Friday, September 7, 2012

Determination - an example set by a 11 year old boy

Gabriel Muniz - a eleven year old boy has set the benchmark for determination.  He has no feet but plays football amazingly as hence has been invited by Barcelona to train with them.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/brazil/9503766/Eleven-year-old-Brazilian-boy-with-no-feet-to-train-with-Barcelona.html



One more Onam

This Onam was a little different.  Achan had come making it special.  This is the first Onam with Achan here at home.  He came after a lot of convincing and a little bit of fighting, but it was worth it.

While I did the cooking, Arun and Achan did the pookalam.  Achan was the designer and said, that he would do a 'Sputnik'.  I jumped wondering what that meant.  He said, when sputnik was first launched, that was the design for Onam then.  A craft with four legs.  So, both of them got down to making 'Sputnik Pookalam'.  It was fun.




The sputnik Achan designed and Arun implemented.  He said that something is missing and when they had done it then, it was better.

So, this Onam, we welcomed Mahabali with Sputnik.



  I look back to the old days when Onam was with a big family.  My mom used to do the pookalam single handedly as well as the Sadhya for all three of us used to have school.  She was very good at it.  Wish I could go back in time.  Maybe next year we should get together, for we have Deeksha and Vivaan, the next generation.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Woman of Steel

My university's VC wrote in his blog about one of the first woman physician of India.  I thank him for it, for this is a story that was unknown to me.



Dr. Anandi Gopal Joshi's(Anandibai) story is a source of inspiration.  My hair stands on end reading this piece.  The determination of this lady to stand by her ideas and principles at a time when a woman's place in Indian society was only at home is commendable.  Commendable is also the fact that her husband encouraged and stood by her.  'Behind every man there is a woman' is a common adage.  It should be changed because it is biased many a times, as this story shows.  I would say 'Behind every half, there is another half'.

Wikipedia's write up link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anandi_Gopal_Joshi

To read her letter from the archives click http://xdl.drexelmed.edu/viewer.php?object_id=001340&t=womanmd