Thank you good friend

Friendship is cliched

You proved it to her

You became a dost

When she was her worst.

The feet got steady

And life got heady

She started walking again

In spite of the rain.

Pompy Gohain, you PG

You made me alive again

Where another PG

Had crushed me with pain.

When she looked in the mirror

A monster looked back

It was you who made the woman pretty

With clothes off the rack.

RC Sarma and Monali

And The Secret too

And every virtual Gali

That slapped away the blue.

And all ye  others, 

No we are not gay

We are very straight

Like Veeru and Jai.

We're waiting for our Babus

We're taking our time

Because when once bitten

Twice obviously is shy.

Thank you, good PG

She knows you'll be there

And though she'll be alone

Lonely definitely ne'er.

Puchu will miss you

I know you'll miss him too

You're surely an angel 

You and your Boo.

Heart squeeze

Ninad woke up gasping for breath. The heavy pressure on his head had blocked his nasal passages. A warm, furry, heavy pressure. Messi's favourite spot for sleeping is on the head. The head of the person he snoozes with. i.e Ninad or me.

I wake up these days at 5 minutes to 6 every morning. My internal clock will gradually get in sync with Messi's. It is his furry, padded paws and scratchy nails that wake me up. What he does is probably a caress. A slightly scratchy caress, even his clipped nails are quite sharp. The Vet has told us to file his nails, but we really aren't too up to doing that. Clipping his nails gets him into a tizzy. Filing them would get him totally wonky we fear.

The Cocker Spaniel face, longish, with the tongue all slurpy, trying to lick you as if you were the tastiest piece of meat, is what you see when you open the eyes post the morning caress. And then you squeeze him as he tries to climb on your head. And you try to cover your face with the bend of your elbow as he starts treating you like the milk powder he so loves. The end result is a heart saturated with love and cutesomeness and still wanting more love even after feeling saturated.

Messi has a tail which is almost non existent. The fur is still to sprout on his tail. But it wags. Wags, wags, wags.

The word for overflowing love, felt in the region of the heart, what is it? The love a mother feels for her infant when he is sleeping or cooing, what is it? What is the word that can describe the intensity of feeling that has a throbbing quality in the cardiologist's area of study and also envelopes the rest of the body in a warm happy way?

That is the way we feel for Messi, Ninad and I that is. So do Jatin and Sunita. It is something about the way Messi greets us when we come home and follows us around for no reason at all; and stands on his hind feet so that the paws of the forefeet rest on our bodies; and looks at us with his droopy eyes and wags his almost non existent tail. And the way he sits on his haunches and drools when we eat our human food and don't offer him any because the Vet has told us not to.

It's almost as if he is the manifestation of the happiness that had seemed to always elude us.

Messi

Lionel Messi has three balls. One is a large soft toy with a different colour for each pentagon, another belongs to Ninad, whose brotherly instincts have been dug out from a hitherto unseen deep recess and have made him want to share his priceless football with Messi and the third is a yo-yo ball whose motions drive Leo crazy. A clarification is surely called for. The above mentioned Leo is a namesake of the footballer who plays at number 10. This little fellow is our 3 month old pup, a cocker spaniel. A delicious, cute, cootchie-mootchie doggy baby. Squish squish squish.

Sorry, went on an overdrive there. But it makes a point. Messi is that cute.

Having been a mother to a teen who is just months away from adulthood, the mother in me was out of practice. I must have been missing the practice I think. Subconsciously of course. I don't quite recollect wanting to actually go through sleepless nights cleaning poop and changing nappies and feeding a baby. And yet the moment our casual conversation about getting a pup ended, Ninad and I wanted the dog that instant itself. We started having tactile hallucinations of a pup following us all around and licking us on our noses and putting its paws up on our beds every morning. I even got a warning from Ninad about what he would do to me if I didn't now get the pup after promising him his moon.

Cocker spaniels are good for apartment owners. They're friendly and do not bring the house down with their barks. They can be left in a locked house for a few hours with adequate food and water supplies. And of course I had Jatin,our life manager.  I also got a promise out of Pompy that she would board and lodge Messi on my out of station forays. And now it is documented. Pompy's promise I mean.

Eff is Mrs Helm now. The 'L' has to be pronounced. I didn't know it either till I addressed her as Mrs Helm, "L" silent. She corrected me as she always does to everyone. The politically correct polite etiquette of smiling and bearing with wrong facts and wrong pronunciations is not Eff's style. I love the earnest desire she has of teaching us folks. Muah to you, Eff. 

