"Daddy," said a six-year-old boy, "I'd like to get married.


"Sure, son." said his father. "Anyone special in mind?"


"Yes," answered the boy. "Grandma."


"Now, wait a minute," said his father.


"You don't think I'd let you marry my mother, do you!!"


"Why not?" the boy asked. "You married mine."

Memories from the past

Forever do they last?

Can I forget them for a while?

And enjoy a brief smile

They've become part of me, I know.

From whom some relief can I borrow?

I tried hard but in vain

There're only tears, only pain.

Will there ever come a day

When there'll be light all the way?

I'm waiting for that distant star

I just hope it's not too far.

Any longer, I can't wait

Yet maybe it's already too late

For memories from the past

Forever, they do last!

My Dog can Walk on Water

There was a hunter who came into the possession of a special bird dog. The dog was the only one of its kind, because it can walk on water. One day he invited a friend to go hunting with him so that he could show off his prized possession. After some time, they shot a few ducks, which fell into the river. The man ordered his dog to run and fetch the birds. The dog ran on water to fetch the birds. The man was expecting a compliment about the amazing dog, but did not receive it. Being curious, he asked his friend if the friend had noticed anything unusual about the dog. The friend replied, "Yes, I did see something unusual about your dog. Your dog can't swim!" Success Principles More than 90% of the people that we face everyday are negative. They choose to look at the hole in the middle rather than the doughnut. Do not expect compliments or encouragement from them. These are the people who cannot pull you out of your present situation. They can only push you down.

A rare, eminently readable, honest piece on Bhutto - By Karan Thapar

Source:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/FullcoverageStoryPage.aspx?id=9f49d81b-02a2-4924-94f4-708f57a12d43Benazirassassinated_Special&MatchID1=4626&TeamID1=1&TeamID2=6&MatchType1=1&SeriesID1=1165&MatchID2=4618&TeamID3=3&TeamID4=4&MatchType2=1&SeriesID2=1163&PrimaryID=4626&Headline=My+friend%2c+Benazir

SITTING IN my digs at Cambridge after dinner during the Easter vacation of 1976, Benazir, who had driven over from Oxford that morning with her friend Tricia, suddenly suggested we dash out for ice cream. So we bundled into her MGB sports car which was parked outside. But instead of driving towards the centre of town, she headed for the A40.

"Where are you going?" I asked perplexed.

"London! It's the nearest Baskin Robbins I know."

Benazir loved ice cream. She could eat vast quantities of it. In later years, her favourite became Ben & Jerry's. Whenever I finished a particularly acrimonious interview, she would insist that we eat ice cream together.

"It will cool you down!" she would laugh.

There were several interviews that annoyed her, a few that upset her and at least one that riled her. But she never held that against me. She accepted that a journalist had a job to do just as she insisted that a politician couldn't answer every question. She always ensured that our professional relationship - as interviewer and Prime Minister or Opposition leader - remained separate from our friendship.

As a young politician, in the years after her father's cruel hanging, she often consciously modelled herself on Indira Gandhi. I remember her fascination for the traditional Indian namaste. "It's dignified, friendly but not familiar," she once said. I suspect the adab that she made her personal greeting was in her eyes an equivalent.

In 1984, when Maqbool Butt was about to be hanged, Benazir wrote to Indira Gandhi pleading that he be saved.

"Why are you doing that?" I asked. I couldn't understand her need to write the letter. I thought it was a mistake.

"I have to, Karan," she explained. "I've lived through my father's hanging and I know the trauma it created for the family I can't watch someone else go through the same misery without doing what I can to prevent it."

Indira Gandhi never replied but Benazir didn't hold that against her.

As a Bhutto daughter, Benazir was always conscious of her family's similarity with the Gandhis. After Sanjay Gandhi's plane crash and Indira's assassination in the early 80s were followed by her brother Shahnawaz's mysterious death, she once commented that there was a curse on both families. At the time, Rajiv's killing and her own were still far in the future. To day there can be no doubt about that curse.

In 1988, when Rajiv visited Islamabad, during the early weeks of her first prime ministership, she invited him and Sonia to a private family dinner on their first night. Her husband Asif, her mother Nusrat and her sister Sanam were the only other people present. In those days, a common joke in both countries was that Rajiv and Benazir should marry each other and sort out their two countries' problems. Benazir told me they laughed over it at dinner.

"Rajeev", as she always pronounced his name, adopting a misplaced Punjabi accent for a Westernised Sindhi, "is so handsome," she said when I next met her. And then she added, "But he's equally tough."

During the BJP years, Benazir forged a link with the Advani family with equal facility and friendship. A few months after her first meeting with L.K. Advani, we were together in Washington for the Prayer Breakfast of 2002. During a break in one of the sessions, she insisted that I accompany her shopping. "But we're walking, okay? I need the exercise and so do you!"

As we sauntered down Connecticut Avenue, she stopped outside an old-fashioned bookshop. Minutes later she bought a Robert Kaplan paperback as a gift for Advani. I carried it back to Delhi. It was the first of several similar gifts she sent to him through me.

I know that as Prime Minister, her two terms in office disillusioned many Her fans were disappointed whilst her . critics felt justified. But between 1989 and 2007 the change that characterised her attitude to India and Kashmir in particular steadily progressed and didn't falter. From the young Prime Minister who would shout on television "Azadi, Azadi, Azadi!", she became the first, the most consistent and perhaps the strongest proponent of a joint India-Pakistan solution to Kashmir. As early as 2001, she began to speak about soft borders, free trade and even, perhaps unrealistically a joint parliament for the two halves of Kash , mir. Musharraf 's concept of self-governance and joint management draws heavily upon her original thinking.

