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WhentheresorderintheNation,therespeaceintheWorld.

Knowledgeequation

I would like to share aninspirational call fromHazrat MohammadSahib's Hadeeth (peace beupon him).

"When you speak, speak thetruth.

Perform what you promise.

Discharge your trust.

Withhold your hand fromstriking and taking,

That which is unlawful andbad."

Let us follow this pathand lead a noble life.

I would like to recall agreat clarion call ofindomitable spirit, whichwas given by Sir C. V.

Raman, at the age of 82.The message is still rever-berating in my mind:

"I would like to tell theyoung men and womenbefore me not to lose hopeand courage. Success canonly come to you by coura-geous devotion to the tasklying in front of you.

"I can assert without fearof contradiction that thequality of the Indian mindis equal to the quality ofany Teutonic, Nordic orAnglo-Saxon mind. Whatwe lack is perhaps courage,what we lack is perhapsdriving force, which takesone anywhere.

"We have, I think, devel-oped an inferiority com-plex. I think what is need-ed in India today is thedestruction of thatdefeatist spirit. We need aspirit of victory, a spiritthat will carry us to ourrightful place under thesun, a spirit, which willrecognize that we, asinheritors of a proud civi-lization, are entitled to a

rightful place on this plan-et. If that indomitable spir-it were to arise, nothingcan hold us from achievingour rightful destiny."

Hence friends, knowl-edge is equal to the equa-tion: Knowledge = creativi-ty + righteousness +courage + indomitable spir-it. The combination of thesecharacteristics can generateenlightened citizens.

I T S P O S S I B L EI T S P O S S I B L E

FEBRUARY 27, 2008 T H E P U L S E O F I N D I A

w w ww w w . a b d u l k a l a m . c o m. a b d u l k a l a m . c o m

6

Proverb

Pocket

Thetarofmycountryisbetterthanthehoneyofothers.From Morocco

By Vinaya Hegde

This incident happened when I was 8 years old,studying in class III in Chennai. My friendsand I walked to school everyday. One morn-

ing, I happened to be late, and my friends left with-out me. There were just a few minutes to go beforethe school bell and I took a short-cut through a nar-row, deserted lane to save time.

As I ran, I was terrified to see a huge, angry cowwith massive horns, suddenly gallop towards me. Ifroze with fright and my legs just wouldn't move.Suddenly, I don't know from where, a thin middle-aged woman dressed in a nine-yard saree appeared,pushed me out of the way of the charging cow, andwaved a yellow cloth bag she had in her hand, to

distract the angry animal. "Run!" she screamed tome in Tamil. "Run fast!"

My feet suddenly came to life and I ran for mylife. As I glanced back once, fearfully, I saw the tinywoman bravely swishing her cloth bag at the hugeanimal. I turned the corner and ran into my schoolcompound.

Throughout that day at school, I couldn't concen-trate on my lessons. The image of that frail womanswishing her cloth bag ineffectually at that huge,enraged cow haunted me all the time. That evening,when it was time to go home, I deliberately took thesame short-cut rather fearfully, because in mychild's mind, I expected the cow to be still gallopingaround menacingly. I was relieved to find the lanedeserted. Then I walked up and down the lane sev-

eral times, looking for blood stains and strewn limbsbecause I had been convinced that the cow wouldhave gored the woman to death and torn her apart.

I still feel the relief I felt that day when I failed tospot any blood stains or limbs or even shreds of thewoman's cloth bag. For several days after that, myfriends and I kept our ears open for any news of a

woman who was gored by a cow. But mercifully, inthat small neighbourhood, there was no such news.I also took that short-cut several times after that(still fearfully, because the image of a massivecharging cow is not easy to erase from a child'smind!) to see if I could spot that woman, but I neversaw her again.

To this day I do not know who she was. But who-ever she was, she was an Angel. Someone who puther life in danger for an unknown child. Expectingno thanks in return.

In a similar situation today, would I display thesame courage that she showed then? To be honest, Idoubt it.

(The writer is a senior journalist andContent Curator for billion beats.)

