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I also probably ate at a few of the restaurants where victims of the terrorist violence this past week had been dining. This is because at least one, Café Leopold, has been in the LONELY PLANET Guide for over a decade.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/26/india.attacks/index.html?eref=edition
On the other hand, I also recall how churchmen I had met in several parts of India on that and on my other journey to India have reached out to serve the poorer Muslim parts of India.
For example, the benevolent arm of my church, known as HOPE WORLDWIDE, has been involved in projects from Gujarat to Bangalore to Calcutta (and around the planet), reaching out to slum-dwellers and those who have lost their home due to violence or natural catastrophes.
http://www.hopeww.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=191&srcid=-2
Specifically, in 2000 I had visited with HOPE representatives in Bangalore . On one date in July, I had visited a set of schools that had been hallowed out of the garbage dumps in Bangalore in previous years.
The community living in and around these garbage heaps are Muslims, who come from all over southern India trying to make a better world for their families. The incoming poor Muslims sift the dumps to have property to sell or to build with.
http://www.hopeww.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=205&srcid=191
These particular school projects are fully run by local Indians who are reaching out to serve each other and even non-Christians.
AIDS awareness projects in India , as well as to other projects in Afghanistan and Cambodia are well-known and well respected.
http://www.hopeww.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=203&srcid=205
These projects are not intended to focus on proselytizing--as was the case 100 years ago in many parts of the globe.
This has been a positive change in how religious communities can and do approach each other often-despite what radicals and crazies on the fringe approach life and living.
Another example of how small numbers of believers of whatever faith can make a difference is my own tiny church in Kuwait , which was able to sponsor Afghanistan projects, i.e. HOPE projects which had earlier simply offered medical aid to women during the Taliban days. That is, when such medical support was almost non-existent.
Likewise, in 2005 my tiny church set up an appointment for the HOPE representative from Afghanistan to sit down for a dinner visit with the Afghanistan Embassy in Kuwait . This helped both Christians and Muslims in Kuwait to lobby for more nationwide support in the subsequent "Zakat" campaign for aiding Afghanis, especially in women's education and health, as well as in work-training. ("Zakat" is the Muslim's giving or tithing taken normally around Ramadan each year. It is a pillar of their faith practices.)
http://www.alafco-kw.com/alafco/Portals/0/Annual%20Report%202005.pdf
