Heal the world

Songs are always a source of comfort and music is a universally accepted media too. I think most of us were influenced during our growing up years by a few of them when it got stuck in our heads. If earlier music had to be played loud to be enjoyed, the present generation hears it privately with the ear phones glued to their ears. What are they hearing? Do they hear songs like "Heal the World" which influenzed a whole generation?

Thought I shall copy the lyrics of two such songs which has so much meaning in the present times of war talks, refugees, distrust etc. etc.
 
This is my wish
Kevin Ross

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU2miZh329A

This is my wish, my wish for the world.
That peace would find it's way to every boy and girl.
This is the time, the time for harmony.
Let love be the song
That everybody sings.Fill the air with joyful noise
Ring the bells and raise your voice.
Let there be peace on earth
Let there be peace on earth.
Lift your light and let it shine.
Shine, shine, shine
Let every voice be heard
Let there be peace on earth.
I hear the sweetest sound,
The sound of hope to come.
Together we could bring,
Good will to everyone.
Let it start with you
Let it start with me
Let every nation rise
And sing this melody
Fill the air with joyful noise
Ring the bells and raise your voice.
Let there be peace on earth
Let there (peace on earth) yeah.
Lift your light and let it shine.
Let it shine, shine, shine
Let every voice be heard
Let there be peace on earth.
Ohhh, ohhh, ohhh, ohhh,
Ohhh, ohhh, yeah
Let there be (peace on earth)
Ohhh, ohhh, ohhh, ohhh, ohhh, ohhh, yeah.
Fill the air with joyful noise
Ring the bells and raise your voice.
Let there be peace on earth
Let there be peace
Lift your light and let it shine.
Let it shine, shine, shine
Let every voice be heard
Let there be peace on earth.

 

Circle Of Life

Elton John

 

https://youtu.be/xQ_Zq_b4sBc

 

From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the Sun
There's more to be seen than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done

Some say eat or be eaten
Some say live and let live
But all are agreed as they join the stampede
You should never take more than you give

In the circle of life
It's the wheel of fortune
It's the leap of faith
It's the band of hope
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle, the circle of life

Some of us fall by the wayside
And some of us soar to the stars
And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with the scars

There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the Sun rolling high through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round

In the…

In the circle of life
It's the wheel of fortune
It's the leap of faith
It's the band of hope
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle, the circle of life

It's the wheel of fortune
It's the leap of faith
It's the band of hope
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle, the circle of life

On the path unwinding
In the circle, the circle of life

Songwriters: Elton John / Tim Rice

Our feline friends

Just thought I shall save the photos of our feline friends that I took on my mobile. They came into our lives and eventually left/died but gave us great happiness during their short stay.




The mother who feeds them all...

Perfect harmony



Brotherly love, if only for a season..the little fellow eventually drove the big fellow away..

Cats hug their little ones..

When the whole family invades....



What is more cuter?



The only one still left.. still grumpy as ever..

Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son

Came upon this book two decades late I think. Even though the setting is more than a century old, the writings are still relevant, if you can close your eyes to the social set up during the age.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The path isn’t the shortest way to the top, but it’s usually the safest way.

Life isn’t a spurt, but a long, steady climb. You can’t run far up-hill without stopping to sit down. Some men do a day’s work and then spend six lolling around admiring it.

 

 

 

You can always bet that when a fellow’s pride makes him touchy, it’s because there are some mighty raw spots on it.

It’s been my experience that pride is usually a spur to the strong and a drag on the

weak. It drives the strong man along and holds the weak one back. It makes the fellow with the stiff upper lip and the square jaw smile at a laugh and laugh at a sneer; it keeps his conscience straight and his back humped over his work; it makes him appreciate the little things and fight for the big ones. But it makes the fellow with the retreating forehead do the thing that looks right, instead of the thing that is right; it makes him fear a laugh and shrivel up at a sneer; it makes him live to-day on to-morrow’s salary; it makes him a cheap imitation of some Willie who has a little more money than he has, without giving him zip enough to go out and force luck for himself.

