In this land of make-believe, I was roaming east and west only to find that people are no more than hypocrites. The more I made opinions, the more I fell—lost, injured, and crippled. I sometimes forget I am part of this community and I am no less in terms of hypocrisy. Maybe, that’s the way our creator made us. Or is that some genetic mistake? What so ever, this never-ending story of insincerity is actually never going to end.
In every second of my life, frustration kept building up in my mind. I tried so hard to control my stupid thoughts. They didn’t oblige. I looked around and found no one. My shadow refused to give shade to me. I turned to God only to find that he enjoys me being frustrated—like a little boy dropping an ant on a bucket full of water. Then, one fine day, I started creating a person inside me who understands me— the only person who understands me. How do I know him? Well, my tears introduced him to me, or rather me to him. We grew all along hand in hand. He taught me how to hate, love, and love hate. No other people stayed in my life as long as he did. Gradually, I started believing him more than anybody else. I needed no other company.
Years passed. I am 27 now. Now, I long for solitude as much as I wished for a company before. The man whom I travelled with all these years, the man who was my best friend, is taking me to the grave. It was too late when I recognized that I had been travelling with him all these years to the destination called ‘shame’. My present has become the parody of my past. At one point, when I saw my destination, I decided to return. I no longer trusted my friend. He grasped my hand and pleaded to stay with him. I smiled. Tears rolled down my cheeks. He knew he had to leave me. Our eyes met and I turned back and started walking. It was a silent farewell. We knew we won’t meet up any time in the future. I was leaking my memories all the way on my forlorn journey—a journey towards my destiny.
As a city, Vauban, Germany, has everything -- tree-lined streets, perfect houses -- but it's missing one urban fixture of the last 100 years or so: the car.
And Vauban residents don't mind one bit.
"We lived with a car -- I had a car, my wife had a car -- for 40 years, I think, and I don't like it, I don't miss it at all," said Hartmut Wagner, a Vauban resident.
Vauban doesn't ban cars entirely. Rather, it just tries to reduce the use of cars by creating "parking-free" and "car-free" living.
In Vauban, just outside the city of Freiburg, near the French and Swiss borders, parking spaces are prohibited on private property. Cars can only be parked in public parking lots, so living without a car saves residents the cost of parking in the public lot.
Cars also are prevented from using certain roads and must stick to strict speed limits. With these limitations, fewer than 20 percent of residents own cars.
ABC News
ABC News correspondent Jim Sciutto bikes... View Full Caption
Without cars, bikes are almost religion in this small town. Kids pick them up even before they can ride one.
"I go to work with my bike, kids go to school with the bike," said resident Gerlinde Schuwald. "It's a good feeling here in these areas. It's peaceful."
Vauban is about much more than just using two wheels instead of four. It's an environmentally-friendly city of the future, with organically grown food, renewable energy, and carbon-neutral homes.
"People make more money by selling electricity to the grid than they pay for heat," said Andreas Delleske, a Vauban resident.
Completed in 2006, Vauban was 20 years in the making, built on the site of a former military barracks that residents and the local government bought and redesigned. And now, with a population of 5,500, it's attracting attention from around the world.
A class of students taking a sustainability course at the University of California, Davis, recently visited Vauban to see if the technologies could be applied in the United States.
"The technologies are all transferable. Solar power. California has a lot of sun," said UC Davis professor Jeff Loux. "What's difficult for us to get a grasp on is the density they can achieve here, the fact that people live in smaller units."
Of course, no one loves cars as much as Americans do. But if this can happen in Germany, home of Mercedes and the high-speed Autobahn, then maybe Americans can do it, too. (And so can Indians; Hey, I meant it as a joke....)
By JIM SCIUTTO (@jimsciuttoABC) , TIM WATSON and MICHAEL MILBERGER
Aug. 29, 2009
And now, let’s do what we can do
Help the poor by saving a very reasonable amount each day.
Two rupees.
That’s it.
We don’t expect any larger amount than that. At the end of the month, you get 60. Spend that money for the needy. Join five member to the team, and you will have three hundred rupees. Join ten members, the figure will be six hundred. Imagine the team to be in hundreds, we don’t need to say you how to put a smile on a poor child’s face.
You can do that all by yourselves. You just need some like-minded friends at the scratch. When you move on, it becomes and habit and a way of life. You can hire a craft teacher and teach poor students for a day. We don’t serve a fish. We train to catch one.
We are initiating to form a large group of people to join the cause to strike hunger and illiteracy out of our country. With the plans of our own, we are ready to share our schemes whoever is willing to join the team and to achieve the objective.
There is no professional course to train anyone to be compassionate.
It’s the character of your mind.
And the poor expect simply that.
