Nov 30, 2010
Posted by arif in General | 0 comments
Dear Friends,
This is an appeal for funds. I keep my appeals on my blog to a minimum. It’s only when I’ve exhausted other resources that I spread my arms here.
I am a part of a group that actively supports a slum in Bangalore. Our core activity is running an interest-free Micro Finance service, to encourage women entrepreneurs to set up small business/trades of their own. Over the years we’ve undertaken many projects to improve the struggling lives of the slum dwellers. Our other initiatives have been:
- We’ve started a clinic at Rajendranagar Slum that consults ailing patients for a minimum fee of Rs. 10/.
- We regularly conduct tailoring classes for girls/women so that they are either self-employed or get employed at the local garment factories. Till date we have trained 60 women.
- We have hired and have on our payroll English Teachers to help the local Govt. School children of the Slum to learn English so that the transition from an Urudu/Kannada Medium school is easier.
One can see a lot of the work that we’ve done at our Foundation’s website by clicking here.
Rs. 5,000/- that’s all it takes.
Another of our intiatives have been to ensure that maximum children at Rajendranagar Slum have a full year education. We have been distributing scholarships over the last three years. This year our requirement has been about Rs. 8,00,000/- to sponsor 170 children. We have raised Rs. 6,00,000 and are Rs. 2,00,000 short. We have gone the extra mile and put these kids in school, promising the school that we will somehow arrange the funds and pay them their fees. Now since the fees are still overdue, the school is stopping these children first from sitting for test or exams and now some kids are forced to sit in the playground all day and not attend classes.
I implore you please contribute generously. I have personally met these children. They are bright and one can see that they have potential for greatness. If only someone would help them. If only we’d help them. Why should they live in tin sheds while our children live in high-rise apartments. Why should we have good clean toilets, were as they have to expose themselves in public to relieve themselves. Giving them a basic education is the first step to ensure that they and their families lead better lives. If 40 of us contribute just Rs. 5,000 each, these kids can step inside the school and attend classes again. Rs. 5,000 is just Dh 500 or just $100/-
You can contribute here:
You may write the cheque favouring Swabhimaan and please send the cheque to:
Swabhimaan
B 405 Raheja Residency, 3rd Block
Koramangala, Bangalore
India
Mob: +91 9945436757 (Contact: Venkat)
Please do let me know or Venkat (+91 9945436757) know once you’ve sent the payment so that Venkat can look out for the same.
Thank you so much guys!
By the way the above picture is not some stock image. It’s a picture that I clicked at Rajendranagar Slum of kids waiting outside an Aanganwadi (a Government Play Home) waiting for it to open.
Here’s a small presentation that you can click through to learn more about Rajendranagar, our activities and Scholorship appeal.
Nov 29, 2010
Posted by arif in Reviews | 2 comments
I just heard these two hilarious tales by Mark Twain:
1. Extract of Adams Diary
2. Eve’s Diary
What did Adam really think of Eve? And what did Eve think of Adam? What exactly happened when they ate the forbidden fruit? Did they ever get along with each other? All is revealed in Extracts from Adam’s Diary and Eve’s Diary which were discovered and translated by eminent Archeologists.
These classic pieces were written in the year 1904. 1904! I’m just amazed how relevant these texts still are inspite of being written over a Century ago.
I heard these tales at my oft-recommended Classic Tales Podcast. The site seems down now, but it may be up by the time you get this email. If you rush you may be able to download these stories. These audio tales don’t stay on the Classic Tales for long. After a couple of weeks, B J Harrisson has the tales removed and up for sale at Audible.com. It’s best to subscribe to the Classic Tales Podcast using iTunes which will automatically download the new stories as they become available, hence ensuring that you have an archive of all these wonderful classic stories for free. Thereby whenever you’re on a long drive to the airport or are in the mood for some light hearing, select the story that tickles your fancy on your ipod and listen away. That’s what I do.
Here’s an excerpt from Adam’s Diary. Enjoy!
MONDAY.–This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I don’t like this; I am not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals…. Cloudy today, wind in the east; think we shall have rain…. WE? Where did I get that word– the new creature uses it.
SATURDAY.–The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run short, most likely. “We” again–that is ITS word; mine, too, now, from hearing it so much. Good deal of fog this morning. I do not go out in the fog myself. This new creature does. It goes out in all weathers, and stumps right in with its muddy feet. And talks. It used to be so pleasant and quiet here.
The cute picture has taken without permission, courtesy: Coromandal
Nov 29, 2010
Posted by arif in Reviews | 4 comments
I have received one of the best Madressa educations. We were taught the deeper meanings of the Quran and other Religious Scriptures. We were taught, the Methodology and Philosophy of Namaaz, Fasting and other rituals. Best of all were were taught to practice the highest morals, such as courtesy to parents, charity, having the love of Knowledge. My years at Madressa years were one of the best educational years of my life. But inspite of having such an excellent Madressa Education as well as having the subject “Islam” at my Day-Time School, my knowledge of the history of Islam was very sketchy and highly incomplete.
