Hi,
Sometimes timing is everything - sometimes everything is well timed.
So it seems these days when all actions seem to be by clockwork. Esp since this
week beginning. Two of my friends who were in need of funds and looking
vigorously for jobs - any job - ended up getting a job each this Monday - told
me within an hour of each other. One of them whom I was advising to make his
home in his car till he found a cheap place to stay ended up getting a great
room all to himself - for the price I am paying for shared accommodation and I
got mobility thanks to his car.
This Sunday while talking to my brother (younger and who became a father last
week) at Marine Corps War Memorial for a marathon volunteering - I was stunned
to hear that he was a guest at an old acquaintance of my father's. A very
senior general rank police officer who was right next to him (unlike some of my
roommates I hardly get in touch with any except the very closest (or online)
friends in India). One roommate here not only calls up his parents and
grandparenst but also his great unlces, unlces's
sister-in-law,sister's-brother-law aunts, cousins, nieces etc and talks for
hours on end--even on phone and sometimes on internet.
POLICE PATRIOT & STUDENT LOANS & AFFLUENCE
I hadn't talked to the police officer (who helped get land for Jaipur School
allotted from the govt - a dead honest officer whose eldest son was my
brother's classmate at JS) - ever since he had forbidden me to try to go
abroad when I visited his home in 2004 after geting accepted at Harvard. Even
now he had just one message for me and then he gave the cellphone back to my
brother : "You should come back to India for a few years, get a job, get
married and then you can go back to US. If you need money to repay your student
loan that we can arrange." He was perhaps referring to the fact that ever
since Infosys opened a center in the city in 2004/2005 land prices have sky
rocketed and a plot whose deal I had got finalized is worth so much that it can
easily help repay my $35,000 US student loan. I asked my brother to call me up
afterwards and he called up (while I was still at the marathon) with an offer
which I could not but refuse....
Later I called up my Harvard sponsor at Los Angeles and realized how very easy
it seemed to people back home which seemed impossible till the marathoner
sponsored my US student loan. How very easy it is for many to say "Oh, just
come back for a few years and return to US." Is lie like Marine Corps Marathon
- that should end where it starts?
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071004/REVIEWS/710040303/1023
Today I watched a Hollywood movie (with an old friend - with Indian skin and
American soul - who has a new job, another didn't join - those hailing from
close to Darjeeling) about 3 brothers who go to India on a spiritual journey
(on Palace on Wheels train then villages , on Hero Honda bikes and meet their
mother there etc) and was wondering that even for Indian city bred folks - a
journey on the train thru the countryside evokes similar feelings - those of us
who have been on long train journeys (without haste and worries of reaching the
destination) might recall that feeling.
Most importantly, that movie shows how and why rich Westerners incl Kate
Winslet are in love with some rustic Indian environs (in the desert and
Himalayas) where they go to seek peace and solace.
So where there is peace and old world charm there can be tourists. Right??
So is peace really important --esp for Assam ---it is , isn't it?
Some new netters (Ruby/Rubi) might disagree.
umesh
PS: about 10 years back - on Oct 28, (like this Sunday) 1997 I had boarded a
train to go to Bhopal to work at Indian Express - choosing to go to a place I
had never been before -to learn about how the media (newspaper Dainik Bhaskar)
from this little known town beat the local media moghuls of my hometown (much
more cosmopolitan) . Some things you can never learn from books - you have to
live it. Right????
Bhopal and whole of MP pays much greater attention to education and sees it a s
a means to growth and then ofcourse the then recent Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen
said the same in 1998 and I went into education.
Someone said that "Success is a journey , not a destination." Quality is a
moving target" I think I read in Business World India -- that there is no final
perfection - keep improving???!!
Umesh Sharma
Washington D.C.
1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)
www.gse.harvard.edu/iep (where the above 2 are used )
http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
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