Advice to South African Muslims - 2017

If you do this with great urgency, maybe you still have a chance to survive and prosper. If you don’t want to do this, then prepare to run like hell.

State of the Nation (SWOT Analysis of Muslims in Gauteng, South Africa – 2006)

South Africa is the land of dreams. The cap that apartheid placed on the aspirations of people and on their potential for power and influence has been lifted. South African political leadership demonstrated to the world grit and determination to free itself from slavery followed by the magnanimity to forgive those who had oppressed them. It is not an exaggeration to say that a parallel does not exist in recent history.

Democracy - Demo-Who?

What any good government must seek to do is to build a strong economy, an educated population which is healthy and has access to good healthcare at a reasonable cost (ideally free), smooth and safe movement of goods across the nation to ports or markets, and a country that is safe, internally and internationally.

The Boy and the Rock

The famous rocks of Banjara Hills are all gone. They lasted for 3.5 billion years, through ice ages, meteor impact, they saw the dinosaurs come and go, they saw civilizations rise and fall, until we came on the scene. The rest is history

Forest of the night

There are two forests. The day forest and the night forest. To experience this you must walk in the forest, with not more than a single companion. A companion who knows how to handle himself in the forest, who understands the forest and who is familiar with it. Not a companion that needs looking after.

Raising sons

Our boys are spaced out. We have a major boy-raising problem which should be addressed urgently. Boys are raised badly thanks to a combination of disinterested fathers and overindulgent mothers. Mothers ruin boys. They don’t ruin girls. Girls are taught boundaries, manners, caring, responsibility and accountability. But not boys. Especially not in Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures. Boys are indulged and their hormone induced bad behavior is tolerated and indulged and explained away as, “Boys will be boys.” That leeway is not given to girls.

What is in my control

... My motto is: “I will not allow what is not in my control to prevent me from doing what is in my control.” There is no copyright on this. You are welcome to use it without giving me credit. You are even more welcome to practice it yourself, because results come only from action. Not from talking about taking action.

Home is where the mango is

We have been in America for the past six years in a lovely small town (they call them City, in America) called West Springfield, South of Boston. T...

Being a Blackbuck

We spent two nights at the Karnataka Jungle Lodges & Resorts, Blackbuck Resort in Bidar. Lovely cottages, set in natural forest, on the bank of...

Tyger Tyger, burning bright

"Tyger Tyger, burning bright, / In the forests of the night" is the opening couplet of the famous 1794 poem "The Tyger" by English poet William Bla...

What do you measure?

You get what you measure... so let us ask, “How do we measure human worth?”