“No self is of itself alone. It has a long chain of intellectual ancestors. The “I” is chained to ancestry by many factors. This is not mere allegory, but an eternal memory.”  – Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961), Nobel Laureate The village of Bangalore is said to have been gifted to Kempe Gowda I (1513–1569) by the Vijayanagar emperors. The Ulsoor Lake was built by his successor, Kempe Gowda II, and is the only surviving tank built by the Gowda kings in Bangalore. The first British military station was set up in Halasuru in 1807. Halasuru is one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the city of Bangalore. Earlier, Halasuru was considered to be in the eastern part of Bangalore with a dominant Tamil-speaking population. Halasuru is renowned for its numerous temples and narrow streets. There used to be a jackfruit orchard near the Ulsoor Lake, and the Kannada name for jackfruit being ‘Halasina hannu,’ the area came to be known as ‘Halasuru’ (‘uru’ means ‘town’ in Kannada). During the Bri...

  “Migration will serve its purpose better if it is in the direction of modernization of mind and being more flexible“. Flight is one of the most astounding of avian attributes. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of flight is one that we cannot see – the ability of birds to traverse great, sometimes incredible distances. The Arctic Tern is the world champion of long-distance migration. Tracking studies have found that these birds make annual journeys of about 70,000 km. Birds migrate from areas of low or decreasing resources to areas of high or increasing resources. The two primary resources being sought are food and shelter (nesting location). Early humans also migrated for similar reasons -– changing climate and landscape as well as inadequate food-supply for the population. The Age of Exploration and European Colonialism led to an accelerated pace of migration. War, genocide, and natural calamity, as well as crisis sparked by them, had an enormous impact on migration. Perhaps si...

  “Happiness is not to be found in possessions.  Happiness is a state of mind, it comes unsought and it is  by-product of wholesome, sensible and unselfish living and thinking”.  –Paul P Harris, Founder, Rotary International (1868–1947) In 1922, Albert Einstein1 travelled to Tokyo for a lecture tour.  The story goes that soon after he had settled in his quarters at the Imperial Hotel, a bellboy arrived to deliver a message to him. It was then that one of two things happened: either Einstein realized that he had no small change with him to tip, or the bellboy refused any compensation in accordance to the local custom. So instead, Einstein scrawled two messages on the hotel stationery before handing them to the bellboy. “If you are lucky,” he said, “the notes themselves will someday be worth more than some spare change.” Indeed, those notes sold for $1.3 million in 2017. What’s relevant is not the monetary value of the notes themselves but what was inscribed upon ...

  “Money alone does little good,  Individual service is helpless without money.  The two together can be God-sent to civilization”.  -Arch C Klump, Founder, the Rotary Foundation Having joined Rotary in the year 1988, it took nine years for me to join the club’s board and contribute something to the society. It took another three years for me to lead the club and take it to some heights in terms of community service projects. I could understand the real spirit of Rotary and its motto, Service Above Self, only when I started getting involved in implementing the matching grant (MG) projects (since 2014, called ‘Global Grant’), mainly in the area of Avoidable Blindness (AB). As I had mentioned in one of the earlier episodes, any position that one occupies in Rotary is voluntary. It is the prerogative of the District Governor to invite Past Presidents of the clubs for some position or the other at the district level depending on their interests. Though I had held the pos...

  “Personality has power to uplift, power to depress,  power to curse, and power to bless” –Paul P Harris, Founder of Rotary (1868–1947) Major life-changing events such as marriage or retirement involve an ongoing process of emotional adjustment. While marriage, retirement and a few other events that have telling impact on human mind have been the focus of research and analysis by both clinical therapists and specialised research institutions, the emotional and psychological frontiers of a retired Rotary president remains a virtually unexplored area. I generally plan my next line of activities well before I come out of the one I’m engaged with. I had already informed the Board that I would be resigning from the post of Executive Director of Clixport India Private Limited, from the financial year 2001-02. So during July to September I completed the process of fulfilling all the statutory requirements with reference to Income Tax and Registrar of Companies for the financial year...

  “Wouldn’t it be great to have more of a sense of purpose to your life?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have more real friends?  Think how you would feel if you were able to be a part of a worldwide network  that’s committed to business ethics, community improvement and service to humanity”. -Frank J Devlyn, R.I.President (2000–01) The President of Rotary International (RI) is chosen by a committee of seventeen past zone directors in the month of September every year. Rotarians who aspire to become the RI President should have completed their term as club president, district governor and zone director. The RI President is chosen twenty months before he takes charge. The nominated RI President develops a theme for his year and announces it at the International General Assembly that takes place every January at San Diego, USA. More than five hundred elected District Governors—and their spouses—across the world who take over leadership of their respective districts from t...