This is bad!

This is sparkling!




When Mahatma Gandhi was studying law at the University College of London, a white professor, whose last name was Peters, disliked him intensely and always displayed prejudice and animosity towards him.

Also, because Gandhi never lowered his head when addressing him as he expected, there were always "arguments" and confrontations.

One day, Mr. Peters was having lunch at the dining room of the University, and Gandhi came along with his tray and sat next to the professor. The professor said, "Mr Gandhi, you do not understand. A pig and a bird do not sit together to eat."

Gandhi looked at him as a parent would a rude child and calmly replied, "You do not worry professor. I'll fly away," and he went and sat at another table.

Mr. Peters, reddened with rage, decided to take revenge on the next test paper, but Gandhi responded brilliantly to all questions.

Mr. Peters, unhappy and frustrated, asked him the following question. "Mr Gandhi, if you were walking down the street and found a package, and within was a bag of wisdom and another bag with a lot of money, which one would you take?"

Without hesitating, Gandhi responded,"The one with the money, of course."

Mr. Peters , smiling sarcastically said, "I, in your place, would have taken the wisdom, don't you think?"

Gandhi shrugged indifferently and responded, "Each one takes what he doesn't have."

Mr. Peters, by this time was fit to be tied. So great was his anger that he wrote on Gandhi's exam sheet the word "idiot" and gave it to Gandhi.

Gandhi took the exam sheet and sat down at his desk, trying very hard to remain calm while he contemplated his next move.

A few minutes later, Gandhi got up, went to the professor and said to him in a dignified but sarcastically polite tone, "Mr. Peters, you signed the sheet, but you did not give me the grade."

This is good! Three cheers for Singapore!

From No.36 to No. 6


www.businessinsider.com/wond-economist-w...n-index-2013-1?IR=T&

Source: mypaper.sg/top-stories/confession-lawyer...ero-speed-0-20140604



Confession of a lawyer who went from hero to speed 0
JALELAH ABU BAKER

THE man that rivals feared and clients pinned their hopes on has a confession to make.

"I got all my priorities wrong," says prolific criminal lawyer Subhas Anandan, now 66 and looking gaunt, at his Leonie Hill home.

"I spent too much time in my life chasing after fame and recognition," he told My Paper, his piercing gaze trained somewhere in the distance.

And as regrets go, he has one that goes decades back - the excessive drinks, the cigarettes, and all the stress that resulted in his dire state of health.

A few months ago, Mr Subhas found out that he was suffering from kidney failure. He has had heart failure from 2008.

"It was drastic, sudden. If I was going at 120 miles/h, I am at 0 now. But I am starting again," said the man who has always had a thing for fast cars.

He now goes for dialysis thrice a week. It leaves him tired and, from a robust 81kg, his weight has fallen to 64kg. "I have to wear all sorts of belts to keep my pants up," he said.

Sipping on a mixture of Perrier, water and lemon in an effort to satisfy a palate now used to Coke Zero and juices, he thanks his doctors at Singapore General Hospital.

Lying on a bed in the intensive care unit in hospital, not knowing whether he was going to live or die, he "cried a lot", he said.

And the reason? "Sometimes, you have no more strength to control your emotions." But he is no stranger to the hospital.

He has had three heart attacks since 1978, and lost one kidney to cancer in 2001. He also has diabetes, and blocked intestines.

But it was in 2008, before he was wheeled into the operating theatre, that he thought he was on his death bed.

He called his son, Sujesh, then 18, and told him to listen to his mother, and always to be with her.

Next, he called his wife, Vimala. He told her: "I see your face in every rose. I see your smile in every cloud."

And without another word, he succumbed to anaesthesia.

When he recovered, he was able to joke with his wife. "You always said I wasn't romantic. But when I thought I was dying, I was romantic."

While he was able to laugh over it, he said it was not funny then.

Mr Subhas, who had always liked his drinks and his cigarettes, gave up smoking in 1997, when he saw his son's face as he was being wheeled into the operating theatre. Sujesh was seven then.

He thought: "This boy, I brought him to earth. Is this how I am going to treat him?"

His son is now in his first year reading law at the University of Nottingham, after studying finance in a polytechnic here.

But the decision to pursue both finance and law was entirely Sujesh's choices, because his father wanted him to do what made him happy.

It was a lesson Mr Subhas learnt in his own youth. His mother had "bundled" him off to India to study medicine. After three months, he returned to Singapore, homesick and disinterested.

And, till today, he is not interested in travel. Home is where his heart is, he said.

Now he spends his weekends dictating his second book - to his wife - going to the Holy Tree Temple where he is the chairman of the board of trustees, and spending time with his family.

The book, tentatively titled It's Easy To Cry, is about his legal and medical experiences. His first book was titled The Best I Could, about his colourful legal career.

Mr Subhas says he is not afraid of death because he believes he has done "more good than bad".

But the traumatic experience did bring some fresh perspective.

"I saw my wife, my son, my nephews holding my hand. I thought: 'I am so lucky to have these people with me.' I told myself that if I ever recover from this, I'd spend more time with them, in the last few years of my life.

"If I get a few years."

jalmsab@sph.com.sg

MyPaper
Monday, Jun 09, 2014


Consider this a warning for those thinking about making a quick buck from renting their homes to short-term visitors.

Two home owners have lost their flats after the Housing Board found they had let out their units to tourists.

Home-rental websites like Airbnb and Roomorama have become more popular here.

The founder of Roomorama, Ms Teo Jia En, told The Straits Times last month that the website had some 500 listings for Singapore properties, which is an increase of 30 per cent from last year.

A search on travelmob turned up more than 630 local listings, and another portal, Airbnb, has more than 1,000.

But these flout HDB and Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) regulations, which state that when a home (HDB or private) is leased out, it must be for at least six months.

Though there have been complaints in the past, and the housing authorities have investigated thousands of cases, this is the first time that HDB has revealed it has taken the step of booting out home owners for the infraction.

While the agency would not say when it took back the executive flat in the east, and the four-room flat in the west, it did say that its investigations proved the owners had leased out the flats to multiple tourists for between $25 and $75 per night.

It also issued a warning to one more flat owner in the central part of Singapore.

According to its spokesman, an errant home owner can also face a financial penalty.

The HDB investigated 184 cases of short-term leasing in public flats last year. It investigated 106 cases the year before.

A spokesman for the URA, which has oversight over private dwellings, said that in the first four months of this year, it investigated 350 cases of "unauthorised use" of private properties.

Last year, it investigated 2,100 such cases, which included instances where home owners turned their apartments into dorms for foreign workers.

Private homeowners who flout the six-month minimum rule face a maximum fine of $200,000 and a jail term of up to 12 months.


Said the URA spokesman: "Some home owners are turning their homes into boarding houses and leasing rooms out for a couple of days to generate quick income from spaces they can spare."

But most other home owners do not want to live among transient strangers, the spokesman added.

An HDB spokesman said other residents felt the frequent change of occupants would pose security concerns.


This article by The New Paper was published in MyPaper, a free, bilingual newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.

What a hell of a passenger! He gave Comfort taxi driver a nightmare!