Born In India

Sometimes I ask myself why do I feel such a misfit in my own nation. I love India lots, yet, on many occasions; I feel I don’t belong here. Perhaps it’s my expectations, perhaps it’s my desire to see India grow and develop in a certain way, and perhaps it’s the gnawing ache of unfulfilled dreams shown to me by our freedom fighters and the political class?

Then again, I say to myself, this is My country, my territory, my home, my property, all my loved ones are right here. It is my duty to do everything in my might for her, or at the very least help in the process of change, protect her, worry for her, make her look and feel better; if not me, who will? Who will?

After 65 years since Independence, there came a brief period, (a couplea years ago) that shone brightly, where I held my head high and said with pride I am an Indian. Like a shooting star the brilliance faded as rapidly, and left the flash effect of light behind, which many assumed wrongly to be the halo for India Shining

Tch tch, we are not there. We are far from there. There is so much work to be done, so much toil to be put in, so much to be corrected, so many paths to be constructed, before we can all pause to enjoy a dekho of satisfaction for this sweet land called India

64 confused years of nation building, have passed us by. Do we feel secure in our nation? Have we taken much for granted? Do we value human lives? How do we protect these lives? How do we re-invest back into our daily existence, without ploughing back into this land called India?

We enjoy a certain level of freedom today, which many have taken for granted, which is made possible only by the sacrifices of the many generations of Indians before us...

I love India and I am even prouder to be an Indian! BUT... I am disillusioned, I sense my broken dreams.

The beautiful picture I had painted of my future, years ago, is now marred by the influx of poverty, slums, unhealthy living, jostling for space, lack of education, lack of self-worth, small hearts, large ego’s, dis respectfulness towards elders, more importantly, dis respectfulness towards self!

I begin to doubt my own identity.

How can I belong to this nation called India? A land so sacred once upon a time, a land belonging to one of the oldest civilizations in the world, a land fit for Gods, a land rich in its natural make up and acquired lineage, a land that has parentage and heritage…how and where did it go so wrong.

I cry silent tears of despair. I weep with frustration.

Have we become so myopic that we cannot see our dimming futures? Have we become so dark that we enjoy killing goodness? Have we become so selfish that if I can’t have it, I won’t let another either. Regressive does not translate for the future, unfortunately.

I find it hard to answer when I sometimes question myself, "Why do I care?"

For whom do I bleed, bust a nerve, work tirelessly and un-endingly; while the rowdy’s march the streets and the intelligentsia sit around and debate endlessly?

Why do I cry these tears of frustration, of sadness, of despair? Why have I yet, not left the shores of India, when I know I could probably earn five times or even more of that amount outside?

There could be only one answer: I love my Country.

In times of war, I will gladly lay down my life to protect my home called India. In times of peace, if there is something called peace, who is marching alongside me, to keep this nation’s spirits high, who is working hard and tirelessly to responsibly change every day little things for a better tomorrow, who is watching guard over our young, so that they become equally ferocious in their pride of this nation, as they will certainly be, of their homes and futures?

I do not need the media, or the politicians, or someone who has deserted his own parents, to tell me what patriotism is, nor the significance behind my own Flag or my Anthem. I do not need those people to march alongside me, seeking a separate flag, or a separate state anthem, when words like ‘harmony’ and ‘compassion’ are lost out in this race for greed of “I, me, myself”, where paper tigers outweigh real doers.

No, I am not blaming the migrants for invading my city, nor am I blaming one city dweller for giving up and coming to another city; but rather, the policies for allowing them in and not creating enough infrastructure or opportunities to absorb them all, to ensure a robust life for all. Religion cannot be the reference point for everything.

Is the place of my birth, where I truly belong? Why am I losing faith in this land where I grew up and have grown to love? Why do I sense I am one against a force of many who think similarly of war, destruction, selfish pride, why do I feel so outnumbered and alone?

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. Its time. To look inwards. Course correct. Place India above “I, me, myself”

Please do not make me feel like an outsider in my own country. Love for one’s country cannot be ambiguous. Ask yourself, do you honestly love India, a little more, than you do yourself? Its then, we can hope to have a country of proud nation builders.

Happy 65th , India.

