Outy was it 'help an Indian day' at scouts?
If I ever get an opportunity to help someone other than a Pakistani, I will make sure that I post a thread on GS as well...
So far, the prospects are bleak...
http://www.gupistan.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=117490#post1840410
One good deed deserves another
So, going back to the topic, Outy, did you guys make out or what?
Indians are our brothers.
New ways in a new world
Sunday, October 19, 2003
By Frank Reeves, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03292/232288.stm
When Nalin Gupta left home in India to come to the United States to study at the University of Pittsburgh, he knew he’d soon be learning skills to prepare him for a career in business. But what he probably didn’t know was that one of his first lessons would deepen his humanity.
Nalin Gupta, an MBA student at the University of Pittsburgh, said his arrival in the U.S. from New Delhi, India, has changed his views of himself and others. (Martha Rial, Post-Gazette)
Click photo for larger image.
Gupta, 23, an MBA student at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, arrived in Pittsburgh recently after a grueling flight from New Delhi to Pittsburgh, via Frankfurt, Germany, and Chicago. All the more so for someone who was flying on a jet for the first time.
Even for Gupta, who describes himself as “a very confident person,” his first hours in the United States were a bit disconcerting.
There were flight delays at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
“Literally 30 or 40 planes waiting in queue. It was like everyone was stopped at a red light in a traffic jam in New Delhi,” he said.
And the flight from Chicago to Pittsburgh passed through less-than-friendly skies. “It was a small plane and not a very stable ride,” he said.
He managed with little trouble to get an express bus to Oakland, where the driver dropped him off at the Pitt student dorms – Litchfield Towers – on Fifth Avenue.
By this time it was around 11 p.m., and Gupta had hoped to find a room in the dorms to spend the night. But he was told by an attendant that the student towers no longer provided accommodations for international students. If he needed a cheap place to stay, he should check out the Pittsburgh International Hostel in the Allentown neighborhood.
The desk attendant offered to call a cab, and soon Gupta was being whisked across the city to the hostel.
When Gupta arrived at the hostel, he was given keys to the front door and shown to his bed. Soon he was sound asleep. But a few hours later, around 4 a.m., he woke up “ravenously hungry.”
He left the hostel to look for an all-night deli or convenience store, where he could get a bite to eat. The only thing open was a convenience store, not far from the hostel.
“I went inside the store and saw this guy who was working there. He looked Indian. I asked him if I could get something to eat. I was so hungry,” Gupta said.
The two struck up a conversation, at first in English. But soon Gupta and the store clerk started speaking in Hindi.
“I felt so happy to be talking to someone in my native language. Then you can really express yourself,” he said.
As the two men chatted, the store clerk began to make Gupta a cup of coffee.
“He gave me advice on finding an apartment. He gave me food and snacks to take back. He gave me his phone number and told me to call if I needed help,” Gupta said.
Two “American guys” came into the store, probably early-morning joggers, Gupta figured. They kidded the store clerk. “Is this your long-lost brother? You never make coffee for us,” Gupta remembered their saying.
After awhile, Gupta decided he had to get back to the hostel. He asked the man, how much he owed him. "He said. ‘That’s all right. There’s no need to pay.’ "
As he started to walk out of the store, Gupta paused, and, almost as an afterthought, asked the man where in India he was from.
"He said, ‘Oh, no, I am not from India. I am from Pakistan.’ "
Gupta was startled.
“I was a little bit quiet. Because you know we have been bred to dislike Pakistanis,” he said.
Since 1948, when the former British colony was divided between predominantly Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan, the relationship between them has been marked by rivalry and suspicion. On more than one occasion, fighting has broken out between the two nuclear powers.
In 1999, for example, there was an outbreak of violence after infiltrators from Pakistan occupied positions on the Indian side of the line of control, which separates Indian- and Pakistani-occupied areas of Kashmir. During the border clash, Gupta said he had a close friend, then serving in the Indian army, who was killed.
That a Pakistani store clerk had showed him such kindness “was more meaningful since it came from a man I have been raised to dislike,” Gupta said.
Gupta wrote his parents, telling them about the incident. They told him not to think too much about it and get on with his studies.