Here are couple of examples where I was lacking:
1. How is it that Islam that was started by one man, in a little town in Saudia Arabia, exploded to 1.5 billion? There are Muslims and mosques where ever you go. From China and Japan right through Europe and America. From all the way North in Canada to the Southern parts of Africa there are devout Muslim communities that any Muslim can find himself home in. What exactly happened for the numbers to swell like this in short span of just 20 generations?
2. I had first heard of the Crusades when I was ten, in Walt Disney’s Robin Hood. But what were the Crusades? When did it happen? Why was it such a big deal?
3. Me and Ali are great fans of Sufi Literature (duh :-). But how and when did the Sufis come about. We hear the illustrious names of Rabia Basri, Ibn Arabi, Mevlana Rumi, Al-Hallaj, Kabir, but who came first, who came second etc. What spawned their coming? We hear some were revered and others persecuted. Why? The great Mevlana Rumi spoke and wrote in Farsi, then why is he buried in Turkey?
4. I often hear of the Golden Age of Islam. The Age where Muslims Scholars, excelled in Geography mapped the world, exceeded in Mathematics, excelled in Optometry so much that they even performed successful Cartact Surgeries! But when did these take place. What happened to bring about their decline in these sciences.
5. Historically, Islam was never Extremist. It was the more accommodating and tolerant of religions. What gave rise to the hard-lined ideologies practiced in Afghanistan, Kingdom of Saudia Arabia and parts of Pakistan?
I had all the above questions and tonnes more answered in the engaging narrative by Aga Tamim Ansary in his brilliant book Destiny Disrupted. An unbiased account from the birth of Islam 1400 years ago right through the various Caliphate regimes, covering the Mongol Raids as well as the Glory days of the Moghuls right down till the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I don’t think there’s a country or major event in the tale that Aga Ansary has left uncovered. The writing style is fluent, engaging and at times witty one just eagerly keeps flipping the pages to know what happened next. It’s certainly not a book only for Muslims. It’s for all those who have had the above questions and were curious on any aspect on the History of Islam.
If you are ever in a bookshop, ask for Destiny Disrupted. It may be a difficult find. But if you do get it in your hands, do open the book anywhere in the middle and read till the end of that page. If you find yourself drawn into the story, go ahead and buy the book. All of it is really that good.
Oct 27, 2010
Posted by arif in General | 2 comments
Gandhigiri Says:
Give Moe the rest of the toys with a smile in an attempt to send him on a Guilt Trip
Osama Says:
Bomb that Sucker
Bush:
Have endless, meaningless, pointless, Peace Talks between Moe and Calvin till they both graduate and leave school.
MR. T:
Eat Protein and Pump Iron. (Thanks Riaz bhai for this one :-)
Other Creative Suggestions:
Complain to the Teacher. But what if the Teacher doesn’t care?
Rally other Students to standup to Moe
Start Bawling loudly to create a scene to Shame Moe to giving back the Truck.
What I think:
Tell Moe the bully that he is and take the punch for it.
What’s your suggestion? What Should Calvin Do?
Oct 25, 2010
Posted by arif in Spirituality | 1 comment
Fear is a theme that I have touched time and again on this blog. I recently heard this excellent documentary-podcast on the Aung San Suu Kyi. Aung San, keeps appearing in the press now and again for being under house-arrest. But being historically-illiterate I had no idea why she was put on house-arrest and what’s the big-deal really. Her confi/dence and aura of courage is extraordinary. The podcast provides a wonderful background of her upbringing and what has made her so courageous. It’s through this podcast that I learnt of her award winning essay on Freedom From Fear. You may download the podcast from this page and read the whole essay by clicking here. I am pasting my favourite excerpts of the essay below.
It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.
Where there are no such laws, the burden of upholding the principles of justice and common decency falls on the ordinary people. It is the cumulative effect on their sustained effort and steady endurance which will change a nation where reason and conscience are warped by fear into one where legal rules exist to promote man’s desire for harmony and justice while restraining the less desirable destructive traits in his nature.
Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying. So free men are the oppressed who go on trying and who in the process make themselves fit to bear the responsibilities and to uphold the disciplines which will maintain a free society. Among the basic freedoms to which men aspire that their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from fear stands out as both a means and an end. A people who would build a nation in which strong, democratic institutions are firmly established as a guarantee against state-induced power must first learn to liberate their own minds from apathy and fear.
Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour, courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one’s actions, courage that could be described as ‘grace under pressure’ – grace which is renewed repeatedly in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.
Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man’s self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man.
