Three Cups of Tea

A must read. I read this book on a long and tortuous flight. I thought I should get some sleep because it was the red-eye but it was such a spellbinding true story, I couldn't rest until I flipped the last page.

Actually, the real reason I couldn't sleep was because the guy next to me was snoring incessantly, the rattling noise being generated made me think if it was him or the engine on the 380 had begun acting up. A closer look revealed it was him indeed. He even had his mouth open and what appeared like Angel Falls was actually saliva dripping on to his t-shirt, which was gray when we boarded the plane and mysteriously turned a darker shade at 30,000 feet.

The title of the book is based on a Baltistan proverb - "The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time, you are a guest. The third time, you are family".

The book is a quest by Greg Mortenson to set up schools in regions where Americans are hated. Greg was returning a favor to the people in a village who rescued him when he attempted to scale the K2 in 1993. Now, he runs Central Asia Institute which has since built fifty-five schools in such regions.