EVERYONE   IS   AN   EXPERT

Even a school dropout could be an expert!

Two days ago BOSCONET distributed a drink to at least 12,000 thirsty people on the roads of Delhi. We wanted the water to be really cold so that it would truly refresh. We bought chunks of ice to be added to the rooafza mixture. The ice blocks were very big and needed to be cut up into two or more blocks before being added to the water drums.

We have a real smart guy in our office. He has already got through the prelims and the mains of the UPSC exams for IAS hopefuls. He works with us while waiting for the call for his interview. He took the ice pick and started knocking at the first block of ice. He went on and on with little impact except pieces of ice flying all over the place. I began to wonder how long it would take to get the ice into the water, and how much of the ice would be lost.

Then our office boy, a school dropout, stepped forward. He took the ice pick and in just a few seconds he had the ice-block cut into two neat halves! He really had the expertise needed for the job in hand.

No one is an expert in everything. Everyone is an expert in something! Everyone I meet knows something more than I do. I can learn from her/him. She/he can teach me, if I respect her/him and am humble enough to learn.

MIND  THE  GAP !

“Malviya Nagar. Station. Doors will open on the Right. Please, mind the gap !”

I went to a theatre for a film yesterday, Sunday, the first time after at least eight years! I took the metro to the mall. I heard the above announcement about 40 times – at each station from Janakpuri West to MG Road and back. It made me think.

We have a smart, energetic, young, dynamic, forward looking new government in place. All of us eagerly looking forward to its initiatives to revive and revitalise everything around us. The “doors will (certainly) open to the Right” as opposed to the “left” or half-left policies we have been living on for decades.

A warning follows immediately after this announcement: “Please, mind the gap!”. The metro lady refers to the gap between the train and the platform – “please, don’t fall into that gap and hurt yourself!”

For the government, I would think, the humble request I would make is, “Please, mind the gap – the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor; the gap between the urban and the rural; the gap between people belonging to various communities ……. “

Please, mind the gap!

THE BEST MESSAGE ONE COULD EVER RECEIVE

Today I received a message on FB from someone. It went something like this: “Today it is my 10^th birthday – 10 years since I gave up on drugs. Thank you for your share in giving me a new life and great hope!”

I was NOT the main person in this person’s recovery. I came to know him only after he had become “clean”. But, I did trust him. I gave him a decent job so that he could earn his living and rebuild his life.

I am so glad he is doing so well. A person can have no greater joy that to receive such messages. Give life. Give hope!

Don Bosco auto driver

When in Chennai, keep your eyes open for an unexpected auto stand: “DOB BOSCO ANBU ILLAM AUTO STAND”. It has been named so very lovingly and gratefully the former boys of Don Bosco Anbu Illam, Chennai, who were rescued from the streets of the street, rescued, trained and settled in life with auto rickshaws of their own.

VIOLENCE  AS  GAME

A ten-year-old student in Columbus, Ohio, shaped his hand into a pistol, put his finger to the head of another boy and pretended to shoot, “kind of execution style.” The school principal, Patricia Rice, suspended him from school for three days as his punishment.

The boy’s father says, this time it is not the child who is being childish but the principal. The district education spokesperson says, the principal had, several times this year, warned the students against pretend gun play.

The Father is right. There is probably no male adult who in his childhood days did not “shoot” his playmates more than once in the course of their games. The principal is right. It is not a great idea to encourage children to play games that involve pretended violence. People have campaigned long and hard against toys for children the like of pistols and guns.

What is worse still is when children see just a game in torturing living creatures. It is not difficult to find children who catch a chameleon, tie a string around its tails and drag it around, children who get hold of an insect and pull out its wings, feet, etc., one by one till it is dead.

The fear is real that “pretend violence” hardens the emotions of children, hardens their heart, immunes them to pain not only to animals, but also to humans.

Is it not unfortunate that children watch so much blood, cruelty and violence on TV today, even in programmes meant only for them – even on cartoon networks?

BABY  LION  KILLED  FOR  ITS  NAILS

A five-month lion cub in the Gir forest was killed. What for? For its nails! Even the ‘worst of animals’ would not kill a baby of any other species of animal to collect its nails! What is it exactly that makes human beings so heartless. What makes us sink to levels below all standards of behaviour?

There is no doubt whatever that nature is crying – that nature is gasping for breadth. Are we becoming for planet earth a cancer that needs to be removed urgently through an operation? When a particular sort of cell in the human body starts multiplying out of control, we have a cancerous tumour. If the tumour is not removed, it soon kills the body.

Human beings are multiplying in numbers. Worse than that is the multiplication of every human being’s ‘needs’ and ‘wants’. This multiplication of wants is indeed a cancerous growth. It is destroying the individual himself, the value system that guided his behaviour till now and the culture of entire communities. The struggle for the satisfaction of his wants is threatening the survival of nature itself of life on earth in an form.

If we are not capable of removing soon the cancerous growth of our silly wants, will nature take control and remove us from the face of the planet?

HOW  MANY  BEDS  DO  YOU  NEED  TO  SLEEP  ON ?

Khalid Mohsen al-Shaeri of Saudi Arabia needs only one bed because he is ONLY 290 kilos now. He needed three beds placed side by side when he used to be 610 kilos. He was then ordered by king Abdullah to get hospitalised. Doctors helped him shed 320 kilos in four months.

Some people are obese due to genetic disorders. They need professional medical help. In the developed nations over 50% of people are obese. Even in a poor country like India 25% of young people are today obese.

The majority of obese people do not have genetic problems. They have problems with self-discipline or self-management. They eat the wrong foods or too much of the right ones and do not exercise enough. Being fit and trim is not a sign of vanity. It is a duty to ourselves and to the people around us.