'Krishna is your best friend. He knows what's best for you.'

'They talk about death being a final exam. So at 65, I have to be studying for my final exam.'

• Part 1: This Ford has more on his mind than cars

IMAGE: Alfred Brush Ford and his wife Sharmila sing hymns during a ceremony at the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in Mayapur, 120 km north of Kolkata, February 23, 2004. Photograph: Jayanta Shaw/Reuters

Before he adopted the name Ambarish Das, he was known as Alfred Brush Ford. His mother is the daughter of Edsel Ford, Henry Ford's son. That makes him a fourth-generation Ford from his mother's side and a part of one of America's most iconic families.

In the second part of his interview to Manu Shah for Rediff.com, Ambarish Das speaks about his stint at the Ford Motor Company, his wife Dr Sharmila Bhattacharya, the love that the two share, the Bhagwad Gita, among other things.

IMAGE: Alfred Brush Ford prays. Photograph: Jayanta Shaw/Reuters

What was your involvement with the Ford Motor Company?

I never really was too involved with the Ford Motor Company. I have been involved with the charities and the hospital in Michigan.

You had built a reputation as one of the foremost art dealers in Indian art.

Back in 1985, Sharmila and I were named the top collectors in Indian art by Arts and Antiques Magazine. I had a team of devotee friends who went to India and they would scour different galleries and palaces. We collected paintings, sculpture and art objects for the home and things like that.

Did you find a good market here?

It was an okay market. We sold a lot of things to my family members actually. My mother was the best customer. She loved the art and bought a lot of it for her houses. Detroit is not a hotbed for Oriental art.

IMAGE: Ambarish Das aka Alfred Brush Ford weds Sharmila Bhattacharya in 1984 in India.

How did you meet your wife, Dr Sharmila Bhattacharya?

I met her through a mutual friend of ours in Australia, who happened to be her initiation guru.

I was very impressed with her. I knew her parents were looking for someone to get her married to, as she was just finishing her PhD from the University of New South Wales. So I proposed that maybe I would marry her.

We were married in 1984. It was a Hare Krishna wedding with the fire sacrifice in front of the deities in a Hare Krishna temple in rural New South Wales, Australia. Many people came, there was a lot of press coverage.

Are your daughters Hare Krishna devotees?

They are because they were brought up in our house where we have always had the temple room and deities. My older daughter Amrita is married now. She lives in Washington, DC. She has her own temple and she carries on the tradition. The younger one, Anisha, is still in college.

How does one balance the material world with the spiritual world?

I can only speak for myself. I have to put my spiritual life first. In order for me to do that I have to put in the time, early in the day. I'm always up by 3 or 4 in the morning doing my meditation. My wife and I are up early and we do our japa, our offerings. We try to get centred early in the morning and then everything else comes after that.

If I can't go to the temple, then I watch the arati on the Internet. I take care of the deities in the house, make an offering to the guru, read the scriptures. If I put all those activities in the beginning of the day, then the rest of the day kind of just flows.

Tell me about the Vedic temple, currently being built in Mayapur, West Bengal, the birthplace of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

I am focused these days on getting the Vedic temple built in Mayapur. I did give the seed money for the temple, about $25 million. I was nervous as that was the time the Ford company was about to go bankrupt because of the economic downturn.

IMAGE: Alfred Brush Ford at the head office of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in Mayapur, February 23, 2004. Photograph: Jayanta Shaw/Reuters

I'm glad that the transcendental project worked out beautifully and will help Westerners, Europeans and Americans come to Mayapur and chant Hare Krishna.

The opening date for the Vedic temple has been pushed back and hopefully we'll be able to do the opening in 2022.

It is a very complicated building. It has a huge 350-feet high dome and we are putting up a big chandelier inside the dome of the universe according to the Vedas -- so it's a lot of work that needs to be done.

What about the international Himalayan ski village project you had proposed near Manali?

As far as I know, the whole venture is dead. It was a wonderful concept and the government of Himachal Pradesh was totally in favour of it. But then they had an election, a new government came and, more or less, they closed it down.

Do you speak any Indian languages?

No, not really.

Any experiences in India that you would like to share?

