Indian Author Wins Booker Prize

Aravind Adiga has won this year's Man Booker Prize with his debut novel The White Tiger.
The 33-year-old Indian-born writer was also the youngest author on the shortlist for the £50,000 prize.
He wrote "the kind of book I'd like to read", he told the BBC. "I like books that have ideas in them and that move and entertain."
The chairman of the judges, former politician Michael Portillo, said: "In many ways it was the perfect novel."
Adiga beat favourite Sebastian Barry to take the accolade as well as the other contenders, Amitav Ghosh, Steve Toltz, Linda Grant and Philip Hensher.
The White Tiger, a tale of two Indias, tells the story of Balram, the son of a rickshaw puller in the heartlands, one of the "faceless" poor left behind by the country's recent economic boom.
It charts his journey from working in a teashop to entrepreneurial success.
It's a quest to break out of the circumstances you find yourself in - it's a quest for freedom
Aravind Adiga
"Making it to the shortlist on a first novel is sort of like winning and anything beyond that is quite a bonus," Adiga said.
He said the book was set in today's India and "revolves around the great divide between those Indians who have made it and those who have not".
"At the heart of the book it is something existential," he added. "It's a quest to break out of the circumstances you find yourself in - it's a quest for freedom."
'Perfect novel'
Announcing the winner at a ceremony in London, Mr Portillo said: "My criteria were 'Does it knock my socks off?' and this one did ... the others impressed me ... this one knocked my socks off."

Aravind Adiga on winning the Man Booker prize for The White Tiger
Mr Portillo said what set the book apart was its originality in showing "the dark side of India".
He said: "The novel is in many ways perfect. It is quite difficult to find any structural flaws with it."
There were more than two contenders for the prize on the shortlist, but the winner was "absolutely not a compromise", Mr Portillo added.
"There really was a decision. The judges were asked to express their satisfaction and they all did."
Adiga is the fourth first-time novelist to win the prize. Previous debut winners were Keri Hulme's The Bone People in 1985; Arundhati Roy in 1997 for God of Small Things; and Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre in 2003.
Adiga is a former correspondent for Time magazine and has written for the Independent, and the Sunday Times.
The win means he can expect an upturn in sales and added recognition.

The five other shortlisted authors can also expect a rise in sales
Adiga, who had been given odds of 7/1 to win before the ceremony, dedicated the award to "the people of New Delhi".


The award, which honours the best fiction written in English by an author from the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth, was handed out at the Guildhall in London on Tuesday.

(taken from BBC.com)

Other Indian authors to have won the Booker Prize are

Salman Rushdie (UK/India)

Arundhati Roy

Kiran Desai

Several Indian authors have have shortlisted for the prize over the years.

Faces of Prayer

Matthew 18:3And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. I took this photo at the Kidz Fest.Look at the different expressions.
Specially the little boy with a finger in his mouth and eyes half open.

Thank you Pia for a gift from the Phillipines. Autumn comes late in India, so I saved it for the season to change.

Sunday Blessings - Kar Seva

My Mum was not well on Thursday and Friday.
On Friday morning the YWAM Team came to spend time in prayer in our church.We invited them to pray for us and they came right over. We had a beautiful time of worship and prayer in different languages - it was manna to our hungry souls.The young people had a special message for us too.
Before leaving they said they wanted to come on Saturday morning to clean the church. In India it is called Kar Seva - labour of love, voluntary service rendered at a religious place or in a needy situation.

On Saturday the team worked so hard cleaning the sanctuary. They started right from the roof.

The doors

Walls

Fans

Pulpit

Making sure the walls are clean

Furniture

The brought soap and washed the curtains and washed the floor.
Here they are taking a tea break on our veranda

These young people were such a tremendous blessing to us.

We just praise God for them.
They displayed faith and works.

This is what the body of Christ is for, serving one another.

My mother is better now and eating some more.

I need prayers as I have a painful sty infection in my left eye. Must have caught it in the hospital when I to see the Doctor about Mom.

I am on anti-biotics.

Tomorrow Sonia and her hubby and son are coming for a day.

Looking forward to that.

I 'M EXCITED

From Oct. 26th to 29th there will be Christian Conference in a venue very close to my house. This is the UPEGF Annual Conference.

This is an organization we have grown up with , very like the IVF.

Friends from all over the state will be attending.The last conference I attended was about 7 or 8 years ago when I was healthier.This is such a privilege and joy to me to be able to participate after so many years.I long for occasions like this.

Indeed God 's blessing.I will keep you posted.

