Baljit > Recent Status Updates

The taste if bile from the pit of my stomach that made me realise, until now, I had not merely spent my life living within the borders of North Korea, but been imprisoned behind them.

The man riddled with bullets for stealing rice had been a starving farmer. Even someone who worked the land could not find enough to eat.

Being an immigrant meant to leave loved ones behind- part of yourself in permanent sleep.

To be an immigrant was to leave behind part of you and take with you only the essentials.

I didn't have a better phrase to describe how I felt-American youth suffered a different form of deprivation, which might include the lack of suffering itself.

The African model of leadership is better expressed as ubuntu, the idea that people are empowered by other people, that we become our best selves through unselfish interaction with others.

Fearlessness is stupidity. Courage is not letting the fear defeat you.

People are always dying in Afghanistan. That's just the way it goes. And maybe because people are always dying, the ones that are left alive don't spend that much time thinking about the ones that are dead. They just get on with things.

Sometimes, when you possess nothing at all the only thing you can do is hang on to your dignity. But even simple words can take that away from you if you're not careful.

Let us pick up our books and our pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.

In my part of the world most people are known by their sons. I am one of the few lucky fathers known by his daughter.

First the Taliban took our music, then our Buddhas, then our history.

My first job was with American soldiers. I learned many interesting words from them. Later, when I was working with the United Nations, I discovered that I could not use these words in the office. A few times I did, and I saw shocked and puzzled faces.

The day came, though, when there were no turban, no whip, and no Talib on the chair in the intersection. No one knew what to make of it, but just to be safe everyone still followed the Taliban rules.

I had always expected I would see our Buddha again. But the storm of ignorance that has been raging in Afghanistan for so many decades smashed him to bits before I could return. I once lived inside his head. Now he lives in mine.

The first rule of chuglia is: don't get caught trading in chuglia.

There comes a point in an argument with any Indian parent when they try to kill the conversation with 'Don't worry what will be, will be.' or the karmic variant, 'Chaloo koi gaal nahi'.

Freedom, I said, isn't some innate quality stamped on our foreheads like a product bar code; nor is it something external like a particular passport or the right amout of money in the bank. Freedom is an expression of the will, and the amount you have of it is in direct proportion to your mastery over fear and egotism. By exercising the will, the individual carves out a distinct identity.

Israel often used violence as a tactical step to provoke a violent reaction, which it then used as an excuse for further violence on pursuit of its political end.

Education is a tool to prevent people from passively stewing in their own resentment, and either giving up by submitting and lashing out by tossing bombs.

'I concluded from all this that ignorance, rather than some undefined evil intent, had to be at the core of our conflict.'

"It seems everyone I love is taken from me and buried in the ground while I remain alone.
Good thing, then, that there is no one left to love. No one left to bury."

I never thought a book on childcare could turn out to be so informative and entertaining. I find the cultural observations and comparisons q interesting.