India has gotten much more user friendly, as they say.

When I first went in 1975, it was very difficult to negotiate (your way) around the country and I was very sick.

Back in those days really the only airline in and out of India was Air-India. You had to go down in person to confirm your ticket out of the country. So it was kind of very archaic in those days.

Now everything is very modern, very streamlined. My wife and I go a couple of times a year. It is very easy to get around and we love it.

Where do you stay when you are in India?

I am in Mayapur most of the time. I stay in the guest house there. I would like to build a small residence there. Sometimes I go to Mumbai too.

What are your other interests apart from the Hare Krishna movement?

I am 65 years old. I used to have a lot of other interests. As you get older you tend to focus more on what you are really trying to accomplish in life.

The reason I joined the Hare Krishna movement was to make some spiritual advancement.

The whole point of becoming Krishna conscious is when you give up this body, you evolve into a spiritual body, hopefully. Or at least another birth that may be more advanced than the one we are in now.

They talk about death being a final exam. So at 65, I have to be studying for my final exam.

IMAGE: Alfred Brush Ford during a ceremony to begin construction of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness temple in Kolkata, December 29, 2002. Photograph: Reuters

What is the message from the Bhagwad Gita you would like to see spread in the world today?

There are so many. I'd like to say Man-mana bhava mad-bhakto which means surrender to Krishna. He's your best friend. He knows what's best for you. There's no reason to be fearful of him.

Yours is a fascinating story. I'm surprised there is no book or movie on you.

I am glad. I'm a very private person. My wife and I don't seek publicity.

Tales from a flooded Chennai: 'Water entered from beneath the doors and suddenly started rising'

Eighteen-year-old Abhik Thapa, a Nepalese student at a private university in Chennai, had come to India as one of the lucky survivors of the killer April earthquake and now he is heading back to Kathmandu after having lived through the Chennai rains tragedy.

The student of genetics at the SRM University, which bore heavy brunt of the rains during the first few days, was among the several students left stranded in their hostels, after the torrential rains pounded the city last week.

Thapa and his college mates were eventually rescued by a coordinated team of defence personnel and finally brought to the Tambaram Air Base, nearly 30 km from here, before being flown to Delhi.

"My home is in Kathmandu and our family survived that massive calamity, with a little damage to our house. But, yes the disaster and the experiences thereof, of seeing Nepal get back on its feet, helped me cope with with tragedy," Thapa told PTI in Tambaram.

As per the plan, several of the rescued people after being assembled at the Tambaram Base are being taken by Mi-14 choppers in batches to the Arakkonam Naval Base, 70 km west of Chennai, and from there to different cities, mostly in C-17s.

A couple of civilian rescue flights also ferried a few hundred students in the past few days to Delhi, Bengaluru or Hyderabad.

Mumbai-native Sankalp Mohapatra, 21, was stranded for nearly three days at Chennai Airport along with several of his friends from VIT, Vellore. All of them were to catch a flight back to their hometown, little knowing that they had something else in store.

Battling choppy weather, power crisis, inundated streets and the odds, the students, with a few girls among them, survived through the tough times, keeping each other strong.

"Our flight was for December 1, and after announcement of delay it was finally cancelled. We all slept at the airport as we were expecting a replacement flight next day, but it only got worse from there. Next day evening they shut down the electricity connection, as water was coming to the arrival side, and then by late evening it went pitch dark," Sankalp says.

"We then stepped out of the airport and decided to first make way to the Coimbet bus station in Chennai, but seeing the water gushing out, we decide to go back to the airport premises, as we felt it was safer there," the fourth-year student of Computer Science adds.

His friend Pallav Gupta, 21, a Delhi resident, shares another harrowing tale of their ordeal.

"Many taxi and auto drivers tried to take advantage of our situation. They were asking Rs 35,000-Rs 40,000 for taking us to barely a few kms. Even for the nearest metro, they charged about couple of thousands (of rupees). We did not have much money, the ATMs were out of cash, so we could not leave the airport," Gupta rues.

Pallav's friend, Aditi Mehindiratta, 21, a Gurgaon resident, who was with them, says she was worried, but at no point scared.

