Letter of Abdul Kalam to all Indian

I have three visions for India.
In 3000 years of our history, people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds.

From Alexander onwards. The Greeks, the Turks, the Muslims, the Portuguese, the British,the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their
land,their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others.
That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM.
I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when we started the war of independence.It is this freedom that we must protect and nurture and built on. If we are not free, no one will respect us.
My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT.
For fifty years we have been a developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation.We are among top nations of the world in terms of GDP. We have 10 percent growth rate in most areas.
Our poverty levels are falling.Our achievements are being globally recognized today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as
a developed nation,self reliant and self assured. Isn't this right?
I have a third vision. The India must stand up to the world.Because I believe that unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. Only strength respects strength. We must be strong not only as a military power but also as an economic power. Both must go and-in-hand.
My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds.
Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept. of space, Professor Satish Dhawan, who succeeded him, and Dr. Brahm Prakash,father of nuclear material. I was lucky to have worked with all three of them closely and consider this the great opportunity of my life.

I see four milestones in my career:
ONE:
Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be
the project director for India's first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3.
The one that launched Rohini. These years played a very important role
in my life of Scientist.
TWO:
After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part of India's guided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in 1994.
THREE:
The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in
the recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third
bliss.The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests
and proving to the world that India can make it, that we are no longer
a developing nation but one of them.
It made me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we have now
developed for Agni a re-entry structure,for which we have developed
this new material. A Very light material called carbon-carbon.
FOUR:
One day an orthopedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences
visited my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so light
that he took me to his hospital and showed me his patients. There
were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic calipers weighing
over three Kgs. each, dragging their feet around.
He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients.In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300 gram calipers and took them to the orthopedics center. The children didn't believe their eyes. From
dragging around a three kg. load on their legs, they could now move around! Their parents had tears in their eyes.That was my fourth bliss!

Why is the media here so negative?
Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths,
our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing
success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them.Why?
We are the second largest producer of wheat in the world.We are
the second largest producers in rice. We are the first in milk
production. We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self driving unit.
There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed
with the bad news and failures and disasters.
I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper.
It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had
taken place.
The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the
picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his
desert land into orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.
In India we only read about death,sickness,terrorism,crime.
Why are we so negative?
Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign
things? we want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want
foreign technology.Why this obsession with everything imported?
Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance?
I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is:
She replied: I want to live in a developed India.
For her, you and I will have to built this developedIndia. You must proclaim.

- Abdul Kalam.
(Bharat Ratna)

Third World War-Nostradamus

"In the year of the new century and nine months,
From the sky will come a great King of Terror...
The sky will burn at forty-five degrees.
Fire approaches the great new city...
There will be a great thunder,
Two brothers torn apart by chaos,
While the fortress endures,
The great leader will succumb,
The third big war will begin when the big city is burning"

Nostradamus

Indianess

Friends, These are from an article in India Abroad, a
desi newspaper here in the U.S. So with malice towards
one and all, here goes...

One Bengali is a poet
Two Bengalis is a film society
Three Bengalis is a political party
Four Bengalis is two political parties
____
One Punjabi is a 100 kg hulk named Pinky
Two Punjabis is a Pinky with his brother Twinky
Three Punjabis is an assault on the McAloo Tikkis at the local McDonalds
Four Punjabis is a combined IQ equal to one Tam-Brahm
____
One Bihari is Laloo Prasad Yadav
Two Biharis is a booth-capturing squad
Three Biharis is a caste killing
Four Biharis is the entire literate population of
Patna
_____
One Mallu is a coconut stall
Two Mallus is a boat race
Three Mallus is a Gulf job racket
Four Mallus is an oil slick
___
One UP bhaiyya is a milkman
Two UP bhaiyyas is a halwai shop
Three UP bhaiyyas is a fist-fight in the UP assembly
Four UP bhaiyyas is a mosque-destruction squad
______
One Gujju is a share-broker in a Bombay train
Two Gujjus is a rummy game in a Bombay train
Three Gujjus is a Rs. 10-crore sprocket manufacturing business
Four Gujjus is an all-night dandia-raas session
____
One Andhraite is a chilli farmer
Two Andhraites is a software company in New Jersey
Three Andhraites is a Naxalite outfit
Four Andhraites is a song-and-dance number in a Telugu movie
______
One Kashmiri is a carpet salesman
Two Kashmiris is a carpet factory
Three Kashmiris is a terrorist outfit
Four Kashmiris is a shoot-at-sight order
____
One Tam-Brahm is a priest at the Vardarajaperumal temple
Two Tam-Brahms is a maths tuition class
Three Tam-Brahms is a queue outside the U.S. consulate at 4 a.m.
Four Tam-Brahms is a Thyagaraja music festival in Santa Clara
___
One Bombayite is a footpath vada-pau stall
Two Bombayites is a film studio
Three Bombayites is a slum
Four Bombayites is the number of people standing on your foot in the train at rush hour
____
One Sindhi is a currency racket
Two Sindhis is a papad factory
Three Sindhis is a duplicate goods shop
Four Sindhis is the Hong Kong Retail Traders Association
_____
One U.S. Desi is a software guy
Two U.S. Desis is a lunch group at work
Three U.S. Desis is a bitching session about the U.S.
Four U.S. Desis is four software guys, heating tamarind rice in the office microwave, cooked that morning, in their shared one bedroom apartment, and bitching about life in the U.S.

