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What is Ramadan?
Contrary to ignorantly romantic notions, fasting in Ramadan is not prescribed to teach the wealthy what it means to be poor. Poverty is about insecurity, lack of choice, lack of dignity, compulsion, fear and despair. Poverty is about living on the edge without any safety net. It is not about present hardship but of looking…
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Committing matrimony
Truth, Caring, Mutual respect are what I call my three Cardinal Principles of happy marriages. Please notice that I am not using the word ‘love’. Love comes out of these three things. What is called love is usually physical desire. The shape or size of someone’s body is not the inspiration for love; it can…
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Yala 2019
Having finished our tea and loaded our camera equipment and ourselves into the Mahindra Bolero ‘Jeep’, we set off for our morning ‘safari’. Sri Lankan national parks use several different ‘safari’ vehicles. Toyota Hilux, Toyota Land Cruiser, Land Rover and Mahindra Bolero. Of these the Mahindra Bolero ‘Jeep’ is the most uncomfortable and potentially unsafe.…
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Language opens hearts
The more I spent time with myself, clearer it became that it is important to be ‘friends’ with yourself. The more you are self-aware and comfortable internally, the more you can enjoy the world outside. When you are not aware of what is happening to you inside or are unhappy with decisions you have taken,…
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The Reality
The challenge is to educate those who will be affected by global changes. What is their level of awareness? Simply ask anyone the meaning of “Big Data”, “Artificial Intelligence”, “Peak Oil”, “Climate Change”, “Global Warming” and you have the answer. Most people simply don’t even know what these things are, much less how they will…
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The Twins
They are perhaps eighteen months old, bigger than the biggest leopard, yet vulnerable and in danger, when apart from their mother. Their mother, Ranthambore’s T-19 Krishna, like all tiger mothers, knows that raising young is a full-time job and Alexa can’t do it. Tiger cubs are born blind, the size of a house cat, totally…
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Kumbha
Human intervention in our national parks is a very serious problem in all parks. In some of them we have highways and train tracks running through the park paid for with the lives of animals crossing them. In others there are villages or temples which result in both pollution with paper and plastic as well…
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Raising children in the West
We must remember that children listen with their eyes. They don’t care what you say, until they see what you do. So, raising children has less to do with children and more to do with parents. As you are, so will they be. That is why they are your Sadaqatul Jaariya and not vice versa.
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Example for our times
They say that reading biographies is perhaps the best way to learn real life lessons. That is because a biography is a record of practice. Of what worked and what didn’t. The life of Muhammadﷺ is perhaps one of the most well documented in human history. Here was someone who in a period of 23…
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Caring means to work
It was early morning and the forest was filled with birdsong. A Shama (White-rumped shama – Copsychus malabaricus) alighted on a twig facing me, scarcely five feet away and gave me a personal recital of his song. I wanted to photograph him but decided only to let my memory do the job for fear of scaring…