by sumit ganguliwhile we were gearing up for the weekend i noticed that we would be celebrating martin luther king day on monday january 18 in the us his birth anniversary was on january 15 this coupled with the overcast sky and cool winter day all conspired to make me sit back and reminisce about the events of the past few monthsworking from home i have become accustomed to keeping my tv on mute alternating between cnn and fox news while i go through my emails video conferences and other work routines and that is when i saw the traumatic video of george floyds death in minneapolis and the massive demonstrations that ensued across the us and in other parts of the world the black lives matter movement rightfully gained immense momentum and soon blacklivesmatter became one of the most trending of all hashtags an avid tennis fan i got to watch the us open on tv this year being played without any spectators but i was most inspired by the young japanese tennis player naomi osaka who went on to win the us open and decided to draw attention to the blm by wearing the names of seven black victims who were being memorialized by the blm movement she succeeded in persuading me to read more about the movement and many of the victims cut to the present we now have our first black vicepresident elect kamala harris who is of jamaican and indian heritage just the other day my 90yearold mother who is in bengaluru and is quite a political junkie challenged me to name the indian lady who was announced to be a member of joe bidens economic committee convinced that my mother was mistaken i told her that janet yellen was not indian but she insisted and then i recalled that neera tanden has been nominated to head the office of management and budget the indian diaspora has been deservedly proud of the achievements of the indian leaders in america satya nadella microsoft arvind krishna ibm ajay banga mastercard nandita bakshi bank of the west federal reserve bank sanat chattopadhyay merck niren chaudhury panera bread and with reverend martin luther kings birth anniversary round the corner i think it is opportune for us to celebrate the avantgarde free thinkers disruptors and iconoclasts who made this possible for some of this happen in the morning i bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the bhagvat geeta since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivialthe pure walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the ganges thoreau waldenin 1854s boston henry david thoreau and ralph waldo emerson derived a lot of their concept of transcendentalism nonviolence and civil disobedience from the concepts of ahimsa and dharma from the ancient indian scriptures the upanishads and the gita they read this at the harvard library and wrote