Friday, September 25, 2009

a story

A story is told about a soldier who was finally coming home after having fought in Vietnam.
He called his parents from San Francisco. "Mom and Dad, I'm coming home, but I've got a favor to ask.
I have a friend I'd like to bring with me." "Sure," they replied, "we'd love to meet him."

"There's something you should know," the son continued, "he was hurt pretty badly in the fighting.
He stepped on a land mine and lost an arm an leg. He has nowhere else to go, and I want him to come live with us."
"I'm sorry to hear that, son. Maybe we can help him find somewhere to live."
"No, Mom and Dad, I want him to live with us."
"Son," said the father, "you don't know what you're asking. Someone with such a handicap would be a terrible burden on us.
We have our own lives to live, and we can't let something like this interfere with our lives.
I think you should just come home and forget about this guy. He'll find a way to live on his own."
At that point, the son hung up the phone. The parents heard nothing more from him.

A few days later, however, they received a call from the San Francisco police. Their son had died after falling from a building, they were told.
The police believed it was suicide. The grief-stricken parents flew to San Francisco and were taken to the city morgue to identify the body of their son.
They recognized him, but to their horror they also discovered something they didn't know, their son had only one arm and one leg.

The parents in this story are like many of us. We find it easy to love those who are good-looking or fun to have around,
but we don't like people who inconvenience us or make us feel uncomfortable.
We would rather stay away from people who aren't as healthy, beautiful, or smart as we are.

Thankfully, there's someone who won't treat us that way. Someone who loves us with an unconditional love that welcomes us into the forever family, regardless of how messed up we are.
Tonight, before you tuck yourself in for the night, say a little prayer
that God will give you the strength you need to accept people as they are, and to help us all be more understanding of those who are different from us!!!

Monday, September 14, 2009

Rains in Delhi

When it rains in Delhi, it pours...Last week when it finally rained, the city was in a turmoil.. A few days of rain and the capital is at the mercy of the rain gods. Gross mismanagement and life comes to a halt. This makes me wonder what happens to other smaller cities in rain when this is what happens to the capital.
On a more positive side, it helped in bringing down temperatures and the office got shut half day on two consecutive days due to incessant rains. However, we were stuck on road for hours and hours .. Roads were converted into mini black colored lakes full of gutter water...the gutters got freedom to flow ...And trees got uprooted. This also gave us a break from the usual well dressed and grommed selves. I wore an old tee and capris with chappals to work.
But there was no way to venture out. All you could do was to wait at home for the rains to stop. The place outside was a mess with mosquitoes, open gutters, puddles of water and what not. I silently prayed for the sun to come out so that our normal lives are resumed. And finally it did, after 3 days :)