The Nobel's noble battle

The Nobel's noble battle

Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize

At a time when news has been a dark canvas of conflicts and calamities worldwide, the announcement beamed a bright light through the gloom.

News of the Nobel Peace Prize did seem noble in its spirit, and symmetry.

An Indian and a Pakistani, a Hindu and a Muslim, a relatively unsung hero and a global star.

Nearly half a century separates two activists but their causes are now joined - their fight for children's rights.

Even the timing seemed perfectly placed.

Seventeen-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who defied Taliban threats to fight for every girl's right to be educated, heard the news in her own field of battle - a school.

Her chemistry class in the English city of Birmingham was briefly interrupted.

But the life-changing accolade did not stop physics and English lessons from going ahead on schedule.

Sixty-year-old Kailash Satyarthi, who's waged a decades long war against child labour and exploitation, was at his desk in his modest office set in the cacophony of crowded South Delhi.

                      Malala Yousafzai said she was in a chemistry lesson when she heard the news

For a moment, there was an unusually uplifting buzz across the breathless timeline that is Twitter.

Hashtags of #India and #Pakistan had, in recent days, focused on new shelling, more suffering, across the Line of Control (LoC) in disputed Kashmir and the wound that has festered since the founding of two states.

Suddenly words like hope and pride took pride of place in 140 characters.

Congratulations whizzed back and forth across the borderless land of cyberspace.

But of course, no moment is pure or perfect, or lasts very long. And, on Twitter, no timeline is the same, as these Pakistani tweeters discovered

"We both decided to work together and also decided to try to build strong relations between both countries".

Mr Satyarthi was interviewed almost immediately on the BBC World Service and spoke of how he would work with Malala to "give voice to children who are never heard".

Bright moment

In more than three decades of dedicated activism against child labour, Mr Satyarthi has freed tens of thousands of Indian children from the medieval bondage perpetuated by many vested interests.

A blog published in the Times of India asked why so few Indians "had any clue about who he was."

Now they do. We all do.

I also won't forget the moment when Muhammad Yunus took to the stage in Oslo in 2006.

A cold dark winter's day was brightened by the brilliant yellow and orange dress of Bangladeshi dancers, the warm proud smiles, and by his optimistic message that the war against poverty could be won.

The euphoria of the day quickly faded when a campaign was stirred against him when he returned home to Bangladesh.

But his determination and message still make a difference.

This year's ceremony is also certain to be another day of celebration and hope.

It may only last a moment. But in a world of dark threats, every bright moment matters.