Sriram, from Akanksha, forwards a wonderful article in honor of the Amte's winning their second Magsaysay award: Quiet Soldiers of Compassion.  It's the story of Prakash and Manda Amte and the unflappable grace with which they serve:

Life in Hemalkasa has always meant a continuous and present danger. A fraught tightrope between Naxal guns and state suspicion, nearfatal accidents and bouts of ill-health. Four years ago, while showing a poisonous Russel’s viper to a visitor, Prakash was momentarily distracted and it emptied its fangs into him. But nothing can perturb him, his children vouch: he always exudes a quiet, unflappable dignity in a crisis. He is the shade tree you take for granted, until it is cut down. Now, instead of flinging the snake from him, he gently extricated it and put it back in its cage before walking towards Manda in the clinic. She, always the fit partner, the shadow he leans on, did not panic either. On his way back to the house while she got the antidote ready, Prakash collapsed at the threshold and his blood pressure dropped to zero. A long hot drive took him to Nagpur; ten excruciating days followed. His body swelled like a balloon, blistering in a hundred places. Not once did he complain. Both husband and wife — still visibly and palpably in love — have this understated sturdiness about them. Not for them the glib sentence, the worldly pitch. Instead, you sense the close workings of Nature in them, a kind of wise acceptance born of daily grappling with life and death.

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