When I last interviewed her in September, days before her return to Pakistan, she went further than ever before. Not only did she forcefully repeat her commitment to clamp down on all private militias and shut terrorist camps but, in addition, she promised to consider the extradition of Dawood Ibrahim and even the possibility of giving India access to men like Hafiz Mohammed Sayeed and Masood Azhar.

In private conversation, she would readily admit that the strident Prime Minister of 1988-89 was a mistake. In fact, she came close to saying as much on television as well. Had she lived to become Prime Minister, I feel certain she would have fulfilled this commitment. This is why she was so upset, actually angry at the National Security Advisor's scepticism of her. Her death is, therefore, an irreparable loss for India as well.

The two months since her return to Pakistan have proved beyond doubt her incredible bravery But it wasn't . just death that she refused to be frightened of. She was equally fearless of failure. In 1986, at the peak of the Zia dictatorship, an untried and inexperienced 33-year-old flew home to challenge the might of the General and his loyal army .

"Are you worried?" I asked on her last night in London.

"When something has to be done, fear is the last thought in my mind." To some that might sound pompous, but I took it as a reflection of her steely confidence.

This October, when I asked her if she could repeat the miracle a second time, she shot back with the question, "Why do you ask?" I told her that now she was 54, she had been Prime Minister twice and disappointed many and Pakistan was a very different country .

She heard me in silence and then softly smiled. Her eyes seemed to take on a knowing but playful look. When she spoke, her words sounded measured and well-considered.

"It will be an even bigger return home."

In fact, it was an explosive return. But I doubt Benazir would have wanted to die of old age. Instead, she died a hero, a martyr and an inspiration for many.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the father she adored, would have been proud of his Pinky But she leaves behind three . young children and an ailing mother who will miss her sorely And there is a hole at the heart of Pakistan's re . turn to democracy that may never get filled. Was she her country's last chance of a peaceful, moderate, enlightened, Muslim future?

The day after her death, I received Benazir's New Year card. It reads, 'Praying for peace in the world and happiness for your family in 2008.' Unfortunately, they were denied to her.

We live in a pathologically dissatisfied world. And I'm going

to tell you why. Because we love to compare....

Go around the world and discover that people aren't happy with

their bodies. Filipinos want to be fair-complexioned like

Westerners and so buy bleaching stuff. Westerners want to own

bronzed bodies like ours and so purchase tanning lotions. Those

with moles have them removed, while those who don't

strategically implant beauty spots. Some people want to shed a

few pounds to look like Ally McBeal, while others want to gain

some baby fat to look like Drew Barrymore. When are we ever

going to stop and simply be happy with how we look? We live in a sick

world, I tell you. And that sickness is comparison it is.

Take a look at wealth.....

When we drive our old Maruthi Car, it really suits us fine. We feel

blessed in fact when the rain pours outside and we feel snug

and cozy on its faded upholstered seats. But the moment we see

our own office mate (or neighbor, or buddy, or cousin, or

brother) drive his sleek sky-blue, four-door, four-wheel-drive

Honda, we automatically feel like third-class children of

God. Next time we drive our bumpy, noisy, rusted, dilapidated

Honda, (notice how all the defects come out all of a sudden?),

we feel deprived, dispossessed, pariah, debased and only a

little higher than the insects of the earth.

Bill Gates total assets are worth $60 billion. That's more than

the GNP of some small countries.

Tiger Woods earns $80 million simply by smiling on TV in a Nike

shirt.

And the stars of the sitcom Friends are paid $750,000 per

episode!

My point? No matter how hard you work, there'll still be some

people who will be richer than you are. And there'll be some

people who will be more beautiful, have more appeal and have

more problems.

Try it for once. Stop looking around. Don't compare!

Don't compare her nose with your nose.

Don't compare his wife with your wife.

Don't compare his salary with your salary.

Don't compare her kid's report card with your kid's report card.

Don't compare his prayer group with your prayer group.

Don't compare her cellulite deposits with your cellulite deposits.

For crying out loud, Stop comparing and Start living!

The most difficult thing in the world is to be who you are not.

Pretending and trying to be someone else is the official

pastime of the human race. (I don't think dogs and cats and

cows and horses have this problem.) And the easiest thing in

the world is to be yourself. Be happy. Live!

There must be a reason why God made you tall or short or fat or

thin or bumpy all over. Love who you are!

Be happy, it's not that difficult!

A Successful Relationship . . .

One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.

Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down.

It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers.

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual.

On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. "Really?" she heard whispered. "I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!" and, "I didn't know others liked me so much," were most of the comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.

Several years later, one of the students was killed in Viet Nam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature.

The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin.

As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. "Were you Mark's math teacher?" he asked. She nodded: "yes." Then he said: "Mark talked about you a lot."

 

After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to a luncheon. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher.

"We want to show you something," his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket. "They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it."

 

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him.

"Thank you so much for doing that," Mark's mother said. "As you can see, Mark treasured it."

All of Mark's former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, "I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home."

Chuck's wife said, "Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album."

"I have mine too," Marilyn said. "It's in my diary."

Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. "I carry this with me at all times," Vicki said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: "I think we all saved our lists."

That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.

The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be.

So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is too late.

Remember, you reap what you sow. What you put into the lives of others comes back into your own