On Monday, I gave a talk at Cal State Long Beach’s South Asia day called The Law of Love which traced the journey of Friends Without Borders’ friendship efforts in South Asia between 2005-7. The true message was about practicing the process of placing empathy and love at the center of what you do in [...]
Archive for the ‘Manav Sadhna’ Category
Sharing the Law of Love
Posted in Friends Without Borders, Inspiration, Manav Sadhna, tagged Ekatva, Friends Without Borders, Law of Love, smile cards on April 14, 2012 | 1 Comment »
World’s Toilet Crisis (and Edu-Taining Media)
Posted in Insight, Inspiration, Lok Darshan, Manav Sadhna, Technology, tagged Adam Yamaguchi, Aravind Eye Hospitals, arvind singhal, Avaaj Otalo, Bindeshwar Pathak, Current TV, Digital Green, Dr. Arvind Singhal, Environmental Sanitation Institute, Gram Vikas, IDE International, InSPIRE, Jack Sim, Jasoos Vijay, Joe Madiath, Lok Darshan, Madhusudan Agrawal, MaM Movies, Manav Sadhna, Meghna Banker, Planet Read, Sulabh International, Sweccha, Vanguard, Video Volunteers, Vimlendu Jha, World Toilet Organization, World's Toilet Crisis, Yamuna River on June 17, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Its the title of a recent Current TV Vanguard episode that literally gets to the bottom of the 2.6 billion people worldwide who lack access to a toilet. The topic is covered in an authentic, bold, and balanced way that is informative, shocking, disgusting, even entertaining at times– a must watch for anyone curious about [...]
Music Video Featuring Manav Sadhna Superstars
Posted in Inspiration, Manav Sadhna, tagged Anjali Desai, Aparna Santhakumar, Aparna Wilder, Bharat, Bhaskar, Jagat bhai, Jagatbhai, Jignesh, Kiran, Manav Sadhna, music video, Parvati, Raghu, Sandeep, Shirish bhai, Shivraj Santhakumar, Upendra, Wildkumar on February 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
When music video geniuses Shivraj & Aparna of WildKumar go to Ahmedabad with their cameras, you know something beautiful is going to happen. In January of 2008, they shot this recently released video featuring many Manav Sadhna superstars, complete with their signature ring lights glowing in their eyes. Those who have been to MS will [...]
A Slum Community Kitchen
Posted in Manav Sadhna, Spirituality, tagged Ahmedabad, Ankur Shah, Asha Patel, Current TV, Gandhi Ashram, India, Manav Sadhna, Slums, Stanford on June 2, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Across the street from the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, India lies one of Gujarat’s largest slums. Most who hear of it expect to find despair, hardship and disease lurking in every corner. While it’s difficult to deny those facts, we came across American-born Ankur Shah, a Stanford graduate, who saw a rare form of beauty [...]
Cleansing the Streets as a Ragpicker
Posted in Insight, Inspiration, Manav Sadhna, Spirituality, tagged Ahmedabad, Anarben Patel, Anjali Desai, Bollywood, India, Larry Brilliant, Ragpicking, Ramapir-no-tekro, Seva Cafe on March 3, 2006 | 1 Comment »
Anjali and I decided on an early arrival in the tekra to spend the morning with twelve-year-old Jayshree and her ten-year-old sister Bharti. I walk from a dirt road to tar road, to catch a rickshaw to the ashram where Anarben drives us to the edge of the slum. I N N N N N [...]
Twenty Four Hours with Manav Sadhna
Posted in Inspiration, Manav Sadhna, Spirituality, tagged Ahmedabad, Anarben Patel, Gaurav Parnami, GIS, India, Indicorps, Kiefer Sutherland, Nipun Mehta, Rish Sanghvi, Viren Joshi on February 19, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
There was a hit series a while ago called ‘24’ which captured 24 hours in the riveting life of some secret agent played by Kiefer Sutherland. Now in India for just over 24 hours, I feel like the last 24 hours in my life have been like watching something like a ‘service 24’ worthy of [...]
Improving India vs. Abandoning India
Posted in Insight, Manav Sadhna, tagged Ahmedabad, Gandhi Ashram, India, Jamnagar, Manav Sadhna, Mark Peters, rickshaw driver on June 23, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
Diplomacy is nice. Courteousness is pleasant. Rules are important. Still, I’m wary of most people who are always diplomatic, courteous, and rule- abiding. While bluntness can often be offensive and inappropriate, there’s an honesty and spontaneity about it that I appreciate even when it’s harsh. Rules create order, but can stifle what’s natural, which in [...]
A Nikola Tesla of India’s Slums: or An Untouchable Genius
Posted in Insight, Inspiration, Manav Sadhna, tagged Chandragupta Maurya, Gandhi Ashram, genius in the slums, Gujarati genius, harijan genius, IndiaGuide, low-caste genius, Manav Sadhna, Moti Parmar, Nikola Tesla, Nikola Tesla of India's Slums, Parmar Moti, Ragu Padmanabhan, slum genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Tesla, untouchable genius on May 4, 2005 | Leave a Comment »
Note: This post was migrated from my original LiveJournal blog (http://rahulbrown.livejournal.com) and was previously titled ‘Tekra’s Tesla’. All original comments can be seen there. After my first visit to the library inside Manav Sadhna’s center in the Tekra, I noticed that there was only one book in English on the shelf. I immediately resolved to [...]
