Career..

Points to ponder..

Surati..

Gujarati Books..

If you like reading Gujarati Books, here a website link that you can read all the books that are available.  These are pdf files so it will be a delay before you can read them.
Enjoy...!

The Old Fisherman..

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out patients at the clinic. One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. "Why, he's hardly taller than my eight-year-old," I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face -- lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, "Good evening. I've come to see if you've a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there's no bus 'til morning."

He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success, no one seemed to have a room. "I guess it's my face...I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments..."

For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: "I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning."

I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. "No thank you. I have plenty." And he held up a brown paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn't take a long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury.

He didn't tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was preface with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going. At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children's room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, "Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won't put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair." He paused a moment and then added, "Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don't seem to mind." I told him he was welcome to come again. And on his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they'd be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us.

In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious. When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. "Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!" Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illness' would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.

Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse, As she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, "If this were my plant, I'd put it in the loveliest container I had!" My friend changed my mind. "I ran short of pots," she explained, "and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn't mind starting out in this old pail. It's just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden."

She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven. "Here's an especially beautiful one," God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. "He won't mind starting in this small body." All this happened long ago -- and now, in God's garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand.

The tax System explained in Beer terminology..

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100…

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do..

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20″. Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,”but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!”

“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man “Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.

In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

Friendship..

When I reached home late one night , Dad asked: "Where were you?"

I said, " at a friend's place"

Dad called 10 friends of mine in front of me.

4 said: "Yes Uncle, he was here."

2 said: "He left just now."

3 said: "He is here Uncle, studying !"

1 went the extreme, said: "Yes Papa; what's up ?...!!! "

Giving..

It was a really hot summer’s day many years ago. Adam was on his way to pick up two items at the grocery store. In those days, he was a frequent visitor to the store because there never seemed to be enough money for a whole week’s food-shopping at once.

You see, his young wife, after a tragic battle with cancer, had died just a few months earlier. There was no insurance -- just many expenses and a mountain of bills. He held a part-time job, which barely generated enough money to feed his two young children.

Things were bad -- really bad.

And so it was that day, with a heavy heart and Rs. 40 in his pocket, he was on his way to the store to purchase a packet of milk and a loaf of bread. The children were hungry and he had to get them something to eat. As he came to a red traffic light, he noticed on his right a young man, a young woman and a child on the grass next to the road. The blistering noonday sun beat down on them without mercy.

The man held up a cardboard sign which read, "Will Work for Food." The woman stood next to him. She just stared at the cars & buses that stopped at the red light. The child, probably about two years old, sat on the grass holding a one-armed doll. Adam noticed all this in the thirty seconds it took for the traffic light to change to green.

He wanted so desperately to give them a few rupees, but if he did that, there wouldn’t be enough left to buy the milk and bread. 40 rupees will only go so far. As the light changed, He took one last glance at the three of them and went off feeling both guilty (for not helping them) and sad (because he didn’t have enough money to share with them).

As he kept riding his cycle, he couldn’t get the picture of the three of them out of his mind. The sad, haunting eyes of the young man and his family stayed with him for about a mile. Adam could take it no longer. He felt their pain and had to do something about it. He turned around and went back to where he had last seen them.

Adam went close to them and handed the man twenty of his forty rupees. There were tears in his eyes as he thanked Adam. Adam smiled and went on to the store. Perhaps both milk and bread would be on sale, Adam thought. And what if he only got milk alone, or just the bread? Well, it would have to do.

Adam pulled into the parking lot, still thinking about the whole incident, yet feeling good about what he had done. As Adam stepped out of the parking lot, his foot slid on something on the pavement. There by his feet was a 500 rupee note. He just couldn’t believe it. He looked all around, picked it up with awe, went into the store and purchased not only bread and milk, but several other items he desperately needed.

Adam never forgot that incident. It reminded him that the universe was strange and mysterious. It confirmed his belief that you could never out give the universe. He had given away twenty rupees and got 500 in return. On his way back from the store, Adam rode by the hungry family and shared additional 100 rupees with them.

