Was first time I saw any President speaking. Doesn't matter if its not Indian. M. Gorbachev was here in my school yesterday for a lecture. Gorbachev, a former president of USSR and a Nobel peace laureate, is amongst the top 5 most influential leaders of the post world war II era.

Octobers in Manhattan are awesome...and we didn't feel much of anything while waiting to get into the auditorium. We waited for like 2 hours. We knew it was gonna be a full house. We were in kind of balcony and got the top view of the dias.

Gorbachev is a motivating speaker. Talked for around one hour. Though we understood the lecture through a translator, I could sense the intensity with which he was speaking. He touched upon various topics discussing his leadership days, the cold war arms race, what world needs today and what role should countries like US and India should play. Security and poverty are major problems of this century he says. He also glanced us about his views towards growing terrorist acts and how can they be possibly curbed. He said, Islamic countries are not the only source of terrorism as its much more wide-spread and the countries should also be involved into the peace restoration process. World peace, he says, cannot be achieved by domination or by being a world cop, but by collaborating with other countries.

Its good to get to listen to such people, really pulsating. Not aggressive, but an expressive speaker. Communicated in a leaderly manner and answered questions smartly.

Motovational gift on the festive weekend of Halloween :)