First Rains, Bombay

Felt so complete soaking in the rain

Felt no sorrow, no pain

It may give me a cold but I don't care

There's a calming sensation from grass to air

The feeling of love I don't have, I will gain

Because my heart falls open as I stand in the rain

The earth smelled of fresh, wet mud,

The leaves danced in the downpour, blushing green

I raised my face heavenwards

The giant shower and gusty winds

Descended thunderously

To quench a parched city's thirst

To give hope and re birth

To know happiness abound

Today, it rained

Never late to look destiny in the eye (India vs Sri Lanka)

The Men in Blue made us Indians patriotic. Made us passionate. Made us proud. They always had our purse strings and now have our heart and our undying love too.

Do we realize the immense pressure we put on our playing XI to win the World Cup? Does it come from our own shortcomings? Or then perhaps does it come from all those unfulfilled promises made by our politicians?

When the world does an India mapping – India was always meant to be a Super Power nation, to be reckoned with in the world, and yet, on a daily basis, our people are still fighting for their daily bread.

Are we celebrating this victory, because we have nothing more to be proud of as Indians? A victory that after decades of corruption and loot has made our head stand straight on our shoulders with pride, over a sport?

Indeed proud nations like Australia are built on sports, have created an identity for themselves as a super power. Can India do it for itself? Sure can. But will India do it? Somehow I don’t see it happening.

We have a great degree of talent and our playing XI epitomizes the story of India. Dhoni has the will and conviction of a puritan who knows he can do it, a steely resolve to make it happen no matter what. Indians deep inside know this too. The question is when will we allow the Dhoni in us to surface and take the lead?

Yuvi epitomizes the brash talented Indians who are way too much in love with themselves, too busy, with their extra-curricular activities to focus on their strengths; but when they do focus, India comes alive and has every reason to be proud.

The masses of India are like Gauti, who diligently work hard, have a will of making things better, but sometimes take their eye off the ball and get clean bowled- the spine gets broken- momentarily, but being the hard working people, we relentlessly prod on to score a ton in the next round.

The more we speak about our cricketers the more you actually can draw parallels in real life. There is so much self- belief about this team and what a gift it has been for Gary Kirsten, Sachin Tendulkar and all those who have played a massive role in revolutionizing Indian cricket to this level.

I think - the recently concluded World Cup has taught us a lot about healthy competition, being generous in success, having a focus and a leader to transform the ordinary to extra ordinary, honor coming to those who stay devoted, bringing a collective towards a common belief. The underlying truth is simple – Hope gives rise to a will of “can do” - we as a nation can do wonderful things and be proud of. Time to Rise and Shine India, do yourself proud.

Green or Blue on 30th March?

Age old India Pakistan rivalry has long given way to India Australia arch rivalry.

Given India has won *that* HUGE battle of nerves against Australia, the only worrisome factor gnawing at many, will be - have the men in blue become too over confident? Or even worse, have they become a wee bit lazy? (assuming they have already won the Cup after Australia!) That will spell danger. Surely.

India vs. Pak semis is and will be special.

Pakistan thus far has been playing under the radar - the worlds expectations have been rather muted if not low of this cricketing nation. A last minute skipper has rallied the team around him, they are enjoying their cricket and they seem to be in a very positive frame of mind.

A pace attack which is deadly

An inspired skipper leading from the front

A self-belief in themselves

Pakistan has indeed done well- got themselves a berth in the semi’s- and am sure, they now believe they can indeed win the cup

India: everyone who speaks and discusses cricket, believes the cup is for India to win. Am rather pleased to note this sentiment is muted with the team! Thank God for it! Speaks for their maturity

India has an array of strengths besides the depth in its batting

Aggressive Ashwin in the guise of a spinner

Zak, wily and skilled

Yuvi- firing well in all departments of the game

Above all the cunning of MS Dhoni: Such an intelligent captain! Knows the teams strengths all too well (surely will be hoping he will soon be among the runs too), also knows how to maximize the limited bowling resources.

In the battle of 30th March there is no reason for India be arrogant or weak kneed, Perhaps the trick will be to hold on to own nerves and keep wits about ( fairly similar situation to Australia I imagine) - the basics if got right, should power India onwards. And yea for sure, discipline in fielding similar to that against Australia, will work wonders for India

A tangential observation: Do sports and politics merge? Sports can be such a fabulous glue to bring the world together. Indeed. Did we need Geelani and MMS to step in to add to the already existing incredible pressure on the 2 sides? So unnecessary!