She wrestled with an angry cow for me

A N G E L S A N O N Y M O U S

Do you remember with gratitude someone,somewhere, who helped you when you least

expected it? And went away without waiting for aword of thanks, and even without telling you

their name? Want to thank your Angel Anonymousnow? Mail us at billionbeats@gmail.com

By Team Billion Beats

If you want change, you yourself haveto be the change, Mahatma Gandhihad said. His saying is apt in many

ways, particularly in todays world.

Educated Indians constantly complainabout how unclean our roads and citiesare. We Indians go ga-ga over the clean-liness in foreign countries, but sadly,make no attempt to replicate the samehere.

A movement in this direction must start in schoolsand it should spill over to colleges and then to offices.Corporations and civic authorities must createawareness campaigns 24x7 to ensure that spitting inpublic is a strict no-no.

Says Mrs Aruna Bahuguna, IPS, Director General,Fire and Emergency Services, Andhra Pradesh: Wehad mobile courts in Hyderbad in 1994 and bookedthe offenders immediately. This was a special driveimplemented in main areas of Hyderabad. It had agood effect. I feel this must be brought back along

with greater awareness. It has to comevoluntarily as everything cannot beforced by the law.

So whats the solution? Its simple.Every time you think of spitting onroads, imagine that you are spitting onMother Earth.

Conscientious citizens can walk upto the offenders and politely requestthem not to do the same again. Trafficcops may be empowered to book such

offenders. Local cable networks, channels and themedia in general could devote some time andspace to highlight the ills of spitting in publicplaces.

Hospitals can display boards informing the ills ofspitting in public places. They say charity begins athome. Very true: We never spit at home!

As we race ahead to become a developed nation,lets remember that the road to development mustbe clean. We can do it. From today. If we make upour minds.

CHANGE AGENTSCANT WE STOP SPITTING ON ROADS?

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Y O U R P A G E FEBRUARY 27, 2008

MagicatPunehospital:If we decidecollectively and constructively, we can

change the ugly picture around us.

Such a good example has been set

recently in Sassoon Hospital, Pune

Noise, quarrels, jostling due toabsence of queue, and complete

chaos used to be the regular scene at

the Out-Patient Department. It used to

be difficult and time consuming to

collect medicines and get procedures

done, such as getting seals and sig-

natures of doctors on documents.

But now, magically, the scene has

changed completely. About 50 well

educated volunteers of 'Shree

Aniruddha Seva Pratisthan' are there

every Monday, Tuesday and

Wednesday from morning to 2 pm.

They help OPD patients in every man-ner, by giving them correct informa-

tion and guidance and ensuring disci-

pline. Now there are no quarrels, and

no chaos. All this is being done with-

out expecting any returns. Hats off to

the volunteers of 'Shree Aniruddha

Seva Pratisthan', Pune! Jai Hind!

ShailendraKrishnaraoDeshpandeWearblueforourtroops:During myrecent US visit, I observed that every

Friday, office-goers wear red coloured

clothes to show their support to their

army fighting in Iraq. It is amazing tofind that the people are united irre-

spective of their race / community /

religion / gender towards a common

objective. This gives a morale boost

to the troops who are fighting in Iraq.

I suggest that we copy this formula in

India to not only delight our troops but

to give them a sense of pride for

doing their job. (In fact, spending a

single night in the hills of Kashmir is

equivalent to fighting for life in Iraq.)

This will also encourage more young-

sters to join the defence forces.

Blue being India's favorite colour incricket, let's use it to show our soli-

darity with our troops.

RangarajanMLet'stalkcleanliness: I strongly feelthat if we take one step together, we

can definitely bring in change and

achieve our goal. This is an appeal to

all readers to lend a hand and change

our India in our small way. Would it

be a great contribution from our side?

Definitely it would, and I am sure Dr

Kalam would be happy to see us work

in our small way. I had received mailfrom Dr Kalam stating I should start a

Cleanliness Mission in Mumbai. This

is my request to all readers: let's take

up one issue at a time and start think-

ing and pool our ideas. Through bil-lionbeats,I would like to request allto take up the issue of CLEANLINESS

and start thinking about how to make

our place CLEANER. New ideas can

be tried out and implemented. Please

mail me at manjunair87@gmail.com.

