MARVELS
Firewalking
A young woman stands barefoot at the edge of a bed of glowing coals. The coals burn fiercely. Even from several feet away she can barely stand the heat. With intense determination, she focuses her attention on the other side of the fire and quickly steps across the red-hot coals–unscathed. Previously, she hadn't believed it possible; now she feels transformed. Sound like a story from ancient–or at least modern–India? It's not. Today in America, an estimated 300,000 people have firewalked over the years. The website: http://heartfire.com/firewalk/homefire.html is devoted to the feat. Replete with stories, pictures and articles, the site is the most comprehensive firewalking resource we've seen. Despite temperatures exceeding the melting point of steel, people have stopped on the coals and laid down –without even burning their hair. Skeptics get their say in a section of popular theories attempting to explain away firewalking–but none that encompasses all the known facts of this mystical phenomenon.
JOURNEY
Ganga din
Log onto http://ww w.imsc.ernet.in/~radhika/himalaya/Ganga/index.html to join Radhika Vathsan and her family on a pilgrimage to the source of the Ganga. Traveling on a jonga, a sort of long, hardy jeep, embark from Delhi and make your way through crowded towns and cities, fragrant golden yellow forests, up treacherous roads carved out of mountain sides and across deep gorges. Finally, you arrive at the Gomukh glacier, where you can shiver as the trekkers leap into the frigid stream for the sacred bath.
CD-ROM
Musica for the Masses
Take a complete course in North Idian music with Magic Software's latest release, the multimedia CD "India Musica." Sound and video clips of famous musicians, such as Allah Rakha, Zakir Hussain, Bhimsen Joshi and Ravi Shankar, explore each instrument and musical principal in the Hindustani tradition. Special clips feature single instruments and explain their contribution to the overall tradition. A pleasant journey in music appreciation. Magic Software: F-6 Kailash Colony, New Delhi 110 048,India. Web: www.magicsw.com
DEATH
Dying Today
From the inventor of the "living will" comes a comprehensive website (www.choices.org) about the choices surrounding death. It's not that you get a choice about dying–nature takes care of that eventually. But you certainly have choices about how you die, especially if you express your desires about end-of-life care in advance with a "living will." That's where you spell out how you want the hospital to deal with artificial feeding and breathing, resuscitation, pain management and more. Without the living will, doctors must legally make every effort to keep you alive, no matter what your pain, no matter whether you'll ever wake up again or not.