The couple looked smashing in their wedding outfits. Andrew, handsome always, but exceptionally more so on his wedding day, as happens with most grooms who are happy to be getting the legal status. Mr Helm, is the jury out on your marriage?

And life goes on. Some people get married and some get pups. Julie got married too. The fashion these days seems to be to put couple pictures up on facebook and change the relationship status; after the wedding. No invitations before the wedding. I'm still pouting about Julie not letting me know of her wedding in person and am resisting the 'like' option in spite of loving her couple pics. She probably doesn't  know I am sullen about the matter, kindly someone reading this blog let her know.

An afterthought on rereading the blog. The balls Leo has are the ones one kicks on a football field. Messi is a male pup and will be getting the other balls too as he grows older. I thought the explanation was due just in case anyone was wanting to crack up on Messi's three balls.

unnees saal baad: which means nineteen years later hindi not-knowers

I missed Pune. I hadn't realised how much till my visit last Sunday. I had forgotten what a lovely place it was. May be meeting Leena and Sonia had made the city feel more beautiful. The rains helped. The rains melt me and turn me into a romantic. And why won't they? Rains are like magicians. They transform the lands they fall on into a canvas with the most beautiful and heartstopping art. They make me turn sixteen and want to fall in love all over again.

I did. Fall in love I mean. With life. I have fallen in love with life, sweeties. The journey from Mumbai to Pune is beautiful in the rains. The hills, the fields and the valleys through misty air and floating clouds look like pictures out of a fairy tale.I have childhood memories of making this journey by train and having Karvande in the halts at the stations in between. Black berries in a cone made of sturdy dried leaves. Karvandes are a trip down memory lane to every person who has been a kid at NDA. The trips through the forests between the grids of roads and bungalows across the golf club to the swimming pool, the treks into the hills and forests around us as if they were play grounds, the protected forests on the roadsides with bushes of karvande and the little boys and girls from the nearby villages who sold these berries during the pitter pattering of non-stop rains, all these memories are firmer because of karvande. The puddles which we splashed while getting ourselves wet in the rains, the parents who never reprimanded us for getting wet and soiled, these are memories of our childhood.

The short quick trip to NDA brought back fierce feelings. We were home and yet couldn't call it home.  Like Jumi said, as kids our world began and ended in NDA. Every road, every path was our home. It was so pristine and beautiful, that its beauty had reached the recesses of my memories. I had become so unused to this uncorrupted beauty in my adult life. I realised how fortunate we had been to have grown up in such a place. A childhood we had taken for granted and had never really thought to be thankful for. Until now, when there was no way we could live that life again.

Sonia has a lovely house. Leena thinks Pune is the best place in the world to live in. They should get awards for loyalty or so I thought till I started envying them. For having made this city their home.

Sonia was married when she was Sharan's age. Her daughter seems more mature than her. She hasn't changed and is as cheerful and chirpy as she always was. Leena is the same undercurrent of brains and humour she always was. I love talking to her. It was our childhood, back all over again. Nanne was tall and a man. He picked me up in his BMW. The cute little boy who was always laughing and had his waist length hair open and left to dry after a shampoo every Sunday couldn't be seen. Initially. A little while into talking to him, and I got a glimpse of the boy I knew. Sonia had a most wonderful lunch ready and I was shamelessly licking my fingers at the end of the meal. I didn't know when I would get such dahi curry again and wanted the taste to linger forever.

Sharan was three years old when I had made a visit to Pune and had had a picture clicked with her. Nineteen years later, I have another picture clicked with her. Now and Then, as Leena commented. Now and then indeed. So many years in between. So many events. So many experiences, many of them ugly. But like the seed that is demolished when the sapling breaks through, which is but the manifestation of the same being in a freer and more beautiful form, the devastation of the past are necessary for the freedom and beauty of the present. I am in love with the tender sapling growing out of my destruction. It is beautiful as is the nurturing I am lavished with. I love you my friends.   

blending in haaaaaaahah!

5 photos, scroll down, scroll down. sandhya, salma, pompy, zia, dhiraj, aryaman, ainu, mrinmoyee, sabir, ayesha, abhishek, ninad, nita, and kids. Mumbai, Guwahati, Mirza and Haflong

Apples and ChuDells

I called Pompy. It was late, around ten o' clock, I sleep by ten.

‘I want a new laptop,’ I wailed to her.