ManjuMNair

Mailbag

billionbeatsis designed and uplinked to www.abdulkalam.com from Bangalore every fortnight. Chief Editor Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, National Affairs Editor Anantha Krishnan M,Content Editor V. Ponraj, Copy Curator Vinaya Hegde, Creative DesignV. Jayaprakash, Stills Robert, INSPIRATION The Bold Billion

I want her tobe the best

As a citizen of India, I would like tosee my country at the highestlevel. I would like to see develop-ment in the agricultural field.

Even though the evils of thesociety have been destroyed, I donot think they have been totallyabolished, because there are stillchild-marriages happening insome parts of India. The elementsof evil practices of our country willkeep multiplying till we lose ourfame. So I request the Governmentof India to take immediate actionto discourage such practices.

As tourist spots in India arefamous and people from all over the world come to these places,the tourism department could takesteps to make the tourists' stay inIndia more interesting by launch-ing holiday packages, fairs, fests,etc.

I would like all Indians to try their best to abolish poverty andhunger in India.

This is my vision for my India.

Kris Oommen Jacob

Class V, Abu Dhabi Indian

School, Abu Dhabi, UAE

INDIA OF MY DREAMS

Space does not belong to anyone country, but is truly glob-al. It belongs to all nations

and each of them has the right tohave a place in it. This was provedrecently when space historycrossed a major milestone.Interestingly, this neither hap-pened on the launch pads whererockets take off nor in conferencerooms when delegates makeimportant announcements. Canany of you then guess where thisglobal space history was made? Ithappened recently nearly 400 kmabove the earth, when most of youwere either studying or playing.

Zooming at a whopping speedof nearly 28,000 km per hour, com-pleting 16 orbits daily, is a home-cum-workplace in space called theInternational Space Station (ISS). Itcan be described rightly as aUnited Nations in space. Thismassive structure weighing 19metric tones, is a joint project of 16countries, which includes the US,Russia, Japan, Canada and a num-ber of European countries. Its con-struction in space started in 1998and is expected to be completed in

2010. The nearly 130-billion-dollarspace station will remain opera-

tional till 2016. Astronauts from 15countries and five space touristshave visited it so far.

What is the significance of thespace station? Here, astronautslearn to work and live together inweightlessness and do scientificexperiments. Some of these exper-iments could help people on earth.Indian-American astronaut SunitaWilliams, broke the world spacerecord by becoming the firstwoman to spend the longest timein space: six months.

The tough experience of staying

and working in the space station isa stepping stone for astronauts toprepare for a prolonged stay onthe moon and subsequentlyembark on a mission to Mars.NASA plans launch of a mannedlunar mission by 2020.

To make this space station proj-ect more global, it got a new addi-tion recently. What is it? It is thefirst European laboratory calledColumbus. Scientists are expectedto carry out experiments in impor-tant fields like life sciences andmaterial sciences in the Columbuslaboratory. Built in Turin, Italy,

the Columbus laboratory is con-trolled from a centre near Munichin Germany. It is the EuropeanSpace Agency's biggest contribu-tion to the space station which isnow playing a major role in thefield of science and technology.

Celestial Euro labmakes history

By Srinivas Laxman

S P A C E T A L K

The writer is a SpecialCorrespondent with The Times of

India,Mumbai and is the author ofthe bookDr Abdul Kalam: Dreamsto Reality. You can reach him at:moonmission.srinivas@gmail.com

The Most BeautifulI seldom see a part of you,

Now found on the Earth,

Thousands of coloursgreen, yellow, blue,

You are very precious and that's what is worth!

God bless you dear trees,

I often see you in my dreams,

You are reducing due to deforestation,

Let's transport you from the train before it leaves thestation.

God bless you dear Sun,You always give me light,

Your rays want to feel the fun,

You charge a huge price for the flight!

God bless you dear sky,

Birds are chirping & are your friends,

One day I will touch the place that is very high,

Music is what the birds want to lend.

You are the only beauty,

That has so many things ,

This beauty no one has, truly,My brain has started to ring!

You are the most beautiful,

You have thousands of colours,

I am really very thankful,

To dearest Nature.

Astha Wadhwani

Class V, Avalon Heights Int.School,

Navi Mumbai