"After our flights were cancelled, we were given a bus by the airport authorities to Coimbet Bus Terminal, but on way to the place, we saw water gushing out in front of us.

"We then immediately turned around and went back to the airport and stayed put there until help arrived from defence, after one of our friends, whose father is in Air Force contacted him," she says.

SRM University has three campuses and its main centre in Guindy and VIT Vellore's Chennai campus were badly-hit.

"We in our rooms on the ground floor when the water started entering from beneath the doors and suddenly started rising. We immediately ran upstairs on to the higher floors. Our university rescue team helped and fed us initially and then defence people came in and took us to Tambaram Air Base," says Ayush Pandey, a Kanpur native and a 1st year student at the VIT Chennai campus.

19-year-old Akhshay Jyoti, son of a retired commander in Navy, had to contact his father, after being surrounded with water at his campus in Hindustan University.

"We were stuck in our university for a few days after the last heavy rain and later a 'Chetak' came and airlifted five of us students. We were then brought to the Tambaram Base before flying out in a civilian flight from the Arakkonam Base," he says.

Tejas Mohlah, who called help for his VIT friends at the airport, says, "We had also decided to go to the nearest dry place possible or the metro station, which nonetheless was packed like sardines.

"Our friends who were there told us the ticket queues ran for so long, it was taking three hours to get a ticket, and the train were running at long intervals."

Eighteen-year-old twin brothers George and Verghese, who hail from Kerala, flashed a 'V-sign' from the window of the Mi-14, when they were transported to Arakkonam along with other rescued students.

"We were born together, and we survived together," says George.

Preventing a leading killer: Drowning

According to the World Health Organization's Global Report on Drowning 2014, drowning is a serious and neglected public health threat claiming the lives of 3,72,000 people a year worldwide.

In order to prevent us from drowning WHO recommends the following preventive measures.

For more data driven journalism, take a look at Rediff Labs.

It's raining placements at IITs this year

Oracle, Google and Microsoft offered plum international offers to students at leading IITs in the country.

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) saw a better performance on the first day of the final placements this year as compared to the last year.

The IITs, which started the first leg of the final placements on Tuesday, said job offers have gone up 20 to 30 per cent this year as against last year.

This year, the number of days of placement has been reduced to 10 against 15 to accommodate the upcoming Inter-IIT Sports Meet, hosted by IIT-Madras and scheduled from December 14.

The second leg of the placements will begin in January.

At IIT-Guwahati, Oracle made the highest international offer of $140,000 (approximately Rs 93 lakh), excluding employee stock options and other components, said institute sources.

The average domestic compensation package on the first day was Rs 25 lakh.

Barring the last slot for the day, which would see 14 firms participating, IIT-Guwahati saw about 25 companies making close to 100 offers, with 67 being made in the first slot.

The day saw 16 international offers. WhatsApp emerged as the highest international recruiter with 12 offers for jobs in Singapore. Oracle and Microsoft followed with two offers each.

Uber was a first-time recruiter.

IIT-Madras began its placements with a graveyard shift, for job offers abroad.

The five companies that booked slots for this shift were Microsoft, Oracle, VISA, Google and Bloomberg -- the news and data company being a new entrant for the session.

"Overall, the placements appear to be very good with a fantastic response for the graveyard session," said Babu Viswanathan, advisor, training and placement, IIT-Madras.

"We've had 300 companies register with us offering over 420 profiles, despite a smaller window of number of days."

The graveyard shift saw six international offers being made, including Microsoft (3) and Oracle, Google and VISA making one offer each. Day-one also saw management consultancies and computer science companies.

The institute said 266 companies participated, offering 391 profiles, against 221 companies last year.

Start-ups have been slotted for the second day.

One hundred and twenty-nine start-ups have registered this year, against 56 last year. These offered 198 profiles, against 85 last year.

IIT-Madras is seeing first-time recruiters such as Dahlberg, Roland Berger, Wrig Nanosystems and FinMechanics.

In its first slot, IIT-Roorkee saw nine companies on campus with a whopping 74 offers, said N P Padhy, professor-in-charge, training and placement office.

