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Washington:
Along with the truly rags to riches story of Apple co-founder Stew
Jobs, who died of cancer Wednesday at the age of 56, also taking
round is his spiritual Indian link and Arab parental relation.
While his spiritual link to India finally encouraged Jobs to
convert to Buddhism, the fact that his father was a Syrian Muslim
points to his Arab linkage.
"Jobs was born Feb 24, 1955 to Syrian Muslim immigrant Abdul
Fattah "John"
Jandali and Joanne Carole Schieble", IANS mentioned in one of its
report published after his death.
He was later adopted by a couple and
grew up in Cupertino, California, which later became home to Apple's
headquarters.
Elaborating on his adoption, Stew
Jobs himself said, "My biological mother was a young, unwed
college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for
adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by
college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted
at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out
they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl."
Addressing the students at Stanford
University Jobs said, "So my parents, who were on a waiting list,
got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an
unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My
biological mother later found out that my mother had never
graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from
high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She
only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I
would someday go to college."
Stew Jobs, the visionary co-founder
of Apple Inc who is credited to have given the world top-class
electronic gadgets also had a spiritual side shaped by a
"spiritual retreat to India" and "traversing through the country
had sparked Jobs' conversion to Buddhism."
In 1974 Jobs even traveled to India
to visit the Neem Karoli Baba at his Kainchi Ashram with a Reed
College friend (and, later, the first Apple employee), Daniel
Kottke, in search of spiritual enlightenment.
"He came back a Buddhist with his head shaved and wearing
traditional Indian clothing. During this time, Jobs experimented
with psychedelics, calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or
three most important things [he had] done in [his] life"", Arun
Kumar of IANS reported.
The name of Jobs' company is said to
be inspired by the Beatles' Apple Corps, which repeatedly sued the
electronics maker for trademark infringement until signing an
exclusive digital distribution deal with iTunes, CNN said.
Rebirth is a precept of Buddhism, and Apple experienced rebirth of
sorts when Jobs returned, after he was fired, to remake a company
that had fallen the verge of bankruptcy.
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