There are two things you never want to pay any attention to—abuse and flattery. The first can’t harm you and the second can’t help you. Some men are like yellow dogs—when you’re coming toward them they’ll jump up and try to lick your hands; and when you’re walking away from them they’ll sneak up behind and snap at your heels.

As long as you can’t please both sides in this world, there’s nothing like pleasing your own side.

 

On marriage and I do not think this institution has changed much over the years :)

An unmarried man is a good deal like a piece of unimproved real estate—he may be worth a whole lot of money, but he isn’t of any particular use except to build on. The great trouble with a lot of these fellows is that they’re “made land,” and if you dig down a few feet you strike ooze and booze under the layer of dollars that their daddies dumped in on top. Of course, the only way to deal with a proposition of that sort is to drive forty-foot piles clear down to solid rock and then to lay railroad iron and cement till you’ve got something to build on. But a lot of women will go right ahead without any preliminaries and wonder what’s the matter when the walls begin to crack and tumble about their ears.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------One can read the whole book out here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21959

The Omnipresent Indians

Yes..they are everywhere!

Recently a tweet from Sushma Swaraj made me look up Togo, one of Africa’s smallest country.

She tweeted:

 

 

The crew, who are employees of a Merchant Navy firm, had set sail for South Africa on October, 2013 from Mumbai. While returning in the month of July, 2014, theirship got stranded in Nigeria and the entire crew was arrested for violating laws of international waters

 

But if you thought Togo did not have any Indians then you are mistaken. In fact, "The republic of Togo in western Africa has bestowed its highest civilian award to an Indian national, Chander Verma, the country’s former honorary consul in India"

Even Togo has a small Indian community of about 250-300 people out of a population of 6.6 million.

Anyway, this is not about Togo but about the fact that Indians from all walks of society have migrated to all parts of the world since ages. It is heartening to note that wherever they have gone they have ended up as assets and seldom as liabilities. People become a liability when they fail to adjust to a new culture/environment, have criminal tendencies and have nothing much to offer from their side unless they are trained and only if they can be. Generally Indians had one more advantage: education. This became more evident to me after Trump's ascension to the throne (yea..it looks so!)  and that brings me to the country where Indians love to go or pray very hard to go. I think it is America that has brought the best out of Indians?

If you look at statistics, Indian immigrants stand third in number, after Mexico and China in US and they are the most educated.
 

Indians who are having less than high school education is only 6% while those with a Bachelor Degree or higher is 78.7%.

 

 

 

Their English language skills is also next best to the native English speakers.

  How else are Indians faring in US?

With 14 entrepreneurs on the list, India was the leading country of origin for the immigrant founders of billion dollar companies (Unicorn)  

If you want to know more about the Most Powerful Indian-Origin CEOs in the United States

And guess which University is as good as those in US?

 

Unicorn Nursery: Outside the U.S., India’s IIT Produces the Most Billion-Dollar Startup Founders” 

Hence it is clear that Indians have the right education and skills but yet needs America to help them win. So what could be some of the reasons?

 

“The quality of life in the US is much better than in India. The biggest benefit of this move has been financial"

“I always wanted to travel alone, but back in India, I could not do it because I did not feel safe. But here in the US, I go on a solo trip almost every other month,”

But....

“I could move back to India in a heartbeat if I get to do the same kind of work that I am doing here,” Kumar of Cognizant said.

Now that Trump may tighten/reduce H-1B visas, will India retain some of them? Will India produce Unicorns in India itself?