The large twenty inch desktop computer that my organisation had sent to my house was becoming a pain in the a**e.  The USB ports on the front side didn’t work. Every time the electricity failed, the UPS would go ‘toooont toooont tooont.’ It was Guwahati, Narender Mudi had not yet won the elections, and even when he did, the state government remained the Cogress as state elections would be held only the next year. Am trying to explain the frequent current departures to you folks. The wi-fi was a problem, and only on my computer, we have three more at home. 

So I needed a new laptop. I wanted Apple. I, who used to be a firm believer in cheap mobile phones because all I needed were email and phone calls and messaging, got an iPhone at the outrageous price that the newest model sells at because of Steve Jobs' biography. I had been a hardcore Blackberry user (second hand from my husband, who sold it to me for one thousand rupees more than he would have to a non family member, the logic does seem a little weird now) and had read a review that the brainy used Blackberrys and the superficial used iPhones and had been in total agreement with the review. Until I read the biography. 

I had been vaguely aware of Steve Jobs until his death and even then only after everyone started R.I.P.ing him on Facebook. Then I googled him and bought the biography from an online store, I still fail to understand how online stores and credit cards can make a miser spend enormous amounts of money that he would under no circumstances part with in cash. It was a big book, but I am a fast reader, and the day I completed the book, I declared to my husband, 'I want an iPhone.’

And he bought me one. With his credit card. Which he regretted after a couple of years, i.e now. Which I now consider a kind of retrospective revenge for a deed which I never imagined would occur. 

Therefore now, when my Dell was behaving like a ‘ChuDell’ (not original, sweeties, coinage courtesy F.B.), I wanted an Apple. An airbook to be precise, because I did not want to carry anything heavy. I weigh only seventy seven kilograms, and couldn’t bear the two kilograms weight of the conventional laptops. I did post a requirement for the airbook as a gift in one of my blogs, but no one seemed to take the hint. (hint, hint, I still haven’t bought it.)

So I told Pompy to do a market research and suggest to me the best option. She knew how much money I had in my savings account. I had been complaining to her about it. There was a negative balance as I had suddenly come to know that a lot of my payments were past due date as they had carried over from the year of my absence from the city. ‘Sweep in’ facility ensures that the cheques don’t bounce, the money is brought over from your fixed deposit and paid. And that is how one has a negative balance in one’s savings account. In case you were wondering.

She advised me to get my ‘ChuDell’ rectified. I took it to my IT colleagues and the ghost was exorcised from my Dell, who is now a Dell. I am writing this on the Dell, and s/he has not hung up on me even once. Juri happy.*happy smiley* Will take my software colleagues out for lunch. Or dinner.

Roots of vegetarianism

I've turned vegetarian. Stop laughing. I had turned veg several years back, but the anaemia demanded I start eating total proteins again. Now I've decided once again that I do not like animal proteins too much so I turn veg again. Right, an explanation is due. It is Nita. She took us to a vegetarian Italian restaurant, mind you I accompanied her very cynically, you see somehow 'vegetarian' and 'Italian food' did not exist as a single phrase in the Wren and Martin of my food grammar.

And the food experience brought the Buddha out in me. Cynicism and judgmental thoughts were banished with shame. I was under the impression that I had evolved beyond such attitudes in my year of near solitude. And before I could understand the rationale behind my making this statement, I turned to Nita and said, 'Nita, if I learn how to cook such meals, I will turn veg.'And then the light eyed beauty replied profoundly,'If I can convert you to vegetarianism, I shall have achieved some success in life.' And Devashish said,' Please stop sounding like a religious preacher.' But I was converted by then.

Nita is stinking rich and a Jain. In the Wren and Martin of my grammar of Sociology, stinking rich vegetarians/Jains is a phrase very much in existence. Before you say 'Bill Gates,' I say, in the parts of India that I have grown up in, I've seen a lot of rich who are vegetarians. Frog in the well, you might want to say, but I counter that with 'so be it.'

I pointed out my observation to Nita. She was inclined to agree. Karma, she said. She believed it. I asked about Jain food. I knew they did not eat roots. Onions, garlic, ginger did not exist for them. She looked quite well inspite of having grown up not eating so many foods. I asked her recipes of Jain food and got interesting food items like the thick fleshy skin of the banana, and skins of other vegetables as ingredients. Very little was wasted, my dears, it was actually very inspiring.

I've suddenly grown to dislike animal foods.I'm certain it is no medical condition that has inspired me to do so. It is Nita Doshi and the vegetarian Italian restaurant that are to be credited this conversion.

