Surrounded with all this beauty, wealth and modern civilization, a girl can quickly forget how fortunate she is. Although I wouldn't call myself shallow, I tend to forget how lucky I am to have an education, a job and a great place to live - even if I worked hard for that.

Well, one mail I recently got really made me remember that there are places on Earth where people do not even have electricity, much less proper roads, food or medical care.

Razib Ahmed, who runs Sout Asia Biz blog writes in his post named Wedding gift 2.0 about an Indian government minister giving his bride to be a gift of electricity for the village she came from:

Sudesh Mahato, Home (interior) Minister of Jharkhand state of India, has come up with the novel idea of furnishing the village of his bride with a new road and connection of electricity...The villagers of the bride are really happy and excited. They are getting the things that they have dreamt about for ages.

Razib than states how he hopes for all rich people in India doing this when they get married instead of buying their brides luscious gifts.

How could I not agree? Even if it is difficult to find such poor conditions in our country, future newlyweds can still do a great deal when exchanging gifts. Just pick a charity of your choice and slip them the money you would spend on a gift.

I know that every girl loves to receive gifts, but I also believe in something I call 'the critical mass of good deeds'. This means I always help old ladies cross the street, put coins in parking meters and do graveyard shift at work when a colleague's baby gets ill. And by doing so I award myself 'gold stars' that make me feel better when I'm down. Silly I know, but something I do. Needles to say one of my favorite movies of all times is Pay it Forward, here's what the bump says to the mother of the boy who saved his life:

Well, you can't know. Not until you look at a dumpster. But when you climb into that thing for the first time and you pull those newspapers over you, that's when you know you've messed your life up. Somebody comes along like your son, and gives me a leg up, I'll take it. Even from a kid, I'll take it.

So, do something nice to the ones who need it most, you'll get it back in good karma. And who would want more than happiness and a peaceful conscience?