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Role Models - यद्यदाचरति श्रेष्ठ: 30 Pearls from The Week

December 21, 2011

On my way back to Singapore, came across the 30th anniversary issue of "The Week", the weekly news magazine published by the Malayalam Manorama group. The special edition breaks new ground for a popular Indian English magazine for its story on "Adi Shankara: Retracing a Great Journey" where they have traced the philosopher-saints' path across India. Readers can get more info on Adi Shankara through a wonderful Chinmaya Mission book, "Shankara the Missionary".

The cover story on the main magazine features "30 Pearls", stories of 30 remarkable Indians who choose to be agents of change rather than accepting the status quo.

I love this issue of The Week. I have tried to find links that will provide more information on these stars. In the past, I have discussed the value of Role Models in my first post on Geeta 3-21. Here are specific role models that appealed to me:
  • Kabir Vajpeyi who has created the institution called BaLA or Building as Learning Aid. While I couldn't find his own website, I did find an interesting document on the Unicef India website.
  • Shreya Mishra of Bhopal who is leveraging students of elite schools to provide special education and to collect and distribute books, clothes and toys to anganwadi (village preschools) children. This movement has spread to over 100 schools across India
  • Babar Ali of Murshidabad, West Bengal, who started a school for the underprivileged and is the youngest headmaster at the age of eighteen. The targeted students are usually at work in the day time as domestic or farm laborers and hence school starts at 3 pm. This suits the teachers, too, since many of them are students in nearby colleges.
  • Chandrasekhar Hariharan in Bangalore who is committed to building ecofriendly houses that "do not look different from normal houses but are vastly different when it comes to energy efficiency".
  • Navin Gulia's entry especially fascinated me for this memorable quote, "life does not give one the choice of what battle to fight, but to fight or not" His NGO, Apni Duniya Apna Ashiana guides and assists disabled, underprivileged children

Hari Om and Namaskaar until the next post
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  1. AnonymousDecember 26, 2011 at 3:11 AM

    You should really do a post on the Matrix! It has a huge amount of philosophy in it, and it still manages to be an interesting movie. The other movie you should do is Inception. The multiple layers and endless dream is a great segue into pholosophy.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q1jHx29C70&feature=related

    ReplyDelete

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