Hi there, First of all Sivamala, I think ‘your’ ‘Well said’ were for Sudhaama’s words. Never on Earth would I dream of saying anything irresponsible like that without strong evidence. And secondly why ever should we not make references to unpalatable history. It is a part of our PAARAMPARIYAM and I cannot understand why we should look at only the positive sides. We should learn from our history. I don’t want to divert anything from the topic in discussion. But exemplary is a very strong word and strong points are required to prove that. It’s that our culture has some good and some not so good elements in it. If we are prepared to look at only the positive sides, then who are we fooling (ourselves I guess)? We had to accept that things like sati existed and we should also be proud of the fact that we were able to route that out. I just hope we could do the same with the caste system. I think we had made progress like no one (in my knowledge) practices untouchability as it was practiced ages ago. But we still have a long way to go before showing the caste system the final door. I am not denying that we had some great elements in our culture. But look at the whole picture, u never know what you see. ‘Only the positive side’ – Hmm, if we want to sing praises of anything, we can go on and on………. I think only when we acknowledge the not-so-good elements in our history and accept it and work towards making things better and still be proud to be part of the culture can we call ourselves good. Again and again I would reiterate the point that before Independence we were never one culture, different cultures………………….. DSath