The heart wanted an India / S Africa Finals, and the head wanted an India vs England Final (which I had predicted over 2 mnths ago) -neither is to be now:).

3 teams from 4 in the semi's, from the sub continent - some very pleased with the way things have stacked up...

Back to India vs Pakistan - in my book, India should be able to vanquish Pakistan, for sure will be a cracker of a match - a special treat for the sports fan across both the nations

Karan of cricket we are NOT (borrowing Harsha's fabulous analogy)- India will WIN the game on 30th. And take it from there for the next!:)

School days

Material acquisition in those days meant pocket money to buy a pink candied ice-cream cone or 2 small samosas or a vada pao! We made rubber band guns to shoot paper in class, and often got caught in the act. We also made toys called “water pistols” with our water bottles for a water gun. The water pistol was initially an instrument used by an uncle in Delhi who had a large garden. There were no hoses in his garden for some reason, so he would take a long broom handle and fix a rag onto it and stick it tightly into a long galvanized pipe. He then dipped the pipe into a bucket of water and drew the handle back, vacuuming water into the pipe. Then he raised it and shot water a long distance to water his plants by shoving the broom handle back into the pipe.

We saw this as kids on our summer vacations and made our own water bottles the water guns to play with sometimes even by attaching straws to it so that we could shoot afar! After school we would spend hours shooting water at each other, till our respective parents would yell at us to get back home! We played many games together as there was not much television to watch or video games to play or the internet to isolate oneself. Lagori, marbles, iti danda, football, cricket, hop scotch…

We even played hockey with sticks and tin cans if the ball would get punctured by a passing by truck. We didn’t have sufficient money to go buy another ball and were happy playing with a make shift arrangement.

During summer holidays we’d go to a nearby park for a fast jog and then hang out together as a big group of friends to chatter. And plan the evening. Which would be once again meeting together and playing some sport

Sundays would be special as it was no kitchen day, mums day off- so after a late heavy breakfast we’d either troop out for a late lunch or a brunch to some special restaurants. Eating out over wkends was a ritual. A day to spoil and appreciate mum:)

Given mum was such a fabulous cook- we always had people over for dinners and lunches too. Good food was hence a key feature of our childhood years. All meals were family oriented and only on wkends eating between meals was ok.

There were no supermarkets in those days or at-least I cannot remember any such, as everything was bought in general stores. This was a joy for us as we could go to the store and buy a chocolate or candy bar or even a Pepsi cola sipper.

Ice, precious ice would be bought off from a handcart man who would bring huge slabs of ice- and we’d enjoy the thrill of him breaking a part portion for our purchase especially when he’d be breaking the large slab and shards of ice would get sprinkled on us as he went about breaking the ice:)

Annual picnics from school was always a big affair –bus loads of us drive to some park or safari, see nature or technology and automation from close quarters. The day would be spent in much excitement as the thrill would be to sit next to ones best friend in class during the bus ride and make small talk, I cant even remember what we would speak about Annual days at school would be equally fun when we had to doll up, I personally hated all the fuss little girls would make about dressing up, glancing in the mirror to admire bla bla

But not a day would go by if we didn’t get to meet our building friends, hang out and play together in the building quadrangle till late evening. Given we were a mixed bunch of boys and girls of all ages we would play chor police and find the most amazing places to hide –on top of the milk booth or inside a tree or under a parked car! We’d also play Badminton, throw ball, walking together to the library to get story books, reading our horoscopes daily from the newspapers, quarreling and making up, running back home about sunset just before Dad would get back from office - to have our evening baths, get readied for the night, some studies and then dinner together as a family.

Family was a real blessing. Spoilt by granparents, adored by parents, and loved by neighbours and friends. We as a family were a lot closer than most of our friends/neighbors as we lived in a nuclear avatar. Other families in our building had many more people living together. We as children always were treated right by our parents, were paid the right attention, were corrected and appreciated all the time. My sister got to wear more hand-me-downs compared to me, as she was younger. I can’t remember her ever complaining about these hand me downs- ever. I was the spilt brat, looking for choices all the way. It was also a big deal to have new rain shoes –gum boots or belly’s. So year on year we’d debate and finally settle on belly’s; because the only time I said I wanted gumboots I had water squishing around inside my boots all day and I made so much noise walking around that I was fed up of the huge embarrassment. The thing is I couldn’t remove those large gumboots from my feet because of a vacuum that got created and only upon reaching home after school did Hari, our help, put all his might in tearing the shoes from my feet, finally some relief!