I asked Nita what they did when they heard non-vegetarian conversations. She stammered and fumbled, and there was a prolonged silence as she turned as red as the fair Indian skin can turn. Same as the food, I answered my own question as she seemed temporarily unable to converse.*naughty smiley*

I forgot to ask Nita what they ate when they went to meat eating countries. Those vegetarian travellers who travel too often to countries where vegetarian food is usually an assortment of uncut rocket leaves, what do they eat? I think I'll call her tomorrow and find out.

Another day and dinners

I had called Devashish and asked him to book a room for me in Assam House for my next Mumbai visit a month later. Well, that was the buffer period he had requested from me for room booking as demand exceeded availability. The subsequent socially expected interaction revealed their oncoming camp to Haflong. I was the Deepsikha biographer, I guess I will really have to write the book now, and I needed to know how they functioned during the camps. So far it was just sporadic discussions with Mrinmoyee over mung dal ka cheelas and chicken barbeque pizzas which did give a fair idea behind the workings of the organisation, but Juri wanted to see the action and not just on a video streaming out of a compact disc. I requested to go. Devashish was obvious in the skepticism towards the request, but he is a polite man, and training for his professional duties  further reinforced the niceness. I called him again to confirm my going, and well, they took me.

I was excited about going to Haflong. It was known for its pristine beauty and Jatinga, which are nice things to be famous about. But it was also famous for gun toting freedom fighters, which was not a nice thing to be famous about, but which made the road trip in an ambulance sound all the more exciting. Co-nuts like me will understand. We were handed Deepsikha T-shirts in the ambulance. Thoughtfully, they had ordered an extra large for me. Shirt guys, not booze. Sigh! Even Biswajit and Abhishek, the head and neck oncosurgeons got only 'large'. I thought I had become smaller but the shirt was truthful. I graciously accepted the present moment.

Haflong was not beautiful. It was dry and dusty and the trees on the hills were a little nude-ish. It hadn't rained for six months and the lack of water had shorn the place of its beauty. The hills which bear Haflong are parts of the lesser Himalayas. The route to where the awareness camp and screening was held included the new highway which was still under construction. Large parts of the hills had been dug out to construct an amazing road. The bare hills walling both sides of the road were black fossils which would have turned to coal in a thousand years.  The technology was fascinating, especially as it had been used in such a remote part of the country successfully, but it also saddened me. It was murder of trees and hills, they are living beings too. But perhaps that is life. Something has to be destroyed for something to be created.

The village was an amazing place as were the Deepsikha team and the musicians who accompanied them. They parked the ambulance in the middle of a steep narrow hilly road flanked by the market place. A smorgasbord  of humanity assembled once the guitar started strumming and Bipul Kathar sang a Bhupen Hazarika song in to the microphone, powered by a portable battery. Haflong is a hotbed of oral and esophageal cancer, and awareness for early detection was an absolute necessity. Devashish delivered the awareness talk in impeccable Hindi with an energy that continued to amaze me throughout the trip. The energy was infectious and the crowd gathered was infected and so was I and I realised it was an energy that rippled back and forth between the Deepsikha team members. The energy that invests itself in goodness, I also realised.

It was a lovely trip. Haflong was dehydrated because of the lack of rains but the journey with Deepsikha was beautiful. The people of Haflong made up for the lack of its physical beauty. The dinners were hosted by them, and they are lovers of music. The company made the food amazing. I now look forward to dinners that have good co-diners. I also reserve the remaining details for my book

,

Deepshikha and a day

Why Deepshikha? I asked Devashish.

Because it means a small lamp and you need just a small lamp to light big fires, he replied

I've known Devashish for a long time. His son Reyann and Ninad studied together since prep school and parted with sadness when D was posted to the Assam House, Vashi. I have written a book about myself. Several blogs too. And on innumerable occasions I have talked of me and me, everything parroted because the contents are 'mukhosto' (by heart) by now, as someone so eye 'openingly' pointed out. The entire Assamese community knows about D's passionate work towards care of cancer patients. I knew it too. But I needed to read an article in the Assam Tribune about him for achieving the 'Eureka" moment of  understanding  how small and self centred I have been.

