Indians of the year

I had never thought of Former President Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam as an attractive speaker, but he mentioned some nice points, in his usual simplistic style, while giving away the CNN IBN Indian of the Year 2007 awards. All those who were nominees and winners of these awards in the various categories have certain things in common, he said.

1. While still young, they had an aim in life.
2. They went on acquiring knowledge in their fields.
3. They worked hard, sweated it out for whatever they set out to do.
4. They were never cowed down by problems. They conquered their problems and went ahead.

The main winner, Mr.E Sreedharan, who headed the Delhi Metro and Konkan Railway projects, said :

1. The most important thing is to have personal integrity and honesty.
2. Achieve Professional Competence in whatever you do.
3. Finish work in time, time is money.

Mr.Arun Sarin of Vodafone was the winner in the Global Indian category and Shilpaji was one of the nominees. She was asked by the host "What it means to be a global indian". I thought she is going to say "Yoga", given her recent ventures. But she said, youknowwwwwat, "For me, it's Indian Values". Uf! Not that she sounded unconvincing, but the host made it a bit worse. While closing the question and moving on to the next nominee, he said "Values is what she says it means to be a global indian". Depending on where you give the emphasis, he sounded as if "Thats what she says, but I really don't know, Anyway let's move on." Is that why they say it's become fashionable to speak of values nowadays ?