Chores were a part of our everyday life, we had to complete our share of daily workload- our parents were most conscientious of ensuring that none of us brother or sisters ever felt unequal to the other so we were all meant to do all jobs always without bias. From cleaning, to zipping downstairs to buy bread or a magazine from the news stand , to making tea etc

Childhood was about innocence and life, of robust laughter and camaraderie, of fair and just, of winning and losing, of bruised knees and tears and above all a can do spirit that never knew doubts and fear. :)

This is Life

Look at all the things going around in our world - floods, sickness, earthquakes, depression, recession, loss of jobs, losing a home or a loved one, fights, battles, wars, hijacks, politics, corruption; the list is endless

Unfortunately, no one hands out any instruction book on how to deal with life.

In our growing years we were expecting life to be one big party. And once we got our act together as an adult, what a surprise! A few years after reaching adulthood and having to deal with the real world, one comes to the realization that life is difficult. Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.

Regardless of age, if we foolishly expect living to become easier down the road, forget it. Irrespective of how talented or how rich or how old one maybe if truth be told, everyone experiences stress and pain to a certain degree. Mistakes and setbacks add up to success. Then success leads to failure. This is life. Life doesn’t allow us to remain still. We have to keep moving and adapting and changing and in the process have to learn to love life.

Life teaches us to cope. If we consider our-self fortunate or less fortunate as the case may be it also helps us to realize nothing is as grim as it first appears. Today's crisis makes tomorrow's interesting story. What we call experience.


Life can be relatively difficult or relatively easy. What matters is how we react to our environment. Whenever life gets overwhelming, I subject myself to this mind-altering question: "Yea, life is tough - but then again, compared to what?” Seriously we don’t even have to go that far…even if we look around our neighborhood… we will realize we are so blessed- our life is way better.

So the lesson for myself is that life can be tough, sometimes it is harder than one thought it could be. Sure sometimes life broke my heart and made me cry for days. This is the real life. In real life we DO get to make our choices and we CAN become the person we dream of being. Even if not everyone we love will get to see the final result of all our hard work. It's a big lesson, and a hard one to learn, but it's well worth it.

All told, life is a learning process and the school of hard knocks is a great teacher. Pleasure and comfort don't build character - adversity does! Would I change my life and wish it to be otherwise? I am blessed:)

THE Ganpati festival: Colourful India

The festival of Ganpati is not just part of my dna because I live in maximum city but also an integral part of my growing years as a child. The city that never sleeps saw us kids become decisive, become an unbreakable group of friends, saw us become a great team ready to enhance each others strengths and play down weaknesses, saw us play like a team over the years with ever growing aspirations to increase our collections for the next years Ganpati so that we could bring an even larger idol than before.

In the first year ever of beginning this tradition of bringing Lord Ganesha into our building we went about collecting any and every donation that came our way -rupees 20 or 10 and occasional 50/- to collect enough funds from all the apartment owners in our building. Over the next few years even the neighboring buildings had started contributing seeing our intent, enthusiasm and success. We would put money together so that we could get a Ganesh Idol for our building and for the next 11 days it would be a non stop party for us. We would be dealing with cash all along and no ways did ever a single rupee get embezzled. That was the sincerity with which we’d deploy all our resources. Over the years our collections multiplied big time and we’d carry forward our balance to start the next year with enough funds. What pride and joy!

We would anticipate this festival in advance by months- all excited and equally nervous about the things we would do differently that year. And come the day of bringing home Ganpati Bappa we would all hire a large truck (sponsored by Dad initially) put on the band bajaa and slowly inch our way into the market area to buy the sweetest idol available on sale for ourselves within our collections. That day was special because Ganpatiji was arriving home. This was even bigger than Diwali for us. Emotionally speaking.

