[Assam] Irani-Israeli joint venture; UBC's lovely campus

[umesh sharma]

Hi,

There is an interesting love story blossoming at the
place where I am staying. The product is an eight
month old child. The father is from Iran who escaped
(as a boy) with his mother and older brother to Canada
overnight while hiding and running across the border
into Turkey and somehow onto Canada as refugees -becos
 of their faith. The father of that boy could not
leave the country . 

Later the boy's mother died of cancer when he was
sixteen . His father died in a car accident soon after
in Iran. That boy met an American girl of Jewish
(Israeli) descent at an International School in
Vancouver -many years later they were married in 2004
- just before his wife joined Harvard as a student.
Right now I am in their house in Vancouver. They both
follow the Bahai faith (remember the Lotus temple at
Nehru Place in Delhi) and had met at an international
school at Vancouver. 

The Irani lad now is a medical student at University
of British Columbia (the state in which Vancouver is
based) -and staying in student housing duplex for
families. I am camping in their living room. He took
me to  look at the campus -which I was surprised to
find is located right at sea shore (more like a bay)
and across the bay are high mountains completely
covered with conifers) and many Hollywood films are
shot there. He has seen Schwarzenegger there, met
briefly Wesley Snipes (of The Blade fame), Vin Diesel
of SWAT, XXX fame, Van Damme of Universal SOldier
fame.. Even now there were plenty of carvans etc of
some film units.

I was reading this book by Robert Schuller - The Times
do not survive  but tough people do--which gave
examples of survival. I think I have not met a greater
survivor than this man from Iran. Besides becoming an
orphan as a teen - in an new country - he himself was
struck with cancer. His future wife who at the time
had gone to work with AIDS victims etc in Zimbabwe,
Botswana etc (which have highest % of AIDS in
population -upto 40% of adult popu) and somehow lost
touch with him came to know about it -when he called
from the hospital while undergoing chemotherapy. Nowhe
is fine -and perhaps wants to repay the debt of the
doctors by becoming one himself.
At this Univ. only local residents are accepted as
students for the medical program since there is
extreme shortage of doctors in this area.

A wonderful and inspiring story of a family hailing
from politically antagonistic regions .

Isn't it?

Umesh


Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park, MD 20740 USA

Current temp. address: 5649 Yalta Place , Vancouver, Canada

 1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Canada # (607) 221-9433

Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005

weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/


	
	
		
___________________________________________________________ 
All new Yahoo! Mail "The new Interface is stunning in its simplicity and ease of use." - PC Magazine 
http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html