This is my own, my native land!

It took a long time for me to become a Sharukh Khan fan. Finally, Main Hoon Na and Swades did it. Swades, especially: as my friend Phani observed, the movie was full of symbolism - Mohan, Gita, and, not to forget, the bulb. In any case, it was in the context of Swades that I first heard about Dilip D'Souza (in one of the AID-India mailing list mails). Then CCS of IISc got him to talk about Two engineers and my country , which talk is one of the best I heard in CCS. In the July, 2005 issue of Seminar , Dilip has written about his experiences of visiting Tamilnadu after Tsunami . It is a nice essay which will touch your heart, make you puff with pride, and sing with Bharathi 'bharatha desam enru tholl kottuvom - Bharatha Desam: so shall we proclaim'. A nice, not-to-be missed piece.