But Gupta said he hasn’t forgotten about the incident. Indeed, it has opened his eyes to the foolishness of his own prejudices. He’s become close friends with a Pakistani student at the Katz school.
“Within a month [of being at the University of Pittsburgh], I have shed a lot of old feelings. Perhaps this is a good place,” he said.
(Frank Reeves can be reached at [email protected] or 412-263-1565.)
Touching story mate. I wish there were more people like you; this world would have been a much better place. :k:
I never realised it was such a big deal to make friends with an Indian, wow. I must have been doing something totally out of this world since the age of 3.
Sweet story though :-)
Both stories are great…:k:
But damn me for never being able to tell the difference between an Indian and a Pakistani..I offend many people that way 
Kudos to the Outlaw with the kind heart. Obviously this student was in dire need of your help and lucky that you took the time to help out.
Am curious as to what lead the student to come to you for assistance. Your a mentor?
BYW. How was the biking and/or climbing trip?
Re: How I befriended an Indian..
awwww… Outlaw, that was sooooooooo nice and generous of you… 
Nice to know that the world still has good helpful souls such as yourself…
:k: keep up the good work mate!
It feels good to know this :~) I like the way you asked him to pass the favor along to someone in need. Noble.
Nice...:)
One of my mom's friends told us of a story they got from an old sikh gentleman in India at their home in Lahore.
The gentleman had lived at that address and wanted to know who was living at his old home now. It was very sweet, this started an exchange of letters in which the old man asked about nieghbors, their children who married whom and what happened to the Mango tree in the Ahmed's garden.
I met an indian gentleman at the Bank and we started talking...he told me how here in the US the "people" were one, chatting together, respectful it only the politicians that seperate everyone.
He told a story of an old guy, who's home village was across the border. He was extremly ill and he wanted to touch the dirt of his birthplace before he died. He went to the border guards, being supported/carried by his sons asking if he could just go across and touch the zameen before he died....the guards let him.
That's a good point. There only difference between Indians and Pakistanis is the number of gods among the two. Plus Indians got Sikhs.
Madhanee, are you saying that you'd take a Pathan anyday over a Sikh?
Have you ever tried Naswar? That's one thing I have never tried.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Madhanee: *
Outy, this doesn’t count. Indians and Pakis are practically the same in every sense of the word. Let’s know when you befriend an Israeli Jew.
[/QUOTE]
it doesn't count..of course it counts. Especially when the Hindu is fresh...
Befriending a Jew ...
hmm religously we're so similiar, we aren't that much unalike...
My husbands old roommate is jewish, they are both canadian and very good friends. At our wedding his roommate wore a shilwar kameez with his yamaka and danced at the mehndi. He kept shabat, walked from the mehndi hall the the hotel and the next day from the hotel to the shadi hall, and then was a groomsman at the shadi. (my parents provided him a kosure meal) He then flew across the country for the walima. This guy has invited us to his shabbat dinners, break athe fast morning events as well as to participate in many other religious events. Of course his joke when we discuss what muslim do in this ceremony or what is that...oh you know where you got that from right? we did it first...hehehhe
2nd.
when one of my muslim social groups had a 9/11 candle lite vigil in the city, an israeli girl came up to us and said she hear arabic and at this time when she was so worried and upset, she wanted to be around people that reminded her of home. She stood with us for the next hour.
aaww that is so sweet ...
on wonder you have bears in your house *wink
thank you. Even though, it's not a big deal at all, as I have been assisted by many unknowns during the course of my career. To me, it's just paying back, what i gotten from others.
Although, I think, the thing we all really treasure is deep friendships, and sometime, somewhere you just strike it with someone unexpectedly, and it stays with you for a long time; something which goes beyond the strictures of cultures, and religions, as some of you have mentioned.....nothing more than that :)
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Nadia_H: *
awww. That just warmed my heart to read.
Can you imagine what must have been going through his mind as you were sitting there, both of you high on chocolates and his special masalah chai .
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Nadia, what is masala tea, is it something like green tea with a touch of crushed cardamom, it is what we drink in upper balochistan...