The next 11 days would roll seamlessly forward, merging night into day and day into night. We’d have collected enough funds to have a variety of different entertainment shows on every single night over the next 11 nights. We would be screening movies and have hundreds of people (including passer bys who would stop dead in their tracks and spend the next 3 hours watching the movie!), we were never allowed to go out of the home past 10pm (our bedtime) so we’d sneak to our balcony and watch the entire movie from upstairs. Wide awake, hating the fact we were not downstairs, agog at the crowd turnout and so proud that we had put it together with our own ideas, dreams and money

For prashad every night, the parents of us kids would do special prashad every day and that saw the owners of the building bonding. Which apartment was contributing prashad today tomo etc - some adults who had fought amongst themselves also would put aside their differences to be pleasant to each other during this time. This festival truly brought our building folks and neighbors closer.
Event management also included dandiya night, musical chairs, rangoli competition, singing, dumb charades, housie and such where the idea was to keep ourselves entertained. Very unconsciously we kept everybody else in the bargain entertained too:)

As a result our building Ganpati would have the largest public draw too. And this was never done by design- it was always our own imaginations leading us to do things we as kids enjoyed- turns out adults too enjoyed the same things :)- so we were the runaway success team of our locality

These 11 days would zip by so quickly that when the immersion day would arrive, we all hated that day. We’d have tears in our eyes seeing our sweety Ganeshji being immersed in the water, we’d cry all the way back in the truck watching other revelers with giant Ganpatis - yet to perform their immersions – looking so very happy. We would be morose, not utter a single word right thru the journey back home.

Once we got back to our building we’d all go to our respective homes and our parents would try to draw us into conversation or be extra nice to us knowing we were feeling sad, and anything done or said could trigger our tears again. We were not hungry or thirsty no more, we would simply slink into our rooms, pick up our respective story books to read and try and drown out reality to slip into the dream world of the past 11 days. Faintly in the background we would hear the music coming from the streets constantly reminding us of the many more Ganeshjis that were heading towards the beaches and the sea and that would crash our little hearts even deeper.

This festival is and can never be about caste, color or religion it is about bonding, purity and belief.

Coffee place to hang out: The Kala Ghoda Café

The thing with someone like me who does not like tea and cannot stomach the smell of tea, the only addiction for caffeine is fulfilled by coffee. And yea am very fussy about this beverage. More than ever before as I know my coffee beans rather well.

Sunday morning after ages we decided to break routine and go out for breakfast. A place that serves good hot waffles and crepes and fruit juice and cereal and coffee and the works…voila- we were at Kala Ghoda Café!

Without warning the sun gave way to hard rains just as we parked- so by the time we made the short distance dash inside the café we were nicely soaked! Shrugged off the rain like Pooch with a vigorous shake of the head and body, the warmth of bakes and the wafting aromas of coffee beckoned for a good tummy treat.

Launching into the menu one realizes there isn’t a lot of choice for breakfast- in-fact meager range to chose from - we ordered all of them listed items on the menu! Have to say each dish from the homey eggs in 3 different styles to the warm waffles and the cornflakes t the brilliant coffee and the delectable chocolate were yum!

A small cozy bare minimum place that strangely beckons you to return-and I of course have returned oft enough – it’s a place where one can just be – as Farhad, the owner of the café said. A place where you can play board games with your friends, or simply curl up in a corner with a book, or hide behind your mac air or simply gaze into nothingness.

Anytime one needs a place to introspect, retrospect, prospect or inspect head straight to KGC. This is a place that winds its way to your heart, makes you feel energized, nudges you to relax - my earnest love affair with this cutsey place has begun:)

Indian Media

Being laid up in bed with a bad back is no fun - take it from me. You would have thought TV would be good time pass at least. Heck no! It pains me to see mediocrity thrive on tv. What is the overt difference when you watch NDTV Good times and Travel and Living? Both channels are top quality - one macro and global, the other more niche. Both appeal to the Indian mindset. My daily fix however are the sports and the news channels.

How are the news channels any different? The reason I say channels is because my print consumption is minimal (its either the internet or the tv) – print has too many facets of paid news today that it has lost its credibility with me!. So are our news channels balanced in their point of view, responsible and truly deserving of the fourth estate status?

I think our media is at best biased, sensationalism driven, and skewed towards the political affiliations they carry! Especially dangerous for the young minds in the nation who tend to easily get swayed by the ra-ra they hear on TV

But as I say this I am going to get a little contradictory too and say our media, despite many flaws, display many strengths too. Its perhaps the same need for viewership that keeps them ra-ra-ing about themselves as much equally for subjects that resonate with viewers: Racism, Politics between India and Pak, S Tharoor and his girlfriend, Ipl and Politics and the bid drama, model commits suicide, some celeb’s marriage etc etc

The even bigger advantages to my mind of our media is that they keep the corrupt politicians in check – not just the politicians also the bureaucrats, policymakers, educationalists, goons, dons etc etc. All our Polity is completely dictated in its moves by the mood on TV as a litmus test. Depending on how much attention an issue receives in the media dictates next steps very often.

