One heard from the Subhashitam.......

In spite of the invasion of the visual media, I’ve remained loyal to my Radio. It continues to air more thought provoking programmes than the visual media. One of my favorites from the radio is the early morning ‘Subhashitam’ of the AIR. Many learned scholars and noble men used to enlighten me and influence my thinking on a variety of topics connected with life at large with their talks on this programme. Often they’ll quote from a text and explain the context and sometimes they also talk on little incidents from the real life.

So here is some thing I heard recently….

It was touching, I felt; please take a look…..

Somewhere in South India, place is irrelevant, a sports meet was on, for children.

There were children from different regions and religions, castes and states and the various echelons of the society.

During a sprint event a little child fell down in the middle of the race and began crying aloud.
Hearing the cry those who were running ahead stopped and looked at each other. Then, to the surprise and discomfort of the judges, all of them began walking back, towards the child who fell down. One of the children lifted the crying child; another cleared the dust from its legs and third wiped away the tears from its face. Soon they were all on their feet holding each other’s hands and together they began walking towards the finish line, each of them spotting the beaming smile of a winner.

The incident mentioned lights up my hope……

What do you think of it?

…..but…….

there is a minor technical problem……..

the event was for the children…..

……who were mentally challenged……….

The Smile of Singapore

The Smiles From My Shelf [2]

About half a dozen readers conveyed that they had smiled at my first post on the topic. That's nearly 40% of my readership, and that I suppose is reason enough for this post, my second on the same, :-)

Some years back, I had been to Singapore, again to satisfy my wander lust. After walking around the major landmarks, in the city state for a whole day we, my brother and I, came to a halt on a bench by the side of Orchard Road. A girl, apparently in her pre-teens was sitting on the adjacent bench. She had a very small nose; her eyes were just two dots and added to that they were squinted. She could never have been branded beautiful, had beauty not been in the eyes of the beholder.

She held a small shopping bag, probably a gift from her dad, who had gone to the parking yard to fetch his car and she was relishing her chocolate. She was also smiling throughout, a contented smile. But she was restless for some reason, even at that moment of apparent happiness and was eyeing us from time to time, as we sat staring at the map.

Finally she broke free and gave us a big and beautiful smile and she asked us, “Do you want help?”!!!

With children like her as the future citizens, Singapore will continue to smile its way to success.

The Post on Sports Photographs, A Clarification

Regarding my post on the sports photographs, many readers wrote in expressing their interest in taking a look at those photographs. I had checked to see if they were available on the net, but couldn’t find them. I had typed them down from memory, may be the ones seen in some news papers or magazines long back. Just for the information of the readers, I’ll mention the details about those photographs. Let me know if you find them some where.

The first one was of the man who used to 'move like a butterfly and sting like a bee’; Mohammed Ali, the greatest of them all, struggling to light the lamp at Atlanta in front of Bill Clinton. The second was that of the legendary Brazilian soccer star Garrincha, still the greatest for many a cabbie in Rio, who died of alcohol poisoning in 1983 returning to his nation just before his death at the fag end of a life that went wrong, out side the soccer field. The third was that of Pakistan captain Wasim Akram, ignored and isolated by his team mates in the middle of a series after a Waqar Younis led rebellion against him. And the final one was that of the Formula One legend Alain Prost carrying the coffin of the man who once threatened to break all the records standing in his name, Ayrton Senna.

On O’Toole missing the Oscar yet again and its Impact on My Life……

It was yet another ‘so near, yet so far’ experience for the versatile Irish actor Peter O’Toole when the 79th Annual Academy Awards were announced.

In 1993, when the Academy of Motion Picture of Arts & Sciences offered him a ‘Lifetime Achievement’ Oscar, he told them to wait till he was 80 for he was “still in the game and might yet win the bugger outright”! The Irish optimism, they call it.

But for the eighth time, the 74 year old veteran ended up being the ‘Best Man’. Well, is there a parallel! How many times, ... . .... ... .... ...

Each time I fell in the field, the flag went up, finding fault with me! ‘I was, probably, diving’, and the ‘Referee’ may not have missed that, He rarely misses any for that matter.

In spite of the ‘close miss’, O’Toole refuses to quit the race. Some borrowed Irish optimism and the role he played in 'Venus' make me feel that I'm still in with a chance of ...........

...............of ............................. of a proper fall :-)

But wait, I refuse to follow the rules.......

Hillary or Hussein?

From the time I first heard of her, I’ve been an admirer of Hillary Clinton. My earliest curiosity about her personality stemming from the headlines such as ‘Hillary’s Husband Elected’ ran by the East German news papers when Bill Clinton was elected President for the first time. My admiration grew as I read more about her views on social issues and it peaked after noticing the remarkable dignity with which she handled each crisis in her life brought about by the irresponsible ways of her husband. I often thought of her as the best bet to be America’s first woman President.

But the sudden appearance of a fresh face, that of Senator Barack Hussein Obama from Illinois, on the scene of the Presidential race leaves me a bit confused. Sen. Obama already had to answer questions on his early schooling in some Islamic Madrassa in Indonesia; and he’s on the back foot, pleading for his ‘devout Christian’ status! How annoying is it to see persons of integrity and values forced to fall over backwards and eat their words by the fools and fanatics who control the 'religious under world', once they bid for an elected office.
Whenever the Americans chose to ignore the conservatives, they had brought in a refreshing change on the way their country was governed. They had elected the ‘Compassionate’, the ‘Crippled’ and the ‘Catholic’ in spite of the heavy odds staked against them and history changed course each time. And it's badly in need of another course correction now.

Years ago when a highly decorated general, a hero of the American state, announced his intention to run, the campaign managers of the then President ran a vitriolic attack on him, digging up information on his past. The pro-President news papers derided him as the “son of a common prostitute” and the “paramour husband of a convicted adulteress” and asked the voters whether such a person could be elected as the President of that devoutly Christian land! And when his supporters decided to pay back with the same coin, he had heroically restrained them stating “I never war on the females, it’s only the mean and cowardly that do”. The Americans then responded by electing him for two consecutive terms, perhaps the first orphan to be democratically elected as the President of any nation, and also made sure that those behind the campaign never made it to the White House. Any doubt on why the Americans continue to command respect in spite of their recent record?

Is there a way out of my present dilemma? With all due respect to the hopes & aspirations of the African Americans, I wish Hillary to run for President & Obama for the veep.