Poem for Drunks...

I went to a party Mom,
I remembered what you said.
You told me not to drink, Mom,
So I drank soda instead.

I really felt proud inside, Mom,
The way you said I would.
I didn't drink and drive, Mom,
Even though the others said I should.

I know I did the right thing, Mom,
I know you are always right..
Now the party is finally ending, Mom,
As everyone is driving out of sight..

As I got into my car, Mom,
I knew I'd get home in one piece.
Because of the way you raised me,
So responsible and sweet.

I started to drive away, Mom,
But as I pulled out into the road,
The other car didn't see me, Mom,
And hit me like a load.

As I lay there on the pavement, Mom,
I hear the policeman say,
"The other guy is drunk," Mom,
And now I'm the one who will pay.

I'm lying here dying, Mom....
I wish you'd get here soon.
How could this happen to me, Mom?
My life just burst like a balloon.

There is blood all around me, Mom,
And most of it is mine.
I hear the medic say, Mom,
I'll die in a short time.
I just wanted to tell you, Mom,
I swear I didn't drink.
It was the others, Mom.
The others didn't think.

He was probably at the same party as I.
The only difference is, he drank
And I will die.

Why do people drink, Mom?
It can ruin your whole life.
I'm feeling sharp pains now.
Pains just like a knife.

The guy who hit me is walking, Mom,
And I don't think it's fair.
I'm lying here dying
And all he can do is stare.

Tell my brother not to cry, Mom.
Tell Daddy to be brave.
And when I go to heaven, Mom,
Put "GOOD BOY " on my grave.

Someone should have told him, Mom,
Not to drink and drive.
If only they had told him, Mom,
I would still be alive.

My breath is getting shorter, Mom.
I'm becoming very scared.
Please don't cry for me, Mom.
When I needed you, you were always there.

I have one last question, Mom.
Before I say good bye.
I didn't drink and drive,
So why am I the one to die?

Sambher of 69

I had my first real six rupees,
stole it from my father's pants.
went to a madrasi hotel,
to eat the sambhar of 69.
Me and some kadke dost,

had it all and we caught bukhaar,
jimy puked, joey got ulcers,
and Bagga ne maari dakar.

Oh when I went back there now,
the food was as stale as ever,
and though it was 1999,
still the sambhar was being served over there,

that was the worst food of my life.

Therez no use in complaining,
when you got no other place to eat,
rushed in the evening to the doctors clinic, but he too was at the toilet seat, yeah

standing there waiting outside,
nurse told me I will wait forever,
oh and when I held my breath,
I knew that I had to use that loo there
That was the worst food of my life.

Back to the sambhar of 69.

Man I was getting killed,
I was full and restless,
I needed to unwind,
I guess nothing can wait forever

Class Analogy

Really a class analogy.

An Old Story:

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and
laying up supplies for the winter.

The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs & dances & plays the
summer away.

Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or
shelter so he dies out in the cold.

Indian Version:

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and
laying up supplies for the winter.

The Grasshopper thinks the Ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the
summer away.

Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed
while others are cold and starving.
NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper
next to a video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled
with food.

The World is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be that this poor
Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant's house.

Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that
Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter .

Mayawati states this as `injustice' done on Minorities.

Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticize the Indian Government for
not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.

The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the
Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt
support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance) .

Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for 'Bengal Bandh' in
West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.

CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard
in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and
Grasshoppers.

Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway
Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Rath'.

Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the ' Prevention of Terrorism
Against Grasshoppers Act' [POTAGA], with effect from the beginning of the
winter.

Arjun Singh makes 'Special Reservation ' for Grasshoppers in Educational
Institutions & in Government Services.

The Ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and having nothing left
to pay his retroactive taxes,it's home is confiscated by the Government
and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it ' A Triumph of Justice'.

Lalu calls it 'Socialistic Justice '.

CPM calls it the ' Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden '

Koffi Annan invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.

Many years later.

The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar
company in Silicon Valley,

100s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere
in India !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!