While Deepak and Manvi were browsing through a book store in India, they ran into a random book -- "Chicken Soup For the Indian Soul."  Leafing through the book, he was moved by the first story he read, and thought of buying that book for the CharityFocus Intergalactic headquarters. :)

A few minutes later, he discovered that the story was written by none other than Pavi!  Looking through the index, he noticed my name and a few others and decided to buy six copies.  By the time he returned to SF, he'd already given away five of those copies, but we did get to see one copy. :)

As I excitedly looked through the index, the first story in the book was by none other than Freya.  Second one was by Jagatbhai (at Manav Sadhna).  Lots of HelpOthers stories.  Many others from friends like Jayesh Patel to Mallika Chopra.  It felt like a CharityFocus book. :)

After the initial oh-wow-so-cool wears off, you do wonder about the cultural insensitivity of "Chicken Soup", about the commercialization of kindness stories, about implicitly promoting a brand that you know nothing about.  It's a tricky thing.  On our end, we paid forward all monies (Rs. 500 for each selected story) to local NGOs in India and asked them to ensure that our content stayed uncopyrighted and freely available in the public domain.

A fun little event in the unfolding of CharityFocus. :)