I spent a day with Deepshikha. Cancer patients and their attendants are helped in several ways by Deepshikha. Deepshikha is Devashish's baby. And the teenager it has grown into is due to the efforts of his team, as D again and again emphasises. But a team is as good as its leader. I know that very well. Deepshikha has acquired 4 buildings which house patients going for treatment to Mumbai, besides the Assam House. The Assam House, whose actual purpose was to accommodate visiting VIPs from Assam now accommodates only cancer patients and their attendants. Dewta and I wanted to see how they function, having heard so much. The first thing that struck me on the visits were the expressions on the patient's/attendant's faces. They all looked happy. The accommodations were bright and cheerful and on being asked by Dewta how they felt there, 'better than home' one patient answered.

A blog entry does not give much scope to write about the story of Deepshikha and Devashish. It will need a book. 'Every room has a story,' Devashish told me. And these stories teach us how insignifant we actually are. I want to write a book. It is one of my greatest desires. I was looking for a story, and the Lord directed me to this one. Deepshikha's story will be my book.

Deepshikha has now decide to serve all populations and not just limit their services to North East Indians. We also met some Bangladeshi patients/attendants who had run out of money and were accommodated there. Devashish is a Deputy Commissioner, and it was humbling to see his interactions with patients/attendants. They all could relate to him and it was obvious that he was deified. I believe he is just one of those lucky souls who has discovered his life purpose very early in life. 

Deepshikha runs on funds donated by several persons. The funds pay the rents of all its buildings in expensive Mumbai, the heavily subsidised and often free food that is served to the residents of Deepshikha, treatment of patients, most of whom run out of funds after a few weeks of their treatment. The funds are given in kind and money. Deepshikha has made the funding process completely transparent and as direct as possible. The house rent is paid by the donor to the landlord directly; an estimate of the requirement of food per month is made and the raw food material is donated by some; money is transferred to the patient's hospital account and deducted by the hospital authorities as and when the services are used. Majority of the donors are not people from the North East.

I have decided to donate Rs 500/- to the Deepshikha account every month. It is a very small amount but 'even 100 rupees is useful' according to Devashish. He made us eat the food served for Rs 10/- in one of the residences. It was more wholesome than the food we ate at home; and delicious. The Gujarati 'Maharaja' (head cook) came to ask us about the food and we commended him. My sister calls Devashish 'Mum Teresa.' He has Mother Teresa on the screen saver of his phone. Jumi had hit the truth. *satisfied smiley*

of coming out and going back

Each of us was a step in the evolutionary process of marriage. E was at the top, the modern human, the analogy being made was with the status of the marital life. E was on top as she was divorced, had moved on and was with a new wonderful partner. P was divorced and footloose, not yet having hitched up seriously with any one. J was on the verge of a divorce and the other P was still in a deceptively proper marriage, but the mental divorce had set in.

We got together for a nice afternoon of liquids and solids. Stories unfolded and the pretty woman in the mini dress regretted wearing the short dress as it forced her to sit proper and ladylike. Shorts next time, I advised her. E, model thin, and with a sense of style which was almost iconic, considering she is a very fine and sought after doctor, asked me if she had put on weight. I ticked her off by telling her not to insult the rest of us by asking such questions.

J has a weak metabolism. Her liver was unable to breakdown too much at a time. The glass of water with several slices of thinly sliced kazi lemon and a few drops of the water like beverage soon got her drunk. She was the hostess but her drunk status gave the guests no choice but to do the menial work required to prepare for lunching. Laying the table, re-heating the food and stuff. Oh, and even clearing the table and transferring leftovers into smaller bowls and putting them into the refrigerator.

The menfolk confined themselves to the bedrooms, only coming out occasionally to whisper suddenly remembered instructions to each other. And then coyly disappeared into their respective cocoons.  E said the day should go down in history as significant. The reverse was what happened in the days of yore. We all saw the point and had epiphanies. The marital statuses (or rather lack of it) was the reason why they could be merry today. Holi was being celebrated perhaps a little differently but the soul of the festival was intact. There were liquids, good food, laughter and colours. The colours were in the clothes, the room and the flowers displayed in the room. And in the conversations. And in the laughter. *winking smiley*

We toasted for more successful and happy marriages in this world where nine out of ten marriages seem to be cracking up, but also realised for ourselves that freedom is better than being in a miserable bond. It was nice not to be told what time to come home and who to go out with. We toasted to freedom. We were ready for the new life.

And yet, the picture below made sense *naughty grin smiley*

As within, so without.

Hi everyone! This is my first blog from Guwahati. To understand why, please read the blog I published just previous to this one. Finally my own house is beginning to inspire me.