Not sure if either Bush or Gates ever said the following but it was being passed around happily via social media and I finally tracked it down.. :)

 

Source:

  http://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Billion-Dollar-Startups.NFAP-Policy-Brief.March-2016.pdf
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2017/02/10/unicorn-nursery-outside-the-u-s-indias-iit-produces-the-most-billion-dollar-startup-founders/
http://cis.org/Immigrants-in-the-United-States#frontpage
https://qz.com/903575/for-indian-techies-the-american-dream-financial-stability-and-even-marriage-prospects-hang-on-donald-trump/ 
http://www.luxpresso.com/photogallery-lifestyle/top-indian-born-ceos-in-united-states/15081185/6

A road trip to cherish-3

Was supposed to finish this narration last week but something literally stopped my breath! What else but demonetisation? The initial reaction was shock and then the feeling that finally something is being done about it. Then came the nagging doubts, knowing well how the Indian administration works. How in the world are they going to manage this exercise! As for it's long term effect, not even Harward experts seem to have any clue, so why break my head? And knowing our politicians, if this only to fool the voters, then it is going to burn them for a very long, long time. So let me leave it and get on with my trip.

We decided to leave Panaji early in the morning so as to reach Kerala in time. The roads were free at that time except for the cows! Think Goans are letting their cows use the roads during the night. A dangerous action for the cows as well as the vehicles. We decided to go slow until daylight broke completely. It brought back memories of Kumily- Kottayam road of yesteryears, when cattle for slaughter were made to walk all the way from Kambam, Theni etc, to Kerala. They could be seen in all sizes along the roads.


What are you doing on my road? :)

Did click a group of them but cannot find it now.

Thus we reached the Goa-Karnataka border and we still had the Feni and Wines to be taken care of.

 We had packed them into our bags and the police guy wanted to see our bags. For sure they found it and Hubby was asked to see the Inspector or whoever was heading the police station. He went along and was asked to pay IRS 2,000! The whole stuff did not cost that much but since we had no clue of the rules or regulations and since we did not want to waste time, had to settle for 1000. Yes.. it was a bribe. Meanwhile, Son was asked to show the papers by another guy who demanded IRS 100. Upon telling him that all the papers were fine he said this is the custom. After all that trouble, not many takers were there for the Feni. I think Kerala toddy is much better.

The drive through Karnataka was smooth except for a few stretch where the roads are being widened. It is only upon driving through Karnataka that made me realize that it is blessed with so many rivers. The beaches along the road beckoned us to stop but we had to reach Udipi in time to visit a friend.

We halted at Udipi and was treated to lunch by our friend. They almost made us break the journey by enticing us with so many places that Udipi has. The Krishna temple that I once mentioned on this blog is one of them and so is Manipal where so many from Kerala come to study. We promised to visit another day and continued our journey. We thought of halting at Kozhikode but realized it will be to late to find a good hotel. The drivers were fine with driving non stop (it would be almost 25 hours of driving) and since they were taking turns to sleep, it looked okay.

The GPS did take us through a vey bad stretch of road in Kasargod which delayed our journey even more. It was near Kasargod town, when we stopped for refreshments that a strange incident happened. There was this ice cream parlor which also had a board saying Tea/Coffee available. We stumbled out of the car, much tired and in want of something to drink and maybe eat too. Upon asking the father and son duo (they looked so) who were running the shop if they served coffee, they said there was no coffee but can serve tea. We waited for quite some time and found no tea coming. Later, the fellow came and said that there was no gas to boil the tea. Just when we were about to enter the car, we saw the fellow happily boiling something on the fire! Why did they refuse to serve us? I still do not have an answer to this question and at the next stop, both me and daughter stayed in the car while coffee was brought to us. Did not want to test anymore and go without refreshments but this was the first time we encountered such a behaviour in Kerala. Hence it was with much dread that we halted at Kannur for dinner. It was getting late too. But to our utter surprise and delight, we found the hotel(Bamboo Fresh) crowded even at 10:30 pm. A very jolly crowd too. Maybe it was the Onam spirit and celebration.

The rest of the journey was mostly nodding off and waking in between to see if the drivers were fine.  Reached home the next morning and used the day to rest. Thus ended our road trip and maybe next time we shall plan a longer one.