Little Crusader - Devli Kumari

Devli Kumari when she was 8 years old Devli Kumari is anxious about her forthcoming trip to New York – not about addressing the United Nations General Assembly on child labour, but because she fears her name may be struck off the school rolls if she takes longer than the five-day leave sanctioned to get back.
The 11-year-old Jodhpur girl, born in a family of bonded labourers who worked as stone-cutters, began work at four. The family of six would wake at 3 am every day, and work in stone quarries at Charkhi Dadri in Bhiwani district of Haryana till 9 pm. For this, they were given a kilo ( about 2 pounds) of flour once in two days.
“As soon as a child was able to clasp a hammer, he/she was made to break stones and load them on trucks”, she says, rubbing a scar on the back of her left hand. “A stone once fell and I got hurt.”
Till they were rescued in 2004, Devli and her family had never eaten a fruit or lived in a shelter with electricity. “They asked me what kind of potato the banana was when I offered one to them. Onions and potatoes were all that they used to eat,” recalls Kailash Sathyarthi, the founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, (Save Childhood Movement) the organisation that rescued Devli and her family.
They now live in accommodation provided by the Jodhpur district administration. Devli studies in Class 5 in Jodhpur's RSI Adarsha Primary School. Her track record is impressive - in 2004, she spoke at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, and in 2005 she attended the second World Children's Congress on child labour and education. “I want to learn English, I want to study till I'm at least 16 and become a teacher when I grow up,” she says. “It's considered a great thing in our community if you can read the numbers of buses and trains so that you are able to go where you want to on your own. And it's also easier to get a job if you're educated…" she then turns to her supervisor to tell her she wants to wear jeans and a t-shirt as well as a salwar kameez “but not without a chunni” for her UN meet. ( a salwar - kameez is a traditional Indian dress for ladies, it consists of a long shirt and loose pants, a chunni is a long scarf)
This article has been taken from the Hindustan Times newspaper -parenthesis mine.
A family of 6 surviving on a pound of flour a day with some potatoes and onion. Did not know what a banana wasThis is the world we are living in.This kind of story first makes me angry, then gives me hope.

Praise God, today my mother is much better.

She had some fruit juice and food.She 'll get over it.

Thank you for your prayers.

Sunday Blessings - Peace March

A short while ago I returned from taking part in a silent

candle light Peace March organized by all the churches of Allahabad .

This was is support of our distressed brothers and sisters in Orisaa

More than 5000 people from both Protestant and Catholic
denominations participated in this demonstration

The walk commenced at the Catholic Cathedral and

concluded at the Anglican Cathedral.

Three bishops addressed a public meeting in which we expressed our solidarity with the riot victims and asked for protection and justice for

those who are reeling under anti communal atrocities.

The meeting ended with prayer and loud shouts of

Yesu Masih ki Jai (Praise the name of Jesus)

and

Bharat Mata ki Jai (Praise be to Mother India)

We were given heavy police protection and several city officials

also participated.

I almost didn 't go as a few days a ago a poisonous insect bit me and my face has been very painful and I have heaviness in my head and

a nagging headache.

But I just couldn 't stop myself.

What is my little ache and pain before those who have

lost their lives and everything in the fire.

And I am glad I went for my pain is insignificant in

comparison to what others are going through.
The Bible says,in the body of Christ , the church,

when one member suffers all suffer.

1 Cor 12 (NIV) 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Sunday Blessings - Children of the Day!

For he will command his angels concerning to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.Psalm 91;11,12 (New International Version)

On her way to church my mother again had a fall.

It was not very serious,she just sank down on the steps as she could not negotiate the high,uneven steps.

Our church steps are about 200 years old, built for strong British soldiers who could scamper up and down (it was a Garrison church)

The aging members of our church find it difficult to climb up those steps.

When the Lord will enable us, we will fix them or build a proper ramp.

No bones broken, but pretty shaken up .The angels were there to cushion her fall.Please pray for my mother, she is not eating properly and that is causing her to become weak.

Sometimes the sky looks very dark

This morning before leaving for church I was listening to a Christian Radio Station and there was a song by 'Children of the Day 'called"For Those Tears I Died" I just started crying as I listened to that song.I used to sing it ages ago with my sisters and it really wrapped itself around my heart as I face my daily trials.

Jesus wept so that he may wipe away my tears

He died so that I may live

Everyone who is hurting or facing a difficult situation take courage.
From the mid 70s to the 80s there was hardly any Christian music available in my city. I used to listen to missionary Radio stations.

They were my daily sustanence - food water and air.

FEBC - Manila Philippines

FEBA - Seychelles (Indian Ocean)

Trans World Radio - Shri Lanka

TWR - Agana, Guam

SLBC - Shri Lanka etc

Family Radio (North America)

I learnt all my songs from these broadcasts.

Spent all my free time trying to record songs on a little tape recorder and play the tapes over and over again to transcribe the lyrics.

I spent a major part of my pocket money writing to the radio stations.

Most of the time the reception was not good enough, and I couldn 't decipher the words, but I just kept going.

I learnt this song that way.

It is like a cool drink for my thirsty soul.

As a Post script to this video I must add that a friend told me about Marsha Stevens, the woman who wrote this song and is singing in this presentation.She has fallen away from the Lord and no longer upholds Biblical morality or values. I don 't subscribe to her present music or teaching. But there is a lesson to be learnt from this. If you are faithful to the Word of God God can use you as His instrument, the moment you turn away from Him you can be anything you want.