Rhone - Vincent van Gogh

Starry Night over the Rhone
Vincent van Gogh, 1888
Oil on canvas
72.5 cm × 92 cm (28.5 in × 36.2 in)
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

This is how Vincent described it:

Included a small sketch of a 30 square canvas - in short the starry sky painted by night, actually under a gas jet. The sky is aquamarine, the water is royal blue, the ground is mauve. The town is blue and purple. The gas is yellow and the reflections are russet gold descending down to green-bronze. On the aquamarine field of the sky the Great Bear is a sparkling green and pink, whose discreet paleness contrasts with the brutal gold of the gas. Two colourful figurines of lovers in the foreground.

Rainy evening - Leonid Afremov

Leonid Afremov is a Belarus born, Israeli modern painter who creates unique landscapes, cityscapes and figures using a palette knife rather than a brush to paint.

"I tried different techniques during my career, but I especially fell in love with painting with oil and pallette-knife. Every artwork is the result of long painting process; every canvas is born during the creative search; every painting is full of my inner world. Each of my paintings brings different mood, colors and emotions. I love to express the beauty, harmony and spirit of this world in my paintings. My heart is completely open to art. Thus, I enjoy creating inspired and beautiful paintings from the bottom of my soul. Each of my artworks reflects my feelings, sensitivity, passion, and the music from my soul. True art is alive and inspired by humanity. I believe that art helps us to be free from aggression and depression."

~ Leonid Afremov

A Child's Angel

 A Child's Angel 
by Emma Bombeck

Once upon a time, there was a child ready to be born.

One day She asked God:

"They tell me you are sending me to earth tomorrow but how am I going to live there being so small and helpless?"

God: "Among the many angels, I chose one especially for you. She will be waiting for you and will take care of you."

Child: "But tell me, here in Heaven, I don't do anything else but sing and smile, and that's enough for me to be happy. Will I be happy there?"

God: "Your angel will sing for you and will also smile for you every day. You will feel your angel's love and be happy."

Child: "How am I going to be able to understand when people talk to me if I don't know the language that they talk?"

God: "Your angel will tell you the most beautiful and sweet words you will ever hear. With much patience and care, your angel will teach you how to speak."

Child: "And what am I going to do when I want to talk to you?" 

God: "Your angel will place your hands together and will teach you how to pray."

Child: "I've heard that on earth there are bad men. Who will protect me?"

God: "Your angel will defend you even if it means risking her own life."

Child: "But I will always be sad because I will not see you anymore."

God: "even though I will always be with you, your angel will always talk to you about me and will teach you the way to come back to me. "

At that moment there was much peace in Heaven, but voices from earth could already be heard. The child, in a hurry, asked softly:

"Oh God, if I am about to leave now, please tell me my angel's name."

God: "Your angel's name is of no importance. You will call your angel ... Mommy."

A Meadow Lark Sang

The child whispered, "God, speak to me"
And a meadow lark sang.
The child did not hear.

So the child yelled, "God, speak to me!"
And the thunder rolled across the sky
But the child did not listen.

The child looked around and said,
"God let me see you" and a star shone brightly
But the child did not notice.

And the child shouted,
"God show me a miracle!"
And a life was born but the child did not know.

So the child cried out in despair,
"Touch me God, and let me know you are here!"
Whereupon God reached down
And touched the child.

But the child brushed the butterfly away
And walked away unknowingly.

Unknown

Keynote post

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, here is my keynote first post. I will briefly outline what this blog is about. In this blog, I will post inspirational and heart-warming articles, stories and fables (chicken-soup type). I will also post some quotes I like. I will post some of my favourite beautiful artwork (photos, paintings, drawings, sculptures, etc, by anyone). I also intend to post some interesting anecdotes and news clips (sort of like Sherlock Holmes' case-books). Thus, this blog will become a repository of wisdom and creativity. There will not be much original work by me here, so don't expect any confessional-style stuff here, nor will this be a diary. I will not assume ownership of any of the material I copy and paste (or rather copy and post) here.