First Love

-
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before.
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more.

- John Clare

Popular posts from this blog

Counting down to dusk...

-
Image
The attached picture is one of Mumbai's many famous landmarks. A neo-gothic wonder that rivalled anything the empire had back home- the Rajabai Clock Tower on the Bombay University campus. Rumour has it that they closed it off a few decades ago when it turned into a suicide magnet for students who did not fare that well in their exams. The maidan (field) in the foreground, now cricket central, was once the vast open areas the Brits cultivated around their forts to have clear firing range on any attackers. Ironically the university was built on the footprint of the fort's walls, and the expanse of open space, once Bombay's lungs and emerald jewels, has been whittled into irrelevance by generations of land grabs, corruption and negligence. Behind where I stand and take this picture stood a row of fine Art Deco apartments, now renovated into nouveau riche hell. I decided to let my legs take me around the City today and walked and walked for a few hours along familiar
Read more

On bullies...

-
I've seen my fair share of them, and tonight some more. On the train downtown, I saw a man bully his own child. Sick... This lovely boy, not yet 6, got on with his mum and this man. He was playing with his trains, and like most kids do, entertained himself. The man kept threatening the mother that she should have left the kid with her parents, that if the kid didn't behave the night was off and they were going home, that he was misbehaving, that the kid was the reason their relationship wasn't going to work. The child sat between them through all of this, slowly shrinking, getting still, wanting to be invisible. The mother kept fawning over the weasly excuse of a man. He did interrupt his rant to call a friend when the train surfaced briefly to tell him he was "out with his girl" and that he'd bet 40 on three games. And then he started picking on the child. We all sat still, involved yet not. I'm angry, at the man, but even more at myself. I glared a
Read more

A Faustian Bargain

-
I've been silent because I've been somewhat occupied with matters at hand. I'll elaborate on it at length, but recent meetings with the specialists have brought up a few surprises and questions. Given that I had two slightly different cancers on either lobe, there is no definite solution to what happens next. Were either to have been found alone or just any one that was the size of both put together, it would not merit radioactive iodine treatment. However with two, I fall into a grey zone and the default diagnosis is to err on the side of caution and nuke! What's not that clear however is the longer-term effects of the radiation in creating altogether new cancers with implications far more severe than the one I hope I've gotten rid of. The risks, though small, are present, and the choice is mine to make. Do I treat what I have with every means possible and worry about the future, or do I take a gentler approach now, risk recurrence, and cross my fingers that I&
Read more