Tags
Click on the link to enjoy the virtual experience:
Eat:
Well folks, I have ventured out and started eating vegetables outside of the school and reputable restaurants. I am happy to report that this endeavor has left me Delhi belly free! This week was filled with cucumbers, beets, carrots, and green peppers. Still left to try: rutabaga, sweet potatoes, cabbage, and greens. Have to prepare myself for the upcoming holiday visit to the states and the tables where I hope to dine (hint, hint). 🙂
Pray:
I had the opportunity to go and have prayer at the Lotus Temple, originally known as the Bahai House of Worship. This structure sits on a massive expanse of land measuring 26 acres and receives approximately 13,000 visitors a day. The architectural excellence of Mr. Fariburz Sabha can be described as one of a kind which is depicted in the shape of a half opened lotus flower (national flower of India) made of pure floating marble on a pond. The auditorium which one visits in silence can accommodate almost 2, 500 people at one time. This engineering delight has won the temple many accolades and awards and has named it as the ‘Taj Mahal’ of the 20th Century.
Source: http://www.delhiinformation.org/temples/lotustemple.html
Also visited was Gandhi Smriti (Gandhi Remembrance) formerly known as Birla House or Birla Bhavan. This is the place where Mahatma Gandhi spent the last 144 days of his life before being assassinated while going to pray. The house originally belonged to Indian business tycoons, the Birlas. Now it houses the Eternal Gandhi Multimedia Museum established in 1995.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi_Smriti
Love:
The architecture and technology of buildings built in both the 19th and 20th century are to be deeply appreciated and loved. I was amazed by both visits to the Lotus Temple and Gandhi Smriti and would definitely recommend them as sites to see while in India. Still awaiting visitors by the way… I would LOVE to visit the Taj Mahal sometime soon! J
Teach:
I learned a tremendous amount of information about Mahatma Gandhi. One of the most astonishing facts was Gandhi’s tenure in South Africa as a lawyer. His contributions to South Africa and India are best captured by the words of Nelson Mandela:
“He dared to exhort nonviolence in a time when the violence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had exploded on us; he exhorted morality when science, technology and the capitalist order had made it redundant; he replaced self-interest with group interest without minimizing the importance of self. India is Gandhi’s country of birth; South Africa his country of adoption. He was both an Indian and a South African citizen. He was both an Indian and a South African citizen. Both countries contributed to his intellectual and moral genius, and he shaped the liberatory movements in both colonial theaters. He is the archetypal anticolonial revolutionary. Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 at the age of 23. Within a week he collided head on with racism. His immediate response was to flee the country that so degraded people of color, but then his inner resilience overpowered him with a sense of mission, and he stayed to redeem the dignity of the racially exploited, to pave the way for the liberation of the colonized the world over and to develop a blueprint for a new social order. He left 21 years later, a near maha atma (great soul). There is no doubt in my mind that by the time he was violently removed from our world, he had transited into that state.”