In this clamour for trp’s and the din created by many channels are we forgetting the poor? The sick and ill? The old? The uneducated? Don’t they form a large portion of our universe? Who will give them a voice? Not our Polity! Not the voting system. Not the haves and the rich! So who? The only one that can indeed elevate them to a level of dignity is the fourth estate –our media - but barring an odd tv network group, is anyone else even interested in addressing these people or their plight or solutions to uplift them?

Our media is powerful. To influence opinions, swing moods, sway sentiments. But are they balanced in their reporting? I’d have to admit it’s a 50:50. Lots gets said and done in the heat of the moment but unfortunately there isn’t enough sustaining power! Some TV channels even mirror the unparliamentarian embarrassing squabbling, outshouting, yelling, accusing behaviour on TV making each of us realize what a undignified, unruly, uncouth lot we are! While some talk shows pretend to be intellectually driven other channels openly show favoritism and jaundiced personal views to either throw a panelist out of a debate by openly scorning him or slant the debate

If at times talk shows don’t end up becoming a platform for a blame game then the next attempt is to pre judge and hold people accountable before the law runs its course! O pls don’t take this to mean I am complaining- I love the 9pm Arnab News hour for its theatrics as much as I love the NDTV Big Fight – both offer popcorn entertainment and I’ll be lucky if at times I go away feeling and wishing the debate had continued a wee bit longer!

I think the Media folks are very astute. They have their fingers on the pulse of us viewing audiences. They know our need for exciting reporting (read entertainment) and they tailor to it. If we challenge them for more authentic, more right brained reporting - we will indeed receive it because we have the talent and the caliber of people who can deliver it. The point also is do we want good stuff? Are we ready and hankering for it? Or are we merely fence sitters who just like the rest of the nation love nit picking?:)

Do you care beyond YOU?

When was the last time you took it slow and easy? Sure, we have things to do, not much help, so many priorities, so little time, run here, do that, get there so on and so forth - but if we drive any faster will we have really busted the traffic and got to our destination by saving lots of time that would make a difference? If we honked incessantly would we have managed to clear the track to zip across and save lots of time to make a difference? If we had rolled down the window, abused all the wrong doings of the auto driver or the BEST bully or even the handcart guy would we have reached our designated place by saving time to make a difference?

Sure sometimes there are emergencies and those occasions may demand pace and hurriedness. But everyday doesn’t, you’ll agree? So if this hurry and speed isn’t about saving time, then why are we all in such a hurry? Everyday simply requires lot of patience, forgiving and a sense of humour-and life is not just bearable but pretty much satisfactory too.

I have now (more often than not) learnt to drive and soak in the multitude things on the track- watch the peanut seller on a traffic jammed highway sell moongfalli to the many cab and autowallahs but never approach my car, I have watched young brats selling paperbacks by mischievously pointing to ‘Ways to slim in 30days’ , have watched the palm trees gently sway against the billboards under the dull street lights and at times at night have tried to unravel if it is part of the billboard design or a real tree in its natural landscape casting its shadow on the resort ad on the billboard; When I consciously slow down to turn into the road that leads me home (despite it being wide like an airport tarmac) -I await the people crossing my path without honking once to allow them passage and in turn they hurriedly make way for me too- what a beautiful silent give and take takes place :) I then softly glide up to my gate where the 2 street dogs are always lazing – I roll down my window, look at them indulgently, have a telepathic conversation with them, allow them to slowly get on their paws - take their time to stretch and amble away from the car before I turn completely inside the drive way.

Well most days I do sincerely watch out for the passerby’s rather than speed past and spray them with rain water slush - there may be some days when some of the activities mentioned here get overlooked because of some nagging worry or frustration; but more often than not I try to remember to be patient, to be tolerant and more than anything else be appreciative of my haves versus those without:)

Like His Holiness the Dalai Lama says - We need to try and solve problems in a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood, in a spirit of reconciliation and compromise. I try to do my bit. Do you? Who did you watch out for today? Did you smile today?:)