This incident is only one of many that have occurred in one's life. It seems that the more we give, the more we get. It is, perhaps, one of those universal laws that say, "If you want to receive, you must first give."

There is a little rhyme that goes like this:

"A man there was, and they called him mad, The more he gave, the more he had."

Most times, we think that we don’t have anything to give. Yet, if we look more closely, we ’ll see that even the little we have could be shared with others. Let us not wait for a time when we think we’ll have lots and then we’ll give. By giving and sharing the little we have, we open up the storehouse of the universe and permit rivers of good to come our way.

Don’t take my word for it. Just honestly try to give and you’ll be surprised at the results. Generally, the returns do not come back from those we give to. It comes back from sources we could hardly imagine. So give your way to riches.

Take a chance on this universal principle. Take a chance on yourself. Universal principles always work.

Sometimes the return from giving happens very quickly as in the true story above. Other times, it takes much longer. But be assured of this: Give and you will receive - and you’ll receive lots more than you ever gave.

And when you give, don’t do it with a heart of fear, but with a heart full of gratitude. You will be amazed at how it all works out.

Open the gates of affluence in your life by giving a bit of what you have to those in need. As the great Teacher said, Give and it will be given unto you in good measure.

Compassion and Connection..

Did you know that the feeling of compassion and connection is probably more powerful to fight diseases than all the world’s medications put together? And this is no mumbo jumbo. It has all been scientifically proven.

So please take a few minutes to read the rest of this article and share with us how you think we can improve positive connection and combat diseases…

Even if this case has been featured in many books and articles, there is no way to discuss the health benefits of human connections without beginning with the true story of the town of Roseto. This small Italian immigrant town created big fuss in the medical community in the 1960s.

When researchers began to go over death records from this little town, they discovered that people generally didn’t die of diseases but of old age. Heart attacks were especially rare. In fact, there were no records of ANYONE under the age of 45 ever dying of heart attack.

What was even more astonishing was people in Roseto didn’t live a very healthy lifestyle. They smoked, drank, ate and worked hard. Low cholesterol diets didn’t exist in their vocabulary. And the pollution from working in the slate quarries should have been enough to destroy even the toughest hearts.

But it didn’t!

What the people of Roseto had was an extremely strong family and society connection. They took the time to stop and talk and smile and shake hands as they walked through the town. If someone got sick or came upon hard time, he or she could rely on the neighbors to help. Thefts and crimes were literally non-existant. There was not a single case of burglary reported in anywhere.

They had connection, and that connection kept them healthy.

Sadly, as the Roseto community “developed,” so did the modern diseases. In the 1980s, the little town of Roseto had ‘Americanized’ and heart attacks had become just as common as anywhere else.

Many other close communities have a similar health structure. The traditional Amish community, for example, has only half the cancer risk of the average American, lower cholesterol, less diabetes and some Amish communities are even seen to be immune to heart attacks.

Several studies have revealed that married people, especially married men, live longer and suffer less diseases than those who’re not married.

Other studies show that people who get divorced have 20% more chronic health conditions such as cancer and heart diseases and type 2 diabetes. What’s more, even after people move on and get remarried, the chronic disease rate is still 12% higher.

This shows how much the lingering and chronic stress of separation and disconnection from those we love can negatively impact our health.

There are finally numerous studies that show that people who develop life-threatening diseases have a much greater chance of overcoming any health problems if they have a strong base of supporting friends and family.

There is an old Jewish story about a Rabbi who visited hell. He saw people sitting there on two sides of a long table with the most delicious bowl of soup in front of each and every one and spoon in hand. But their arms were splinted on wooden slats so they couldn’t bend their elbow and enjoy the soup. Everyone was pale and miserable. Then he visited heaven and surprisingly the scenery was exactly the same except that there, everyone was feeding the person across from them so now they were enjoying the soup and connection with smile and laughter.

Human connection is free. It has no negative side-effects and may actually be quite pleasurable from time to time.

Hun Surat..

My Surat, city where I grew up.