Microsoft gave 19 offers. Salary packages were between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 25 lakh.

International offers were given by Oracle (2), Google (2) and Microsoft (1).

Padhy said they saw a 30 per cent rise in salaries and number of offers.

The IIT-Kanpur saw close to 18 companies, primarily software and technology ones, in the first slot.

The 10 year old who saved the lives of 850 passengers

'I was not scared. I have seen trains every day of my life. I only wanted to stop the train.'

Siddesh Manjunath, who averted a major rail mishap, speaks to A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com

On March 15, the Harihara-Chitradurga passenger train was passing through Avaregere village in Davangere district, Karnataka. The locomotive driver saw a young boy running towards the train on the track waving a red cloth vigorously. The driver applied the brakes and stopped the train.

The boy, Siddesh Manjunath, 10, may have saved the lives of about 850 passengers on that train.

Siddesh told Rediff.com that after breakfast he decided to go to his father's tea shop. To get there he had to cross the railway track.

When he neared the track, he had to wait as there was a train passing by. "I regularly cross the track here and I am familiar with the sound that the train makes on the tracks. I noticed that the train was louder than it normally was."

"After it passed I examined the tracks and saw a big gap on one track. I ran to my father's shop which is nearby.

His father Manjunath along with a few villagers came back with Siddhesh to check the track.

They all agreed that it was a risky gap and were discussing what to do.

While they were talking among themselves they heard the sound of another train approaching. One of the villagers suggested that they should wave a red cloth to try and stop the train.

"It was luck that I was wearing a red T-shirt that day," Siddhesh tells Rediff.com "I immediately took it out and started running towards the train."

"I waved the T-shirt vigorously and held it high while I ran. I was not scared. I have seen trains every day of my life. I only wanted to stop the train."

"My father and the other villagers were running behind me. The locomotive driver saw us and stopped the train," he adds.

"I am very happy with my only son, he has made us proud," says Manjunath who has studied only up to Class 5, but would like his son to get a proper education.

Last week, the Karnataka government presented Siddhesh a bravery award on Children's Day

Wipro to acquire Germany's cellent AG for Rs 518 cr

The all-cash deal is expected to close in the March 2016 quarter.

India’s third largest software services firm Wipro on Wednesday said it will acquire German IT consulting firm cellent AG for 73.5 million euros (about Rs 518 crore).

The all-cash deal is expected to close in the March 2016 quarter, Wipro said in a filing to the BSE.

"Wipro has signed an agreement with Landesbank Baden- Wuerttemberg (LBBW) to acquire cellent AG for 73.5 million euros... The shares are being acquired through Wipro's subsidiary Wipro Cyprus," it said.

The acquisition will provide Wipro with significant scale in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) and prime customer relationships, especially in the manufacturing and automotive domains, NS Bala, chief executive, manufacturing and hi-tech, Wipro said.

Founded in 2002 in Germany, cellent (a subsidiary of LBBW) has offices in Germany (eight), Austria (two) and Switzerland (one). Its service portfolio includes SAP consulting, software development, managed services and infrastructure services.

The privately-held company had revenues of 87 million euros in 2014 and has over 800 consultants

Naval air station near Chennai to be temporary base for commercial flights

With the Chennai airport closed till December 6 following heavy rains and flood, the nearby naval air station at Arakonnam is likely to be turned into a makeshift airport for commercial flights from Thursday.

In the run up to the possible new arrangement, national carrier Air India landed an Airbus A320 carrying passengers from Hyderabad at the Rajali naval air station at Arakkonam at 2047 hours on Wednesday.

"We are hopeful of passenger flights landing there from tomorrow," defence ministry sources said.

Airports Authority of India has decided to keep the Chennai airport closed till December 6 due to the flooding of the operational and the surrounding area.

No flight has taken off from or landed at the Chennai airport since 8 pm on Tuesday.

National Carrier Air India carried out a test landing at Arakkonam Naval Base off the Chennai airport, an official statement said.

AI A320 Aircraft VT-EXA took off from Hyderabad and landed at MAA Arakkonam NAVAL Base at 8.30 pm on Wednesday. The flight made a safe and successful landing, it said.