It must be the flowers. My balcony right now is a riot of colours. And a bunch of naughty yellow flowers has a lone flower with a single lilac petal. *mushy smiley*. And then there are red and white and hues of red. The bamboo is flourishing. The curry plant has started sprouting fresh sprigs. It's almost as if all the plants are happy to have me back. Jatin takes care of them mostly, but I often stand just behind the french windows that open into this balcony and send silent thanks to all these lovelies. 

As within so without.

This blog is more of a newsletter to all my well wishers about my current status. Much like business houses that send out periodicals to their stakeholders about how they are doing. I know I tend to suddenly clam into a shell almost on a seasonal basis. I have reasons, and I request you not to be judgemental about them. Some of you know the reasons. Most of you don't. Some things cannot be publicised too much. The only way to cope with some problems is -alone. The only person that can help you is-you yourself. 

Therefore as within, so without. If you can create peace within, the turbulence outside subsides. All the wise say this. When I withdraw into my shell it is to attempt to create this inner peace. Although I do sometimes feel that my plate has been a little more full than others. Is this self pity? Maybe. I don't know. But no one can accuse me of not having my moments of happiness and joy.

So my friends, my boat is still in the middle of a rather turbulent river, and without a proper boatman steering it I cannot say which way it will go with my rational and logical mind. But if it is indeed as within so without, I know all will be well and only those things will happen that are good for me. And this can only happen if I stop reminding myself and everyone else about events of my life. Which is why I occasionally go into periods of stubborn silence. To become within what I want without. I can see this already working. The sad wrinkled greens on my balcony are now happy naughty plants. Objective evidence of a changed without.

I hope this blog answers all of you who have stood by me and have been the reasons for my having reached this far. My friends (old and new), my relatives, my doctors, my colleagues, my bosses, I owe this one to all of you. Love you. Bless you. As within so without.

Once upon an again in Mumbai

There is something about Jumi's house in Belapur. It makes me itch to write. I have all the signs of a bestselling writer. I know it is annoying, but I am genetically conditioned to brag. I realize it, and ask for forgiveness. But please bear with my genes. I had no hand in making them. They are completely the Lord's architecture. *impish smiley*

The reason I make this self analysed claim is because of the quirkiness in the timing of my creative outputs. For example, my creative juices wanting to flow particularly when I'm in Jumi's house. That is quirkiness, isn't it? All great writers have had quirks in them. some could write only in restaurants, some had to put their feet into shoes nailed into a wall for their pens to move, and so on and so forth.

Anup dropped in yesterday. He was here to attend a workshop. He has an endearing sense of humour and is wonderful company. I had texted my address to him and he surprised me by calling me from the gate of Jumi's apartment complex. I admired his sense of direction, having come here without as much as single phone call asking for directions. I came to understand that he owed his expert skill to his friend Sridhar who had accompanied him, when I went to the lobby to receive them. Both of them are histopathologists and alumni of the same institute. Sridhar is a local and works in the hospital where Anup's workshop was held.  Their short visit was sweet and left us in smiles.

Latika came later the same day. With her family of four. A beautiful tall charming daughter, an imp of a son who one falls in love with and a wonderful spouse who makes everyone comfortable and at ease in an instant. Latika is a homemaker. She looks the same age as her 9th grade daughter. She drives an SUV and maintains an immaculate house. No dust or clutter anywhere. Appeals to the ISO assessor in me. She is helpful, charming and confident. She amazes me and I think of her with wonder. I wish I was like her. These are people who make their friends feel safe. They are folks who will hold your hands when you need a hand. I am friends with Latika because of Gargi. And Gargi is an NRI. When one door closes, another opens. Such is the way destiny is written.

I write about Latika now because Latika is from Mumbai and I am in Mumbai now. Several others have made me feel secure in my year of personal strife. Doors have been shut by people who were automatically assumed would be the support system because of the several years shared with them, and large welcoming gates thrown open into palatial hearts from those least expected to do so. The Lord has a way of clearing the path whether or not one asks for it. Planning too much ahead is clearly not the way the Maker wants us to live. "There is no path to happiness, Happiness is the way," Lord Buddha stated. I guess all we have to do is be happy in the moment, and the rest is automatically taken care of.

A certain astrologer told me recently that I have a terrific sense of humour. He definitely is a very good astrologer. Recognizing my skills so accurately. *naughty smiley*. Signing off today with this one more genetically programmed brag. Oh, and one more thing. If anyone wants to give me a gift and was wondering what to give, I could use an Apple airbook (laptop). Thank you very much.