Dear Fellow Rotarians, There is a story told in my Hindu tradition of two sages, Shaunaka and Abhipratari. They were worshippers of Prana, the wind god. One day, the two men were about to sit down to lunch when a poor student knocked on their door, asking for food.
Read more
Dear Fellow Rotarians, When the Canadian army liberated the Netherlands in 1945, they found the country on the brink of starvation. Seeing the suffering of so many, and especially moved by the faces of the children, four Canadian privates stationed near Apeldoorn that year decided to make that Christmas special for as
Read more
Dear Fellow Rotarians, One sunny morning at the end of June 1991, a van drove through the busy, rush-hour streets of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Winding through traffic to a northern suburb, the van arrived at the Forward Command Headquarters of the Defence Ministry. Security guards stopped it for inspection. When they did,
Read more
In 1893, 122 years ago, Swami Vivekananda travelled to Chicago from Calcutta, to speak at the very first of these Parliaments. He spoke of Hinduism: his religion, and mine. He spoke of the idea of tolerance, universalism,
Read more
Dear Fellow Rotarians, Last month, after confirming a full year without a single case of wild poliovirus, Nigeria was removed from the list of the world’s polio-endemic countries. It was the last polio-endemic country in Africa. Today, only two countries — Afghanistan and Pakistan — harbour the world’s final reservoir of endemic
Read more
Dear Fellow Rotarians, There was once a strong young man who was offered a job as a woodcutter. He set about his task with energy: The first week, he turned 18 trees into firewood. The second week, he worked just as hard, but was surprised to find he had chopped only 11
Read more
Dear Fellow Rotarians, In the 1930s, Ole Kirk Christiansen, a Danish carpenter, had a wooden sign hanging on his wall that read, Det bedste er ikke for god: “Only the best is good enough. ” Today, Christiansen is remembered as the inventor of Lego, the colorful plastic bricks beloved by children around the
Read more
Dear Fellow Rotarians, We in Rotary aspire to great deeds. We admire those who gave great gifts to humanity: Abraham Lincoln, who gave the gift of human dignity to the downtrodden; Mother Teresa, who gave the gift of compassion to the forgotten; Mahatma Gandhi, who gave the gift of peaceful change to
Read more