AZ India

F E E L A T H O M E www.azindiatimes.com PAGE - 22 May 2019 1-844-AZINDIA Real Life Heroic Tales James Harrison Australia Australia’s James Harrison had a rough start. At the age of 13, he endured a near-fatal surgery to re- move a lung infected with metas- tasized pneumonia. The operation required a heavy blood transfu- sion. Grateful that the blood had saved his life, Harrison pledged to donate often. It was soon dis- covered that his blood contained an antibody that protects against Rhesus disease, a disorder that occurs when a mother and child have incompat- ible blood types. His blood eventually formed the basis for a vaccine against the disease called Anti-D. “The man with the golden arm” has given blood over 1,000 times and saved more than 2 million lives, including that of his own daughter, Tracey. Bishnu Shrestha India The Gurkhas are soldiers from India and Nepal who have proven over hundreds of years to be warriors of seemingly limitless courage. They are well known for car- rying the kukri, a large, oddly curved fighting knife. In Sep- tember 2010, Bishnu Shrestha was on a train after his Gurkha retirement cer- emony. He was on the way to Gorakhpur, a city in Uttar Pradesh, India, when the train was besieged by a gang of 15–40 armed thugs who began robbing the pas- sengers. Shrestha was prepared to surrender his valuables, until they grabbed the 18-year-old girl who was sitting beside him, with the intent of raping her. Bishnu leaped into action, attacking the men with his kukri. After some 10 minutes of vi- cious fighting, the robbers fled. They left behind their haul as well as three of their dead and eight more too grievously injured by Shrestha’s blade to escape. Bishnu suffered a wound on his left hand that took two months to heal. Grateful to the veteran soldier for saving the girl, her family offered him a large cash reward, which he declined. He said, “Fighting the enemy in battle is my duty as a soldier. Taking on the thugs on the train was my duty as a human being.” A Mayor And A Bishop Greece Zakynthos is an idyllic Greek island in the Ionian Sea. Dur- ing the Nazi occupation of Greece, the governor of Zakyn- thos went to the local mayor, Loukas Karrer, demanding a list of the Jews on the island. After consulting with clergy- man Bishop Chrysostomos, the mayor reported to the Na- zis, refusing to give any names. When the infuriated governor once again asked for a list of the Jews, the men handed over a piece of paper with only two names on it—their own. They also handed over a letter from Karrer to Hitler himself, insisting that the Jews of Zakynthos were under his protection and would not be surrendered. In the meantime, the Jews scattered across the island, hiding in Christian homes. When the Nazis withdrew from the island in October 1944, all 275 Jews had been saved by the actions of two brave men. Billy Ray Harris USA Billy Ray Harris was beg- ging for money in Kansas City when he got a stroke of incredible luck. A young woman named Sarah Dar- ling had meant to drop a few coins into his cup, but her engagement ring slipped off, and a homeless man now had a ring worth what, to him, was a small fortune. His first instinct was to pawn it, but when the jeweler shop nearby offered him $4,000, a pang of guilt stopped him from making the sale. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he just waited until he saw Sarah Darling again and asked her if she’d lost her ring. Darling, wanting to repay him, set up an online fund, hoping to raise a few dol- lars for the homeless man who had helped her. The story, though, went viral, and Harris got a lot more than he could have expected. The story drew the attention of Harris’s estranged family. His sister managed to track him down and invited him in, bringing him back into a family he hadn’t seen in years and letting him meet his nieces and nephews for the first time. When it was all over, the Darlings raised more than $185,000 for Billy Ray Harris. He was able to buy a home and a car and get his life back on track—which is worth a lot more than $4,000. PRESS RELEASE ravi.sharma.us@gmail.com By Ravi Sharma Pt. Vishnu Digambar Paluskar Music Festival On April 12th and 13th, 2019 Sangeetshri School of Music organized Pt. Vishnu Digambar Paluskar Music Festival to honor the gurus in their lineage (following the Guru Parampara tradition). Like every year, the event is held during Spring on the occasion of Ram-Navami. This music festival provides a platform for the budding musicians to present their art form as a tribute to Pt. V D Paluskar-ji, who is also known as Sangeet-Rishi and Sangeetodharak (the savior of Indian Classical Music). He was a world renowned musician and also the founder of the century old, Akhil Bharatiya Gandharva Mahavidyalaya Mandal (ABGMV Man- dal). On the first day of the event in north Phoenix, participants offered musical trib- utes to Pt. Paluskar-ji including several classical music compositions some of them were related to pandit-ji. Dr. Vijayshree Sharma herself performed and concluded the day with a Ram-bhajan. On the second day at ISKCON Chandler the dedication concert was celebrated. Students sang the famous Mangal Aarti (a classicalized form of Jai Jagadeesh Harey…) and learned about their gurus and grand gurus. This year featured, great musician and renowned musicologist, Pt. Omkarnath Thakur, the first dean of the music college at Banaras Hindu University. A number of excellent, diverse classical and semi-classical music performances were offered as tributes. The event concluded with Maha Prasad.

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