Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Paon mein Chakkar!

Which loosely means having lots of travel written in your footly fate.
I do have a small black dot on the sole of my left foot, and seem to have spent a lot of my life galumphing across the world. Tomorrow I head out for a brand new city, on my last expedition of the year. This year I visited several cities I'd never visited before, including Darjeeling, Vishakhapatnam, Raipur (on my second ever visit to Bhilai, after a gap of decades), Dhaka, Singapore, Pune, and, finally, Hyderabad.

Let us see where the coming year takes us!

All good wishes for 2012, my dear readers. May Life be good to you and your dear ones.

Friday, December 16, 2011

A cold morning

My walk takes me
past sleeping dogs
curled into commas
against the cold
while young pups
are up and about
exploring the world.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Do take a look!

My friend Yasmeen is painting some wonderful pictures on her new blog http://artyasmeen.blogspot.com/

Do check it out.
Truly awesome art.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

The AMRI Fire

A friend of mine lost her father in this utterly shocking, senseless tragedy.
He called her at 4.30 a.m yesterday morning, telling her that he was suffocating.
She rushed to the hospital, as did her sister.
When we met her today, her greatest sorrow was that she could not save her father.
He had fractured his femur, and was in the ICU awaiting surgery.
He was over eighty, and a heart patient, who had lived a full life.
An active man, unable to move because of his fractured thigh bone.
But to go this way?
To be brought down from the third floor by a crane, in a sling, probably already dead of suffocation?

All because we do not strictly enforce safety regulations.
Corruption and callousness rule.
So many lives have been lost.

My mother stayed in this hospital for ten days.
My father was treated here in the emergency room.
I am thankful, always, that they both died at home.


People are born and people die, every single day.
Accidents happen.
So do natural calamities.
But something like this is horrendous, simply because it didn't need to happen. It should not have happened. Such a tragedy should never happen again, but it will, as long as ignorance, callousness and corruption remain.

I am numb with fury and grief.
How many more deaths will it take for our systems to work as they should???????
How many??????

Monday, December 5, 2011

Happy and Busy!

We have family visiting us!
We spent last evening talking and laughing, before, during and after our meal, and the laughter
was precious, the kind you can only share with those who are yours.........